Love

The Kiss by Francesco Hayez, 1859

Popularly, Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection or profound oneness. Depending on context, love can have a wide variety of intended meanings, including sexual attraction. Psychologists and religious teachings, however, define love more precisely — as living for the sake of another, motivated by heart-felt feelings of caring, affection, and responsibility for the other's well-being.

The ancient Greeks described love with a number of different words: Eros was impassioned romantic attraction; philia was friendship; xenia was kindness to the guest or stranger. Agape love, which the Greeks defined as unconditional giving, became the keystone of Christianity, where it is exemplified in Christ's sacrificial love on the cross. Some notion of transcendental love is a salient feature of all the world's faiths. "Compassion" (karuna) in Buddhism is similar to agape love; it is represented by the bodhisattva who vows not to enter Nirvana until he has saved all beings. Yet love encompasses all these dimensions, eros as well as agape.

Perhaps the best context in which to develop such love is the family, where the love that is given and received is of various kinds. Closest to agape love is the sacrifice and investment that parents willingly give on behalf of their children. Children, in turn, offer their parents filial devotion and respect that grows more profound with the passing years. Siblings care for and help one another in various ways. The love between spouses is a world in itself. Grandparents bear a profound regard for their grandchildren. All of these types of love have their distinctive features.

Love is universally desired, but love can be fraught with infidelity, deceit, possessiveness, unrealistic expectations, jealousy and hate. Love, in fact, is at the root of much pain and conflict in the world. Marriages break down when the passion of romance cools. Religions like Buddhism and Roman Catholicism regard family love as incompatible with the higher life. Nevertheless, people still long for "true love," love that never fails. Psychologists and character educators hold that much of the heartbreak of failed love could be avoided by education about the nature of love, and by cultivating the self to be able to love well.

Definitions

Love is notoriously difficult to define. This is partly a difficulty of the English language, which uses the word "love" to cover such a wide variety of things. That is why we are instructed by the ancient Greeks, who employed different terms to characterize different types of affectionate human relationships: eros for passionate romantic relationships; philia for friendship; xenia for kindness to guests or stranger; and agape for unconditional, sacrificial giving regardless of any return.

In East Asia, love is expressed through the so-called Five Relationships: between parent and child, between husband and wife, between siblings, between friends, and between a ruler and his subjects. This way of thinking informs us that love is manifested differently in different social and interpersonal contexts. Furthermore, even within one of these contexts — sexual love — love can take on different qualities, such as infatuation, romantic love, and committed love.

In striving for an accurate definition of love, one can begin by comparing its opposites. As an expression of unique regard, commitment and special intimacy, "love" is commonly contrasted with "like"; as a romantic relationship that is not primarily sexual but includes commitment and care, "love" is commonly contrasted with "lust"; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, "love" is commonly contrasted with friendship.

Philosophers have sought to define love. The Greek philosopher Empedocles (4th century B.C.E.) argued that all motion in the universe was caused by the interplay of two forces, love (philia) and strife (neikos). These two forces were said to intermingle with the classical elements—earth, water, air, and fire—with love serving as the binding power that link the various parts of existence harmoniously together. Most philosophers have recognized though that the essential quality of love is that it focuses on the other, not on the self. Thomas Jay Oord defined love as acting intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote overall well-being. Bertrand Russell described love as a condition of absolute value, as opposed to relative value.

Psychologists warn against a common misconception about love: to construe love as a feeling. According to Erich Fromm and M. Scott Peck, the popular usage of the word "love" to mean a fondness or affection felt by one person for another inevitably leads to disappointment, as feelings are fickle and affection can fade. They advocate the view that love is other-centered activity. In his classic, The Art of Loving, Fromm considers love to be an interpersonal and creative capacity of humans rather than an emotion. The key elements of love are care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. Fromm argued that the common idea "falling in love" was evidence of people's misunderstanding of the concept of love, as the narcissism and mistreatment of the object of such attention which often ensues are hardly creative. Fromm also stated that most people do not truly respect the autonomy of their partner, and are largely unaware of their partner's wants and needs. Genuine love involves concern for the other and the desire to satisfy their needs rather than one's own." M. Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled, likewise taught that love is an activity or investment rather than feelings. Peck even argues that romantic love is a destructive myth, leading to unhealthy dependency. He differentiates between love and instinctive attractions, such as to the opposite sex or to babies. The feelings of affection that these instincts generate are not love, Peck argues; however he admits that a certain amount of affection and romance is necessary to get sufficiently close to be able to truly love.

An active definition of love fits best with popular understandings: in a poll of Chicago residents, the most favored definitions of "love" involve altruism, selflessness, friendship, union, family, and an enduring bond to another human being. In sum, a good working definition of love is to live for the sake of another, motivated by heart-felt feelings of caring, affection, and responsibility for the other's well-being.

Contexts of Love

Love is to be found in a variety of contexts. Conjugal love, parental love, friendship, compassion, love of self, love of country, love of God — "love" or its opposites can be found in all the diverse contexts for human relationships. Our definition — to live for the sake of another, motivated by heart-felt feelings of caring, affection, and responsibility for the other's well-being — describes behaviors and attitudes that span all these contexts.

Family love

Grandma's Favorite, by Georgios Iakovidis, 1893.

