How I Met Your Mother: Lily’s 10 Best Quotes About Love

Lily Aldrin on How I Met Your Mother is easily the most underrated character on the beloved sitcom. While most people tend to focus on the schemey playboy antics of Barney Stinson or the romantic gestures brought on by Ted Mosby, we want to shed light on Lily Aldrin and her endless wisdom when it comes to love.

Being in a beautiful and healthy romance herself, this woman knows a thing or two about relationships, having been with the same guy since she was eighteen-years-old. She has been through it all and therefore has a ton of knowledge on the subject of relationships and romance. What can Lily teach us about love? Keep reading to find out!

10 “IF YOU KEEP USING WORDS LIKE WINNING AND LOSING WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT OUR MARRIAGE, YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE ME.”

“If you keep lying to me, if you keep cutting me out of decisions, if you keep using words like winning and losing when you talk about our marriage, you’re going to lose me.”

Marshall and Lily seem to be the perfect couple on How I Met Your Mother, yet even they manage to get into fights every so often despite their deep and abiding love for one another. When they do happen to get into big arguments, it proves that even the best relationships can face conflict at one point or another. Yet according to Lily, the number one way to prevent these fights is to eliminate your sense of pride and instead lift up your partner. If you are only thinking about “winning” within the relationship, you will never actually win, and you will only end up losing the person you love most.

9 “IN MARRIAGE, BEING RIGHT IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN BEING SUPPORTIVE.”

This quote is a good followup from the first. Often times, we let our desire for power get in the way of maintaining a successful relationship. Sometimes in romantic relationships, we have to make sacrifices and humble ourselves in an effort to keep the bond strong and unbreakable. Marriage is about making the other person look good rather than just making yourself look good.  

8 “HAPPY WIFE EQUALS HAPPY LIFE!”

This quote is beyond accurate, and it is becoming more and more evident that Lily is the wisest character on the entire show. It’s a simple solution to any marriage (or romantic relationship for that matter) that if you keep your partner happy, you will end up feeling joyous in return. It takes a lot less energy to spread love than to spread hate, and this ideology most certainly applies to any successful romance!

7 “THE BIGGEST MISTAKE WOULD BE TO NOT MAKE THAT MISTAKE…”

“The biggest mistake would be not to make that mistake because then you’ll go your whole life not knowing if something was a mistake or not.”

This quote is extremely powerful and carries an abundance of wisdom. Who knew that a sitcom with a laugh track would be able to provide so many thought-provoking ideas? Sometimes in life, if we don’t take chances that could potentially hurt us, we are missing out on what makes life beautiful. Even if things don’t end up working out, if you don’t at least try to aim for your deepest desires, there is no point in living.

6 “YOUR HEART IS TALKING TO YOU, BARNEY. DO YOU HAVE THE GUTS TO LISTEN TO IT?”

Barney Stinson is not the kind of person who leads with his heart. Instead, he leads with his… um- Playbook. True fans of the series know that the reason he is such a womanizer is due to the fact that when he was younger, the love of his life broke his heart into a million little pieces.

Ever since then, he refused to commit to anyone or fall in love for that matter. It takes serious guts to actually allow yourself to have feelings for another person because love can be terrifying. Does Barney have the guts to take a chance on these emotions?

5 “I’M A CHILD OF DIVORCE—YOU GUYS KEEP FIGHTING ALL YOU WANT, AS LONG AS THE EXPENSIVE GIFTS KEEP COMING.”

This quote proves how funny Lily is as a character and how she is able to laugh even in the face of the darkest circumstances. Sure, Lily was deeply torn up about her parents getting divorced, yet somehow she was able to find hope and joy out of a situation that most would not be able to find any sense of happiness in.

Even though she is a child of divorce, she is able to love and be loved like no one else.  Because of this, her character is a beacon of hope for those who have suffered similar circumstances.

4 “THE MAIN REASON I LOVE YOU, MARSHALL ERIKSON, IS BECAUSE YOU MAKE ME HAPPY.”

At the end of the day, the number one thing your partner should be able to provide for you is happiness. Financial security or physical attraction can only take a relationship so far. But finding a partner who can make you truly happy? Now that is something that will last a lifetime. This is evident in Marshall and Lily’s everlasting relationship. Lily says this during her wedding vows when she and Marshall elope with the rest of the gang.

3 “THAT’S LOVE, B*TCH!”

Marshall and Lily have a cute little habit of looking over all of their friends’ romantic relationships with an air of superiority. Usually, we’d find couples who do this sort of thing annoying, but when it comes to Marshmallow and Lilypad, they have been happy together for so long that we will give them a pass. Nobody understands the true meaning of love like these two seem to, and that’s why we admire their relationship so much.

2 “WE’RE MARSHMALLOW AND LILYPAD, B*TCH!”

There is nothing more adorable than a couple that is able to be silly with one another. A couple that isn’t afraid to show off their dorky side is a couple that we fully support. Marshall and Lily show no shame in the fact that they still use nicknames for each other, something that most relationships would shy away from. Some people may find their nicknames cheesy, but for Marshall and Lily, they can never go overboard with their love for one another.

1 “WE STRUGGLE SO HARD TO HOLD ON TO THESE THINGS THAT WE KNOW ARE GONNA DISAPPEAR.”

“We struggle so hard to hold on to these things that we know are gonna disappear eventually. And that’s really noble.” 

As she has mentioned before on the show, it takes a lot of guts to take a chance on romance even if it has the potential to disappear as most relationships eventually do. Yet there is still hope out there, and there is still the chance that a romance can last forever. Having this sense of hope is incredibly noble, especially for people who have been hurt before in the past. How I Met Your Mother teaches us to hold onto that hope regardless of how many times you might get torn apart in the process.