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Valentine's Day quotes with their real sources

Valentine's cards borrow from the great love poets, often with the wrong name attached. These lines are checked against the original sonnets and plays, and each comes with a short message you can adapt.

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“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Traditional proverb · 1878
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“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Traditional proverb · Molly Bawn (novel), where a character quotes it as a saying · 1878 · Writer

Whether something is beautiful depends on the person looking at it. There is no single standard everyone shares.

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“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning · Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet 43 · 1850 · Poet

The poet lists the ways she loves her husband: as deeply as her soul can reach, in everyday needs, freely, purely, with all her life, and, if God allows, even more after death.

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“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.”
William Shakespeare · Sonnet 116 · 1609 · Playwright

Shakespeare defines true love as constant: it does not change when circumstances change, and it does not fade with time or age.

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“Love is patient, love is kind.”
Paul the Apostle · First Letter to the Corinthians 13:4 · 54 · Religious figure

Paul describes the kind of love that should hold a community together: patient, kind, humble and enduring. It was written to a quarreling church, not a couple.

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“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
William Shakespeare · Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2 · 1595 · Playwright

Juliet asks why Romeo has to be a Montague, the son of her family's enemy. “Wherefore” means “why,” not “where.”

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“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”
William Shakespeare · Sonnet 18 · 1609 · Playwright

The poet decides the beloved is better than a summer's day, which is too short and changeable, and promises that the poem itself will keep their beauty alive forever.

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“She walks in Beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.”
Lord Byron · She Walks in Beauty (Hebrew Melodies) · 1814 · Poet

Her beauty is like a clear, starry night, a perfect balance of dark and light, and it comes as much from a calm, good mind as from her face.

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“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
William Shakespeare · A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 1, Scene 1 · 1595 · Playwright

Lysander comforts Hermia, whose father forbids their marriage, by saying true love has always faced obstacles. It is a promise that trouble does not mean love is false.

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How to use a quote on Valentine's Day

One line of poetry and one line of your own is the perfect card. The poem shows you care enough to choose words carefully; your line shows you mean them for this person.

Know what the line means before you write it. "Wherefore art thou Romeo" asks why, not where, and some famous love lines come from tragedies, which is fine as long as you are not quoting the ending.

For a new relationship, choose something light and warm; save the grand sonnets about forever for someone who will not be startled by them.