Love is an emotion of a strong affection and personal attachment. Love is also said to be a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection —"the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another". Love may describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self or animals.
In English, love refers to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from pleasure ("I loved that meal") to interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" may refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love, to the sexual love of eros, to the emotional closeness of familial love, to the platonic love that defines friendship, or to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love, or to a concept of love that encompasses all of those feelings. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.
Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.
Love may be understood as part of the survival instinct, a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.
Read more about Love: Definitions, Impersonal Love, Interpersonal Love, Philosophical Views
Famous quotes containing the word love:
““Have no lit candles in your room,”
That love lady said,
“That I at midnight by the clock
May creep into your bed,
For if I saw myself creep in
I think I should drop dead.”
O my dear, O my dear.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I think it is better to show love by meeting needs than to keep telling my son that I love him. Right now he is learning to tie his shoes. He is old enough, so even though it’s hard for him, sometimes I insist. But once in a while when I see he’s tired I still do it for him, and I have noticed that while I am tying his shoe, he says, “I love you, Mommy.” When he says, “I love you,” I know that he knows that he is loved.”
—Anonymous Parent (20th century)
“In the Lord’s Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)