“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” ― Sophocles

Happy Valentine’s Day dear readers! I thought this was a great opportunity for me to thank you for all your support and write a post on love.

Whether it is a particular person, your family, friends, your pets, a pursuit or even chocolate, Valentine’s day is a great opportunity to remember, appreciate and cherish everything that you hold dear and love with a fierce passion. 

Here are some quotes and ideas on love that have inspired me over the years:

1. The Reality Of Love

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” ― Dr. Seuss

The dominant idea is that dreams are usually better that reality and often they are unattainable for us.

I love this quote from the amazing Dr. Seuss because it makes you aware of the predicament many people are stuck in. They dream for something better and hate their current reality.

A better way is to allow yourself to fall deeply and passionately in love with your dreams and desires and actively strive to make them happen.

Excitement and enthusiasm and lack of sleep soon follow this state of active love.

“A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.” -Max Muller

2. How To Transform Your Life and Feel The Glow of Inspiration

“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.”- Plato

If you are seeking inspiration and looking for it, it may be hard to find. 

But if you seek what you love, meet it half way, and allow yourself to be touched by the warm caress of love, inspiration will meet you in the most unexpected places and at the most unseemly times.

When you become clear about why you love something and decide to jump into the passion and excitement of life, you will be touched by the power of love and the poetry of your life will follow.

“The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.”- Jiddu Krishnamurti 

3. Drive Out The Darkness and Hate

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ― Martin Luther King Jr

Dr. King’s quote is of my favorites quotes on the astonishing power and efficacy of love. 

Every moment you will have a choice to make. You will get to choose between love and hate. What will you choose? 

“Do all things with love.”-Og Mandino

4. The Magic of Unconditional Love

“Even after all this time
 the sun never says to the earth, you owe me. Look
 what happens with a love like that,
 It lights the whole sky.” – Hafiz

We have all met people who ration and dole out love and affection hesitantly basing them on preconditions and restrictions. 

But true love gets imprisoned and suffers a slow death when too many ego-based limits are placed on it. And moreover, love that measures every move and restricts us constantly does not really make us happy.

As Hafiz so wonderfully puts it, when we release the tight and conditional restrictions on love, our love becomes like the warmth of the sun that kisses the earth never asking anything back in return.

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.” ― Kahlil Gibran 

5. Love is Strength and Courage in Disguise

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ― Lao Tzu

Do you see how you shine and glow in the presence of someone who loves you deeply? When we are loved deeply, our natural radiance shines through us and expresses itself.

When you give your deep love to something or someone, you develop a great purpose and a great meaning to move towards your quest.

What can you do if you do not find anyone who loves you deeply? I have found that in those trying moments, you need to love yourself deeply and radiate that love outwards to the world.

When you give love, you receive love.

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.” ― Alfred Tennyson

6. On Fear And Loss

“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”― Alfred Tennyson

Are you living and acting from a place of courage and love or are you acting from a place of fear and loss?

Loss and failure are inevitable in life but do not allow them to dictate how to live your life.

If you want to feel passion, enthusiasm and fascination for life, you may have to continually choose love and action in spite of the fear of failure and deep loss.

“When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.” -Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

When your sense of love overwhelms and soothes the pangs of fear and loss, you will be inspired to great action and craft a life of your deepest choosing.

Are you rowing the boat of your life towards hope and love or are you floating untethered being jostled around at the fancy of fear and anticipated loss?

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet 

7. Give More Love and Allow More Love In

 “The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.”- Henry Miller 

I think that the problem in many people’ s lives is that they close themselves to giving and receiving love. They suffer not quite knowing what the problem is.

We give and receive love carefully as if it is a commodity that is perishable. We have been conditioned to believe and to act guarded with love to protect us from heartbreak.

While this control of love may keep us centered in a comfortable zone where we get to control everything, it takes away from the aliveness and beauty of life.

“Where there is love there is life.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

8. Love Is Happiness

“Love is quivering happiness.” — Kahlil Gibran

When we chase happiness, it may elude us. The more you chase your shadow, the more it becomes impossible to catch.

But if you allow and walk forward, your shadow starts following you.

When you pursue something that you love and makes you feel and come alive, happiness is a natural consequence.

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”- Oscar Wilde

9. Love And The Gift Of Attention’

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”-Thich Nhat Hanh

What you pay attention to grows in your life, it is that simple. You may have heard the famous Huna saying of “Energy flows where attention goes.”

When you give your undivided attention to someone or something, you infuse them with the power and glow of your love and affection.

It also means that you will engage and be enthusiastic and genuinely interested in that person or pursuit, thus giving them a precious gift. 

10. Love Yourself First

“I do not trust people who don’t love themselves and yet tell me, ‘I love you.’ There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”― Maya Angelou

You cannot give away what you do not have for yourself. 

If you are continually giving others love and attention and do not afford yourself the same courtesy, your wellspring of love will soon dry up.

Fill up your own tank of self-love first and offer love to others from that wonderful space of self-radiance and abundance. 

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”-Lucille Ball

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”― Gautama Buddha

11. Your Story Really Matters: Meet Life With Love And a Smile

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.” – Bill Wilson

If you have been told that you do not matter and your song does not have any value, it is time to cast aside that limiting belief.

Let us allow ourselves to let go of beliefs and thoughts that diminish our self-worth and instead meet people and life with a genuine smile.

Regardless of what you have been told in the past and what you have erroneously believed, You are an embodiment of pure awesomeness and a very precious sentient being.

Hold the compassionate belief and thought of self-love and self-worth close to your heart while you soar to new heights in life.

“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” -Mother Teresa

12. Love, Purpose and Dharma

“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”― Rumi

Rumi’s  quote is very similar to  Joseph Campbell’s quote of “follow your bliss.” However clichéd the “follow your passion” idea may have become, it still rings true for many people.

Sometimes you may not have a clear understanding of what to follow or how to follow it. In such times, instead of giving yourself a hard time, follow a skill or an interest that you are curious about and that attracts you. 

When you gain enough experiences, the path forward becomes easier to choose and you will have more clarity on what you should do and how to make decisions. 

If you are only caught up with a sense of duty for a vocation, slowly cultivate hobbies and interests that might someday have the opportunity to become your main pursuit.

“Love is a better master than duty.” ― Albert Einstein

13. On Giving

“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”― Mother Teresa 

I love this quote from Mother Teresa that what really matters is the intention behind the act of giving.

Many people simply give up on giving and service because they believe that their little contribution will not matter.

But as Mother Teresa gently reminds us that we cannot do great things in life but only small things with great love.

Even if you give very little with love, that would be sufficient to change someone’s life forever.

14. How to Move Past Difficult Moments and Opponents

“Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love.”― Mahatma Gandhi

Ego dictates us to control situations and people while spirit whispers to us to love more and give more.

Which one will you choose?

When you come from a place of empathy and deep understanding and love, your perspective on even the most difficult situations and people changes.  

It is best to remember that while we can control and convince someone through fear and anger, the only way to gain their true respect, trust and love is through offering them the same love and respect.

“The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with Love.” ― Hafiz

15. Live Your Great Journey With Love In Your Heart and Hope in your mind

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”― Anaïs Nin

Just try it out for yourself. Believe in your love and your dreams and your passions and launch your talents with abandon while being unconcerned about failure and act inspite of fears and limitations.

The possibilities are endless. 

Now over to you! Happy Valentine’s Day and Please let me know in the comments below if this post on Love resonated with you. 

Photo Credit: Shandi-lee Cox via Compfight