The family is where most people are introduced to the experience of love. Family love takes different forms including conjugal love between spouses, parental love for children, children's love for their parents, and sibling relationships.

Children respond to their parents' caring by strongly bonding to their parents; from this early relationship they develop trust, empathy with others, and sense of self-worth. Children's love includes feelings of respect and admiration for their parents, and is expressed in obedience and the desire to please their parents. Adult children will care for their aged parents and work to complete their parents' unfinished tasks and dreams. In Asia this type of love is called filial piety; yet it is universal.

The opposite of a filial child is a spoiled child, who thinks and acts as though the universe revolves around him; this can be a problem especially in an only child. Having siblings helps children shed self-centeredness and learn to share, to give, and to forgive. Parents can help older children become more other-centered by including them in the care of the new baby, activating altruism and rewarding it with praise. Like mentoring relationships in school, sibling love often respects the asymmetry in age between the children, establishing complementary roles between elder and younger siblings. Siblings can be a tremendous source of support, as they are usually close in age and can act as each other's friends and confidants. On the other hand, sibling rivalries sometimes create serious strife between siblings. Caring parents can do much to ameliorate sibling rivalries by showing unconditional regard for all their children.

Conjugal love is the natural union between spouses and is the sign of a healthy marriage. This is where the sexual expression of love finds its natural place, blossoming and bearing fruit.

Parents' love for their children naturally calls forth investment and sacrifice. This love may be tested as the children grow into adolescents with their own needs, distinctive personalities, and divergent values. Tensions may develop, unless the parents are mature enough to give unconditional love to their children. Early in life, children often do not appreciate the role parents have played in providing support emotionally and materially. This is something the adult child realizes, making for strong bonds of gratitude and obligation in later life. Aristotle wrote that it is impossible for children to ever pay off the debt created by their parents raising them.

Grandparents have an innate need to give from their storehouse of knowledge and experience to enrich the younger generation. Opportunities to love grandchildren provide elders with "a higher sense of self." As they watch their grown children shoulder the responsibility of parenthood, most are moved to help as much as they can, offering free childcare, help with meals, and monetary support. They give joyfully and share of their wisdom, knowing that their legacy will live on.

Friendship

Friendship is a close relationship between people. This type of love provides a great support system for those involved. Friends often share interests, backgrounds, or jobs. Friends can act as sources of fun, advice, adventure, monetary support, and self-esteem. Such relationships are usually based on mutual respect and enjoyment, and do not have a sexual component.

Like sibling relationships, friendships offer opportunities to build skills in problem-solving, social communication, cooperation in groups, and conflict resolution. They are forerunners of adult relationships in the workplace and prepare young people for marriage—the "passionate friendship." According to psychologist Willard Hartrup:

Peer relations contribute substantially to both social and cognitive development and to the effectiveness with which we function as adults. Indeed, the single best childhood predictor of adult adaptation is not school grades, and not classroom behavior, but rather the adequacy with which the child gets along with other children. Children who... cannot establish a place for themselves in the peer culture are seriously at risk.

Love in Community

Love is also needed in the larger spheres of life beyond family and friends. Community involvement takes many forms, including helping neighbors in their need, joining in service activities, watching out for criminal activity, volunteering for duties in local government bodies, helping with disaster relief, and charitable giving. Such ways of love in community increase one's sense of self-worth and widen one's circle of adult friends.

Patriotism at its best is expressed in voluntary sacrifice when one's country is under threat. Traditionally regarded as a virtue, it expresses solidarity with one's fellow-citizens and and gratitude for the many benefits gained from one's country, its history and the ideals it represents. In the modern world where nationalism is criticized for its partiality, people are coming to see themselves as members of a single global community and are expressing their global patriotism by volunteering for international service—e.g. the American Peace Corps, supporting Non-Governmental Organizations that serve the needs of the developing world, and charitable giving to help refugees and the victims of war and disaster throughout the world.

Rootedness in a loving family is an important foundation for love in community. Relationships in the family impart internal working models for relationships in the community. Studies of unusual altruism—people who rescued Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, for example—indicate that the rescuers had warm relationships with their parents, thus increasing their empathy for others. Children whose parents are of different races or religions are raised to practice tolerance and accept differences. Children who have warm, caring relationships with their parents and grandparents are more likely to be considerate to elderly people in general.

On the other hand, the negative social effects of family breakdown have been well documented. Children of broken families are more likely to grow up to be prone to criminality, violence and substance abuse. Crime rates have been shown to correlate with divorce and single parenting. Family life helps channel male aggressiveness into the constructive roles of responsible fatherhood and breadwinner. Family dysfunction, on the other hand, leaves mental and emotional scars which can impair relationships with co-workers, neighbors, and people in authority. The worst sociopaths—Adolf Hitler among them—were brutally abused as children.

Love of the Natural World

The ability to love and care for nature is an essentially human quality. People often develop strong emotional attachments to pets, who may reciprocate with loyalty and dependent appreciation. As the highest form of life on our planet, human beings are in a special position to care for all things as loving stewards. Love for nature is encouraged by a sense of dependence and indebtedness to the earth, and gratitude for its provision, which sustains life and health. The natural world inspires us with its beauty and mystery — the poet William Blake wrote of seeing “a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower.” Urban life far removed from nature impoverishes the emotions, or as the Lakota express it, “When a man moves away from nature his heart becomes hard.” This principle has been put to use in prison programs that rehabilitate inmates through involvement in gardening.

