Are You Looking for More Love on Valentine’s Day? (A Dozen Love Quotes To Inspire You)

Valentine’s Day can be a good day for renewing our interest in our partner or adding a little extra love to the mix.

It’s always a good idea to think about how we can have more love in our lives or at least a deeper love. If you are currently having relationship difficulties, then you might find, like others, that booking a session with me could help you to resolve them. If you are not but would just like some more love anyway, then what follows may be thought provoking for you.

Of all of the things that make life easier, even when it’s really hard, the best is certainly love. Let’s face it, when we are we are giving or receiving love, life does seem to take on a more glowing and happy aspect. Love and happiness are so closely tied, so instead of a dozen red roses, consider these a dozen thoughts ... perhaps not as romantic, but certainly much more useful!

1.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. Buddha

We can all start by loving ourselves more. It is well said that if we cannot love ourselves, then we cannot love others. This does not mean being selfish. I am not advocating that you become massively self-absorbed and do things only for your own good. However, unless you accept, respect and love yourself on a deep level, it is hard to offer this to others. Loving yourself more will help you to love others more.

This is often the biggest block to giving and receiving more love. If you do suffer from this then counselling can help a great deal. A good counsellor can work through the reasons for your lack of self-love and help you to correct them. If these are deep it can take time and sometimes be tough going, but the rewards are very much worth it!

2.My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry;
to get my work done and try to love somebody
...and have the courage to accept the
love in return. Maya Angelou

We all want a little more sparkle and happiness in our lives. My experience is that this often comes from the simplest things. It is often more exciting and fulfilling to just sit holding hands and feel connected to someone than it is to go out and do something exciting. Loving someone is not easy, and there will be tears at times, but it is worth it. What Angelou is saying is that love takes effort, time and, above all, courage.

3.To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. - Leo Buscaglia

If there is someone that you’ve got your eye on, then at some point (sooner rather than later), there is likely to be a good moment to let them know. Perhaps they won’t reciprocate, but perhaps they will “take a chance on you” to paraphrase a well-known song. The pain of loving someone and not letting them know, or telling them too late, is far worse than the pain of rejection. And of course, if love does follow for both of you then it can be smiles all around. So go ahead, declare your interest in someone this Valentine’s Day! And if they do say that they have no interest in you romantically, then at least, in time, you can start to move on.

4.Truly loving another means letting go of all expectations. It means full acceptance, even celebration of another's personhood. Karen Casey

I have a saying that I often repeat to my clients – “saints are thin on the ground.” We all have faults and most of us have fairly big ones if we’re honest. We should not expect our partners to be perfect. If we go into marriage or other forms of partnership with our eyes open to our spouse’s faults, then that is a good start. Our partner’s faults are part of who they are. Perhaps some of them were even part of the reason that we fell in love with them. Of course, people can change, but they change because they want to and not because we ask them to, and remembering this can save us a lot of heart-ache.

5.Never ask for more love than you are willing to give. Eugene Gourley

On the whole, the more love you give then the more you get back. That is not to say that you should give it for the sake of getting it back, but simply that a very pleasurable by-product of the joy of giving it is that you will likely get more of it back...and if you never do, then maybe your partner is so selfish that they need to be told. On the other hand, if your partner is always doing lovely things for you (and this especially means emotional support rather than gifts) but you rarely find the time to reciprocate then is it time to give them a treat?

6.Love the heart that hurts you, but never hurt the heart that loves you. Vipin Sharma

It is very easy to hurt or even abuse those we love most. They can be in the firing line if we have a bad day. If you find yourself doing this to your loved one, then (when the time is right) consider apologising for your insensitivity. We all occasionally take those we love for granted, but Valentine’s Day is a good moment to ponder this and try to improve on it.

7. Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. Robert Frost

Passion can certainly make the world go around. I don’t think most of us need much excuse for a bit of that, and since it’s Valentine’s Day, what are you waiting for! Making love is not just only a wonderful physical feeling but it is one of the best ways of expressing connection, care, intimacy and love. It also releases a lot of endorphins and thus makes us feel better. If you are often tired, don’t let that always stop you, for you will probably find that once you start you don’t want to stop. It is vital, in any case, to find time for intimacy (of any type) with our partner.

Whilst sex is not the most important thing in a loving relationship, it is certainly in the top half dozen for most men and women. If it goes wrong for any length of time it can also end up being a “deal breaker.” Since the vast majority of sexual problems are mental or emotional, and not physical, a counselling session can really help you to overcome this.

8. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. Victor Hugo

One of the questions I often ask clients who seem unhappy in their relationships is: “can you really be yourself with your partner?” If they say “no,” then that is often the root cause of their dissatisfaction. If we cannot be ourselves then we are not being true to ourselves and thus we cannot give love easily either. If we love another, we must love them despite or perhaps even partly because of their faults (and remember our own as we do so).

9.The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvellous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident. Sir Hugh Walpole

This is the ideal. We all want to find such a soul mate. In reality that may be impossible, but if we can begin to share this sort of spiritual depth with a person then we are certainly onto a very precious thing. At the very least, as the months and years roll by, there can be a very special intimacy and depth in feeling more and more at one with our partners.

10. Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. Rose Franken

Having a lover should be a lot about fun, and some of that means being silly and doing daft things together. In this way we can get in touch with our inner child and feel the joy connected with that. Of course, one of the things that makes someone a good lover is the ability to be playful. Valentine’s Day is a great time to indulge in a bit of that ...I’ll let your imagination run a little wild on that one!

11. In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two. Erich Fromm

Fromm wrote the classic book The Art of Loving, which is a great read. It is important to remember, amongst all these thoughts about love, that however close we want to be to our partner and however much time we spend with them, they are still essentially their own person and we must respect that. If we don’t allow them space and become possessive about them this can end up threatening or even destroying our relationship. It is healthy to respect our needs to have some separate time and interests as well as wanting to do things together.

12. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. Tom Robbins

It may be that you are in the wrong relationship and will need to change it at some point, but if not then is there more that you can do to make it better? All of the previous pointers may help as will simply making a decision to make your relationship the most important thing in your life. You may spend more time at work than you do with your partner, but no-one ever dies saying that they wished that they had spent more time at work. Many people do so wishing that they had loved their partner more. Now could be the time to start and if there are issues between you then a counsellor can help with that. I can work with you either as a couple or as an individual to help you resolve some problems.


David is a fully qualified and BACP registered Person Centred Counsellor. You can book a session with him by ringing 01509 556623 or emailing him at David@loughboroughcounselling.com