A suitable topic for today, though the origins of Valentine's Day are more in sex than in love itself. But I will keep this post on love proper, and instead of blabbing on as usual I'm going to let other goddesses do the talking.
First, Lady Murasaki, the first female novelist and probably the first novelist overall. She wrote the Tale of Genji (c. 1008), and this quote is from that book:
Though nought of me remains save smoke drawn out across the windless sky, yet shall I drift to thee unerringly amid the trackless fields of space.
Next, Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright of A Raisin in the Sun (1959):
There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing.
Then, Emily Dickinson:
Love - is anterior to Life -
Posterior - to Death.
These are all so beautiful and deep that I feel my usual itch to add something silly. So here it goes:
To love somebody
Who doesn't love you
Is like going to a temple
And worshiping the behind
Of a wooden statue
Of a hungry devil.
By Lady Kasa, an eighth century poet.
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The source for all these, and many other wonderful thoughts on love and other things, is the New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women.