Hunting, fishing, and other sporting activities in nature promote the love of nature, and sportsmen often have a strong desire to preserve it unspoiled for subsequent generations. Thus it was the great sportsman Theodore Roosevelt who established the U.S. National Parks system. The solution to environmental problems begins by learning how to love the earth, all its wondrous features — mountains, rivers, oceans, trees, and so on — and all its living creatures.

Love of the things of the wider world begins with one's home environment and the things we use: the house and yard, the car, and the spaces in which we live. Daily chores, cleaning and repairing the things we use, is a way of loving those things. The environment responds to this love; there are numerous anecdotes, for example, about how an owner who loves his automobile can coax even a broken vehicle to run. A clean house and a well-running automobile add comfort and joy to life.

Love in Work

"Work is your love made visible," said the poet Kahlil Gibran. The challenges of work can be an opportunity to express love, by appreciating one's given task from a transcendent perspective as one's small part in creating the great Universe. Martin Luther King, Jr. once remarked:

Even if it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, go out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures; sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music; sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry; sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

A day of hard work ends with refreshment, relaxation and peace, all the sweeter if a person has given his or her all to the work of the day. The rewards of work include pride in a job well done, camaraderie with co-workers, respect, learning, gratitude from those for whom the work is performed, expressed in both monetary and non-monetary terms. Work performed with love thus elevates the worker in innumerable ways.

God's Love

God's love is widely seen as his benevolence, mercy and care upon human beings. This belief is not exclusive to those of Christian upbringing, but is held by people across all religions and is supported by holy texts in each. In Islam, the Qur'an describes God as "the Merciful, the Compassionate." The Jewish psalms praise God for his "loving-kindness" (chesed), by which he has preserved and guided his people throughout history. The Buddhist Gandavyuha Sutra says, "The Great Compassionate Heart is the essence of Buddhahood." The Christian Bible states, "God is love" (1 John 4:8). God's love is recognized in Jesus, who gave his life on the cross for our salvation, and through Jesus is seen the character of God the Father, who gave his only begotten Son for the sake of sinners. Many believers of all faiths consider themselves in a deep, personal relationship with God in which they are direct recipients of God's love and blessings, and of God's forgiveness for the sins of their former lives.

St. Augustine argued that God's goodness necessarily overflows into creation. The author of the letters of John wrote, "We love, because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19) People who are inspired by the love of God feel joy to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their beloved; which in the absence of God's love they would not do. The Bhagavad Gita states, "To love is to know Me/ My innermost nature/ The truth that I am" (18.55) Not only in the human world, but the beauty of nature can be regarded as an expression of God's love.

The Bible commands, "you should love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." (Deuteronomy 6:4) The covenant relationship to God requires humans to respond to God's love by loving God in return. The Christian saints beginning with Paul endured many tribulations in their efforts to love God and do his will by preaching Christ to the unbelieving people. In the Qur'an, the believers are called "God's helpers." (61:14).

God's love is often seen as universal love. The concept that God needs people's help to do his will, which is to bring justice and peace to the earth, implies that there are myriads of opportunities to love God through loving other people and helping them in their distress. The Bible teaches, "If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:12) The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna wrote: "Compassion is a mind that savors only mercy and love for all sentient beings." (Precious Garland 437). The Bhagavad Gita describes in lofty terms the state of spiritual union encompassing all beings: "I am ever present in those who have realized Me in every creature. Seeing all life as My manifestation, they are never separated from Me. They worship Me in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from Me." (6:30-31)

Self-love

Self-love, depending on how it is construed, can be either the bane of genuine love or a necessary foundation for loving in all contexts. Where self-love is construed as placing concern for self first, as in narcissism, it can be viewed entirely in the negative. The effort to live for the sake of the other that is genuine love requires giving up territories of self-love at every turn.

Yet, without being able to love oneself, loving others is often difficult. It is hard to love others while hating oneself, and even harder to receive love when feeling unworthy. People need to love themselves enough to care for their health and strive to better themselves. The victories they gain in life give confidence, and confident people do better in life and are generally happier as a result (or vice versa). Self-love creates a positive attitude towards life that helps people deal with the everyday problems, rather than dwelling on negatives.

Loving oneself begins with childhood experiences with loving parents. Abandoned babies, children raised in institutions or shuttled from foster home to foster home, find it difficult in later years to love deeply and make lasting bonds with other people. Children also need to experience the obligations that loving parents impose, that responsibility and kindness win parental approval. From these experience, they learn to find self-worth in conquering the challenges of life's journey and striving in the realms of love.

Philosopher Thomas Aquinas posed the "problem of love" as whether the desire to do good for another is solely because the lover sees someone worth loving, or if a little self-interest is always present in the desire to do good for another. Aquinas understood that human expressions of love are always based partly on love of self and similitude of being:

Even when a man loves in another what he loves not in himself, there is a certain likeness of proportion: because as the latter is to that which is loved in him, so is the former to that which he loves in himself.

Other thinkers, notably the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, have recognized that the essential quality of love is that it focuses on the other, not on the self. In The Meaning of Love, he wrote that love

forces us with all our being to acknowledge for another the same absolute central significance which, because of the power of our egoism, we are conscious of only in our selves.

