February 14 - Love and Affection!

February has been the month to celebrate love ever since the Middle Ages.  The fourteenth of February has become a popular holiday, called Valentine's Day. 

According to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year. Children exchange valentine cards decorated with current comic and cartoon icons. Adults have continued this tradition of card giving which makes this day, behind Christmas, the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. 

There are Valentine cards in museums worldwide that date back to 1415.

Even though the history of Valentines Day is unclear, there are  facts and romantic legends related to it. 

The common symbols of Valentine’s Day in this era are cupids, hearts, roses, teddy bears, and words of adoration.

Authors, poets and playwrights have been trying to capture love in words for thousands of years. Their work speaks to the enduring power of love across the ages of human history.  Check out some quotes about love from some of the world's most famous romantics.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
- Aristotle

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
- Lao Tzu

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.
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.
- Anais Ni

 Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward in the same direction.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Love does not dominate; it cultivates."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

HAPPY

 FOR YOU, FOLKS!