One of several Valentine's Day legends that exist suggests that the history of Valentine's Day dates back to the third century when Valentine, a priest of Rome, secretly married several couples, defying Emperor Claudius' declaration that disallowed marriages and cancelled engagements so that men could serve as soldiers in his wars. Valentine was imprisoned for his actions and died Feb 14th, 270. He became St. Valentine, patron saint of lovers, as a result of his sympathetic, heroic and romantic actions.

Valentine's Day, a time to exchange love messages, is the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, with over one billion Valentine's Day cards sent each year.

The theme of love has endured, so for the romantic at heart ...

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"Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."

-- Robert Heinlein

"To keep your marriage brimming, / With love in the loving cup, / Whenever you're wrong, admit it; / Whenever you're right, shut up."

-- Ogden Nash

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory."

-- Rita Mae Brown

"'Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever."

-- June Masters Bacher

"If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning."

-- Aristotle Onassis

"To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage."

-- Lao Tzu

"Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate."

-- Sandra Boynton

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."

-- A.A. Milne

"I love being married. It's so great to find the one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life."

-- Rita Rudner