Personal Development of Competencies for Loving

Love as an act of giving, living for the other, requires a set of competencies that one learns through a lifetime. Thus Erich Fromm wrote of The Art of Loving. He acknowledged that people seek love desperately, and often inappropriately, which he attributed to the fact that "the desire for interpersonal fusion is the most powerful striving in man." Yet since love is an interpersonal and creative capacity of humans rather than an emotion, the essential elements of love—including empathy, caring, responsibility, and the wisdom to act in a way that will really benefit the other—are "arts" that must be learned.

The Family as the School of Love

The family is the primary locus where most people cultivate their character and learn how to love. The family of origin is the context for a child's lessons about love and virtue, as he or she relates to parents and siblings. The challenges of marriage and parenting bring further lessons. Precisely because of this crucial role in character development, family dysfunction is the origin of some of the deepest emotional and psychological scars. Experiences of childhood sexual abuse, parents' divorce, and so forth lead to serious problems later in life.

The family structure provides the basic context for human development, as its members take on successive roles as children, siblings, spouses, parents, and grandparents. As educator Gabriel Moran put it, "The family teaches by its form." These different roles in the family describe a developmental sequence, the later roles building upon the earlier ones. Each role provides opportunities to develop a particular type of love, and carries with it specific norms and duties. For this reason, the family has been called "the school of love."

In Confucianism, lian (戀) is the virtuous benevolent love that is cultivated in human relationships in the family and society. The practice of loving relationships is the sum of the moral life. More than that, it is through participating in these relationships that a person's identity and worth are formed. The Chinese philosopher Mo-tzu developed a second concept of love, ai (愛), which is universal love towards all beings, not just towards friends or family, and without regard to reciprocation. It is close to the Christian concept of agape love. Confucianism also calls for love for all beings, but sees such social love as an extension of the elements of love learned in the family.

Mind-Body Training to Curb Self-Love

Among the most important tasks in developing the ability to love others is to curb self-love. Self-love and the desires of the body can override the conscience, which naturally directs the mind towards the good—what is best for everyone. Concern with the self can easily override the conscience's promptings to do altruistic deeds—sweep a neighbor's walk, give money to a passing beggar, or stop to help a motorist stuck on the road-side. "I don't have time," or "I need that money for my own kids" becomes a person's self-talk, and the conscience is overridden. Negative peer pressure, motivated by the self's desire to "fit in," can lead to cruel and unloving behavior. Sexual desire can lead to deceit and exploitation, to taking advantage of a friend who deserves better with blandishments of "I love you" for the sake of nothing more than the body's gratification.

To deal with this problem, people need training is self-discipline, the fruit of continuous practice of good deeds by curbing the more body-centered desires to conform to those of the mind. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “With self-discipline most anything is possible.” Self-discipline is fundamental to character growth, which in turn is fundamental to the capacity to give genuine love. This training begins at a young age:

In a revealing study, preschoolers were given a choice of eating one marshmallow right away or holding out for fifteen minutes in order to get two marshmallows. Some youngsters ate the treat right away. Others distracted themselves to control their bodies from grabbing the treat; they were duly rewarded with two marshmallows. A follow-up study conducted years later when the children graduated from high school found that those who had displayed the ability to delay gratification even at that young age grew up to be more confident, persevering, trustworthy, and had better social skills; while the grabbers were more troubled, resentful, jealous, anxious and easily upset.

Thus, even a modicum of self-control at an early age sets up a pattern that leads to greater self-mastery.

Many religious teachings focus on ascetic practices to subjugate the desires of the flesh, in order to liberate the higher mind from its slavery to the body. In the Hindu Upanishads, the self is described as a rider, the body as a chariot, the intellect as the charioteer and the mind as the reins. The physical senses are likened to the power of the horses thundering down the mazes of desire. (Katha Upanishad 1.3.3-6) This image shows that unless self-discipline is strong, the desires of the flesh enslave a person. Therefore, a person needs to establish self-control as a basis for his or her actions with others. “Who is strong? He who controls his passions,” states the Mishnah (Abot 4.1).

Contemporary society’s fondness for maximum individual freedom and autonomy presents challenges to those who would discipline themselves, and who would strengthen the moral will of those under their care. On one hand, society imposes far less external controls on individual behavior than traditionally; social expectations are quite lax on every matter from etiquette to sexual behavior. This would suggest that the locus of control must reside within the individual as never before. Yet there has probably never been less social support for individual self-control. Western consumer-oriented society exalts comfort and self-indulgence and scorns restraint and discipline. To instill self-control in oneself or others goes against the cultural tide. Yet it is an essential task. To conquer the realm of the body is an awesome responsibility which every person must undertake.

The religious traditions advocate two basic means to mind and body unity. One is to weaken the influence of the body by denying its desires. “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God,” exhorts St. Paul (Romans 12:1). This is the path of asceticism, which includes such training methods as fasting, reducing the amount of sleep, taking frequent cold showers, and quitting bad habits like smoking. The obedience of military life and living a simple and non-indulgent lifestyle are also recommended. The second path to mind-body unity is to reinforce the strength of the mind through various methods, including prayer, meditation, study of Scripture, mindfulness (becoming aware of one's states of mind and refraining from acting from bad states like anger and complaint), setting and achieving worthy goals, respect for parents, and other lessons of family life.

