A Second Opinion: Time Enough for Love

Celebrating Valentine’s Day!

by Mary Foran

You can’t get through February without celebrating Valentine’s Day on the 14th if you have a “significant other” in your life. Out come the heart and flowers, chocolates and diamond pendants, or just a loving card of remembrance.

With all the troubles which plague us nowadays, threatened government shutdowns, national emergencies, nuclear arms treaties being canceled, it is nice to remember that we still have time enough for love in our lives.

“LOVE” has been the subject for writers throughout the ages. Here are some memorable quotes from writers over the centuries, starting with good old Virgil, 70-19 B.C.:

“OMNIA VINCIT AMOR: ET NOS CEDAMUS AMORI” (Love conquers all things: let us too give in to love.)

Then, of course, the Bible speaks eloquently about the virtues of LOVE:

Listen, Millennials, a little old-fashioned Romance never hurt a budding connection between a Man and a Woman!

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 New International Version (NIV)

“Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But when there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

Shakespeare’s Juliet says of love: “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep, the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.” And Romeo says, “With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do dares love attempt.”

Christopher Marlowe, 1564-1593 writes: “Come live with me and be my love, and we will all pleasures prove, that valleys, groves, hills and fields, woods or steepy mountains yields.”

Then, John Donne, 1571-1631 wrote, “Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.”

George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, reached eloquence when he wrote: “When you loved me I gave you the whole sun and stars to play with. I gave you eternity in a single moment, strength of the mountains in one clasp of your arms, and the volume of the seas in one impulse of your soul.”

Now, all this fuss about love may seem strange to the modern millennials who may feel they have a more sophisticated relationship with their partners. But a little old-fashioned Romance never hurt a budding connection between a Man and a Woman, a boy and a girl or, to be politically correct, love objects.

One Rose, or a Dozen, it’s the thought that counts!

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Images
Featured image/Arūnas Naujokas, Unsplash. Partial face blot-out supplied.
Heart/Clem Onojeghuo, Unsplash
Millennials/Bogden Glisik, Unsplash. Partial face blot-out supplied.
Woman with roses/Michael McAuliffe, Unsplash