To love even when it is difficult: this requires the capability of the mind to assert itself over the demands of the body. Through efforts to reduce the pull of the flesh while enhancing our moral and spiritual strength, the mind and body can be brought into unity. The heart is thus liberated to give of itself freely and unselfishly.

Religious Teachings on Love as an Ethical and Spiritual Ideal

Religions lift up those qualities that make for "true love." few types of love can be considered to be universally held as "true." True love is nurturing and powerful. This type of love helps those experiencing it live fuller lives. These include love for and from God; love within a family, including conjugal love which itself involves many elements such as romantic love, sex, and deep friendship; love for one's self in the context of recognition of one abilities and value in relation to society; and love for others. True love is a powerful blessing for any person who experiences it.

The Christian Bible says,

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4.18-20).

Love benefits all of those who partake in it, even the love of one's enemies. The Islamic Hadith of Bukhari says, "A man is a true Muslim when no other Muslim has to fear anything from either his tongue or his hand."

Thus, the essential characteristic by which true love can be identified is that it focuses not on the needs of the self, but is concerned with those of the other(s).

In opposition to true love is false love. False loves are those not fulfilling to their participants emotionally or spiritually. False love can be distracting and actually hurt those in pursuit of it. The first of these is unrequited love, which is love that is not reciprocated, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. Beyond unrequited love is lust in which someone only wishes to engage in physical sex acts without commitment. Lustful love is also made manifest in the use of pornography or the committing of sex crimes such as rape. Additional forms of false love include adultery and incest, which are forms of loving the wrong people. Finally, there is a perversion of self-love, narcissism, in which a person loves themselves more than is appropriate.

False love can lead to feelings such as depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, and mood swings such as swift changes between depression and euphoria. False love can lead to conflict between people as much as lack of love does.

Cultural views

The traditional Chinese character for love (愛) consists of a heart (心, in the middle) inside of "accept," "feel," or "perceive," which shows a graceful emotion.

Although there exist numerous cross-cultural unified similarities as to the nature and definition of love, such as a thread of commitment, tenderness, and passion common to all human existence, there are also differences. Some examples that have influenced modern societies, from both oriental and western cultures, follow.

Chinese

Chinese has several terms that can be translated as forms of love.

Ai (愛) is used as a verb "to love," or as a noun, especially in aiqing (愛情), "love" or "romance." In mainland China since 1949, airen (愛人), originally "lover," or more literally, "love person") became the dominant word for "spouse.".

Lian (戀) is not generally used alone, but instead as part of such terms as "being in love" (談戀愛, tan lian'ai—also containing ai) or "lover" (戀人, lianren).

In Confucianism, lian is a virtuous benevolent love. Lian should be pursued by all human beings, and reflects a moral life. The Chinese philosopher Mozi developed the concept of ai (愛) in reaction to Confucian lian. Ai, in Mohism, is universal love towards all beings, not just towards friends or family, without regard to reciprocation. Extravagance and offensive war are inimical to ai. Although Mozi's thought was influential, the Confucian lian is how most Chinese conceive of love.

Zaolian (Simplified: 早恋, Traditional: 早戀, pinyin: zǎoliàn), "puppy love" or literally "early love," is a contemporary term in frequent use for romantic feelings or attachments among children or adolescents. Zaolian describes both relationships among a teenage boyfriend and girlfriend, as well as the "crushes" of early adolescence or childhood. The concept essentially indicates a prevalent belief in contemporary Chinese culture that due to the demands of their studies (especially true in the highly competitive educational system of China), youth should not form romantic attachments lest they jeopardize their chances for success in the future. Reports have appeared in Chinese newspapers and other media detailing the prevalence of the phenomenon and its perceived dangers to students and the fears of parents.

Qing (情), commonly meaning "feeling" or "emotion," often indicates "love" in several terms. It is contained in the word aiqing (愛情); qingren (情人) is a term for "lover."

Gănqíng (感情), the feeling of a relationship, is an emotional attachment toward another person or anything. A person will express love by building good gănqíng, accomplished through helping or working for another.

Yuanfen (緣份) is a connection of bound destinies. A meaningful relationship is often conceived of as dependent strong yuanfen. A similar conceptualization in English is, "They were made for each other," "fate," or "destiny."

Japanese

The two most common words for love in Japanese are ai (愛) and koi (恋). Generally speaking, most forms of non-romantic love are expressed using the former, while romantic love is expressed using the latter. In Japanese Buddhism, ai (愛) is passionate caring love, and a fundamental desire. It can develop towards either selfishness or selflessness and enlightenment.

"Parental love," for example, is oya no ai (親の愛), while "to be in love with" is koi suru (恋する). There are of course exceptions. The word aijin (愛人) means "lover" and implies an illicit, often extra-marital relationship, whereas koibito (恋人) has the connotation of "boyfriend," "girlfriend," or "partner."

In everyday conversation, however, ai (愛) and koi (恋) are rarely used. Rather than using ai shiteiru (愛している) or koi shiteiru (恋している) to say "I love you," for example, most Japanese would say daisuki desu (大好きです), which literally means "I really like you" — suki (好き) being the same word used to express preferences for food, music, and so forth, as in sushi ga suki desu (寿司が好きです), or "I like sushi." Rather than diluting the sentiment, however, the implied meaning of "love" is understood.

Amae (甘え), a Japanese word meaning "indulgent dependence," is part of the child-rearing culture of Japan. Japanese mothers are expected to hug and indulge their children, and children are expected to reward their mothers by clinging and serving. Some sociologists (most notably, Takeo Doi) have suggested that Japanese social interactions in later life are modeled on the mother-child amae.

Greek

Greek distinguishes several different senses in which the word "love" is used. For example, ancient Greek has the words philia, eros, agape, storge and xenia. However, with Greek as with many other languages, it has been historically difficult to separate the meanings of these words totally. At the same time the ancient Greek text of the Bible has examples of the verb agapo being used with the same meaning as phileo.

Agape (ἀγάπη agápē) means "love" in modern day Greek. The term s'agapo means I love you in Greek. The word agapo is the verb "to love." It generally refers to a "pure," ideal type of love rather than the physical attraction suggested by eros. However, there are some examples of agape used to mean the same as eros. It has also been translated as "love of the soul."

Eros (ἔρως érōs) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Greek word erota means "in love." Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth by eros. Some translations list it as "love of the body."

Philia (φιλία philía), means friendship in modern Greek, a dispassionate virtuous love, was a concept developed by Aristotle. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality and familiarity. Philia is motivated by practical reasons; one or both of the parties benefit from the relationship.

Storge (στοργή storgē) means affection in modern Greek; it is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.

Xenia (ξενία philoxenía), meaning hospitality in modern Greek, was an extremely important practice in ancient Greece. It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a host and their guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was only expected to repay with gratitude. The importance of this can be seen throughout Greek mythology, in particular Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Latin

'Sacred Love versus Profane Love' by Giovanni Baglione

The Latin language has several different verbs corresponding to the English word "love."

Amare is the basic word for "to love," as it still is in Italian today. The Romans used it both in an affectionate sense, as well as in a Romantic or sexual sense. From this verb come amans, a lover, amator, "professional lover," often with the accessory notion of lechery, and amica, "girlfriend" in the English sense, often as well being applied euphemistically to a prostitute. The corresponding noun is amor, which is also used in the plural form to indicate "love affairs" or "sexual adventures." This same root also produces amicus, "friend."

Complicating the picture somewhat, Latin sometimes uses amare where English would simply say "to like;" this notion, however, is much more generally expressed in Latin by placere or delectare, which are used more colloquially, and the latter of which is used frequently in the love poetry of Catullus.

Diligere often has the notion "to be affectionate for," "to esteem," and rarely if ever is used of romantic love. This word would be appropriate to describe the friendship of two men. The corresponding noun diligentia, however, has the meaning "diligence," "carefulness," and has little semantic overlap with the verb.

Observare is a synonym for diligere; despite the cognate with English, this verb and its corresponding noun observantia often denotes "esteem" or "affection."

Caritas is used in Latin translations of the Christian Bible to mean "charitable love." This meaning, however, is not found in Classical pagan Roman literature. As it arises from a conflation with a Greek word, there is no corresponding verb.

Religious views

Whether religious love can be expressed in similar terms to interpersonal love is in itself a matter for philosophical debate. Most religions use the term "love" to express the devotion the follower has to their deity, or to a living guru or religious teacher who may be viewed as an incarnation of the deity. Some traditions encourage the development of passionate love in the believer for the deity.

This love can be expressed by prayer, service, good deeds, and personal sacrifice. Reciprocally, the followers may believe that the deity loves them and all of creation.

Religions describe true human love as grounded in divine love: passages such as 1 John 4 and 1 Corinthians 13 of the Christian Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Buddhist Metta Sutta describe divine love as universal, flowing impartially to all beings.

Religions also recognize that the highest standard of love is that of love in the family—love for children and love for spouse are the most intense of human loves. Thus a Buddhist sutra states that the bodhisattva loves everyone as though they were a loved only child. On the other hand, the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean cautions that love in the family can be biased; without the right foundation it is not true love.

While the world's religions have different descriptions of love, they all regard love as the essence of what is most important in life.

Bahai

According to the Bahai faith,

This is the truth and there is naught beyond the truth save error. Know thou assuredly that

Love is the mystery of divine revelations! Love is the effulgent manifestation!

Love is the spiritual fulfillment! Love is the light of the Kingdom!

Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit inspired into the human spirit!

Love is the cause of the manifestation of the Truth (God) in the phenomenal world!

Love is the necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation!

Love is the means of the most great happiness in both the material and spiritual worlds!

Love is a light of guidance in the dark night!

Love is a bond between the Creator and the creature in the inner world!

Love is the cause of development to every enlightened man!

Love is the greatest law in this vast universe of God!

Love is the one law which causeth and controlleth order among the existing atoms!

Love is the universal magnetic power between the planets and stars shining in the lofty firmament!

Love is the cause of unfoldment to a searching mind, of the secrets deposited in the universe by the Infinite!

Love is the spirit of life in the bountiful body of the world!

Love is the cause of the civilization of nations in this mortal world!

Love is the highest honor to every righteous nation!

(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v3, p. 525)

Buddhism

In Buddhism, Kāma is sensuous, sexual love. It is an obstacle on the path to enlightenment, since it is self-centered.

Karunā is compassion and mercy, which reduces the suffering of others. It is complementary to wisdom, and is necessary for enlightenment.

Advesa and maitrī are benevolent love. This love is unconditional and requires considerable self-acceptance. This is quite different from the ordinary love, which is usually about attachment and sex, which rarely occur without self-interest. Instead, in Buddhism it refers to detachment and unselfish interest in others' welfare.

The Bodhisattva ideal in Tibetan Buddhism involves the complete renunciation of oneself in order to take on the burden of a suffering world. The strongest motivation one has in order to take the path of the Bodhisattva is the idea of salvation within unselfish love for others.

Christianity

In Christianity, love is most famously described by Saint Paul:

"Love is patient; love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (NIV)

The New Testament only used two Greek words for love: agapē and philia. However, there are several Greek words for Love.

• Agapē. In the New Testament, agapē is charitable, selfless, altruistic, and unconditional. It is parental love seen as creating goodness in the world, it is the way God is seen to love humanity, and it is seen as the kind of love that Christians aspire to have for others.
• Philia. Also used in the New Testament, philia is a human response to something that is found to be delightful. Also known as "brotherly love."
• Eros (sexual love) is never used in the New Testament.
• Storge (needy child-to-parent love) only appears in the compound word philostorgos (Rom 12:10).

Saint Paul glorified agapē love in the quote above from 1 Corinthians 13, and as the most important virtue of all: "Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away." (1 Cor 13:8 NIV).

Christianity teaches that because of God's agapē love for humanity he sacrificed his son for us. John the Apostle wrote, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:16–17 KJV)

Christians believe that the greatest commandment is "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment"; in addition to the second, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." These are what Jesus Christ called the two greatest commandments (see Mark 12:28–34, Luke 10:25-28, Matthew 22:37-39, Matthew 7:12; cf. Deuteronomy 6:5, Deuteronomy 11:13, Deuteronomy 11:22, Leviticus 19:18, Leviticus 19:34).

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (NIV, John 13:34-35; cf. John 15:17). Jesus also taught "Love your enemies." (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27).

Christians also believe that God is the source and essence of love, "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." (1 John 4:8 KJV)

Hinduism

In Hinduism kāma is pleasurable, sexual love, personified by the god Kama. For many Hindu schools it is the third end in life. In contrast to kāma, prema or prem refers to elevated love. Karuna is compassion and mercy, which reduces the suffering of others.

Bhakti is a Sanskrit term from Hinduism meaning "loving devotion to the supreme God." Hindu writers, theologians, and philosophers have distinguished nine forms of devotion that they call bhakti.

Prema has the ability to melt karma which is also known as the moving force of our past actions, intentions and reactions to our experience in life. When we love everything, the force of karma that is in relation to those things, events or circumstances slowly starts going towards peacefulness, relaxation and freedom and we find ourselves in a "state of love."

Islam

There are no direct references in Islam stating that God is love, but amongst the 99 names of God (Allah), there is the name Al-Wadud or "the Loving One," which is found in Surah 11:90 as well as Surah 85:14. It refers to God as being "full of loving kindness."

In Islam, love is more often than not used as an incentive for sinners to aspire to be as worthy of God's love as they may. One still has God's love, but how the person evaluates his own worth is to his own and God's own counsel. All who hold the faith have God's love, but to what degree or effort he has pleased God depends on the individual itself.

This Ishq, or divine love, is the emphasis of Sufism. Sufis believe that love is a projection of the essence of God to the universe. God desires to recognize beauty, and as if one looks at a mirror to see oneself, God "looks" at itself within the dynamics of nature. Since everything is a reflection of God, the school of Sufism practices to see the beauty inside the apparently ugly. Sufism is often referred to as the religion of Love. God in Sufism is referred to in three main terms which are the Lover, Loved, and Beloved with the last of these terms being often seen in Sufi poetry. A common viewpoint of Sufism is that through Love humankind can get back to its inherent purity and grace.

Judaism

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." —Deuteronomy 6:5

In Hebrew ahava is the most commonly used term for both interpersonal love and love of God. Other related but dissimilar terms are chen (grace) and chesed, which basically combines the meaning of "affection" and "compassion" and is sometimes rendered in English as "loving-kindness."

Judaism employs a wide definition of love, both between people and between man and the Deity. As for the former, the Torah states: "Love your neighbor like yourself" (Leviticus 19:18). As for the latter, one is commanded to love God "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5), taken by the Mishnah (a central text of the Jewish oral law) to refer to good deeds, willingness to sacrifice one's life rather than commit certain serious transgressions, willingness to sacrifice all one's possessions and being grateful to the Lord despite adversity (tractate Berachoth 9:5, tractate Sanhedrin 74a). Rabbinic literature differs how this love can be developed, e.g. by contemplating Divine deeds or witnessing the marvels of nature (Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Yesoday HaTorah, Chapter 2).

As for love between marital partners, this is deemed an essential ingredient to life: "See life with the wife you love" (Ecclesiastes 9:9). The Biblical book Song of Songs is a considered a romantically-phrased metaphor of love between God and his people, but in its plain reading reads like a love song.

The twentieth-century rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler is frequently quoted as defining love from the Jewish point-of-view as "giving without expecting to take" (from his Michtav me-Eliyahu, vol. I), as can be seen from the word for love ahava, as the root of the word is hav, to give. Romantic love per se has few echoes in Jewish literature, although the medieval rabbi Judah Halevi wrote romantic poetry in Arabic in his younger years.

Mythology

Different cultures have deified love in their mythologies, typically in both male and female form. Even though in monotheistic religions, God is considered to represent love, there are often angels or similar beings that represent love as well. The following are examples of gods and goddesses of love in different mythologies.

• Áine — goddess of fertility and passionate love in Irish mythology
• Amor or Cupid — god of passionate love in Roman mythology
• Antheia — goddess in Cretan mythology of love, flowers, gardens, and marshes
• Aonghus or Aengus — god of beauty, youth, and sensual love in Irish mythology
• Aphrodite — goddess of beauty and passionate love in Greek mythology
• Astarte — goddess of love in Canaanite mythology
• Eros — god of passionate love in Greek mythology
• Freyja — goddess of love, fertility and war in Norse mythology
• Haniel — angel of Venus, and of eros, in Judeo-Christian mythology.
• Inanna — goddess of love and war in Sumerian mythology
• Ishtar — goddess of love and war in Babylonian mythology
• Kama — god of sensual love in Hindu mythology
• Mihr — spirit of love in Persian mythology
• Rati — goddess of passionate love in Hindu mythology
• Raphael — angel of love (agape) in Judeo-Christian mythology.
• Venus — goddess of beauty and passionate love in Roman mythology
• Xochipilli — the god of love, games, beauty, dance, flowers, maize, and song in Aztec mythology

Platonic love

In the fourth century B.C.E., the Greek philosopher Plato, disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, positioned the view that one would never love a person in that person’s totality, because no person represents goodness or beauty in totality. At a certain level, one does not even love the person at all. Rather, one loves an abstraction or image of the person’s best qualities. Plato never considered that one would love a person for his or her unique qualities, because the ideas are abstractions that do not vary. In love, we thus look for the best embodiment of a universal truth in a person rather than that of an idiosyncratic truth.

Platonic love in its modern popular sense is an affectionate relationship into which the sexual element does not enter, especially in cases where one might easily assume otherwise. A simple example of platonic relationships is a deep, non-sexual friendship between two heterosexual people of the opposite sexes.

Ironically, the very eponym of this love, Plato, as well as Socrates and others, belonged to the community of men who desired boys and engaged in erotic pedagogic friendships with youths. The concept of platonic love thus arose within the context of the debate pitting mundane sexually expressed pederasty against the philosophic – or chaste – pederasty elaborated in Plato's writings.

Plato and his companions.

This modern interpretation is a misunderstanding of the nature of the Platonic ideal of love, which from its origin was that of a chaste but passionate love, based not on lack of interest but virtuous restraint of sexual desire. In its original Platonic form, this love was meant to bring the lovers closer to wisdom and the Platonic Form of Beauty. It is described in depth in Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium. In the Phaedrus, it is said to be a form of divine madness that is a gift from the gods, and that its proper expression is rewarded by the gods in the afterlife; in the Symposium, the method by which love takes one to the form of beauty and wisdom is detailed.

Because of the common modern definition, platonic love can be seen as paradoxical in light of these philosophers' life experiences and teachings. Plato and his peers did not teach that a man's relationship with a youth should lack an erotic dimension, but rather that the longing for the beauty of the boy is a foundation of the friendship and love between those two. However, having acknowledged that the man's erotic desire for the youth magnetizes and energizes the relationship, they countered that it is wiser for this eros to not be sexually expressed, but instead be redirected into the intellectual and emotional spheres.

To resolve this confusion, French scholars found it helpful to distinguish between amour platonique (the concept of non-sexual love) and amour platonicien (love according to Plato). When the term "Platonic love" is used today, it generally does not describe this aspect of Plato's views of love.

Scientific views

Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In more recent times, the sciences of psychology, biology, anthropology, and neuroscience have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.

Biological models of sex tend to see it as an instinctual and physical drive, just like hunger or thirst. Psychological theories view love from a more social and cultural perspective. There are elements of truth in both views — certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin) and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by one’s conceptions of love.

Anthropologist Helen Fisher divided the experience of love into three partly-overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust exposes people to others, romantic attraction encourages people to focus their energy on mating, and attachment involves tolerating the spouse long enough to rear a child into infancy.

Biological understandings

Mating of Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula) with male on top, in Ciney, Belgium, configured in the shape of a heart, a common symbol of love.

The conventional view in biology is that there are two major drives in love — sexual attraction and attachment. Attraction can be stimulated by the action of pheromones, similar to that found in many species. Attachment between adults is presumed to work on the same principles that lead infants to become attached to their primary caregivers.

Studies in neuroscience have indicated that a consistent number of chemicals are present in the brain when people testify to feeling love. More specifically, higher levels of testosterone and estrogen are present during the lustful or sexual phase of a relationship. Dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin are more commonly found during the attraction phase of a relationship. Oxytocin and vasopressin seemeto be more closely linked to long term bonding and relationships characterized by strong attachments.

Research has shown that the chemicals triggered responsible for passionate love and long-term attachment love seem to be more particular to the activities in which both participate rather than to the nature of the specific people involved. The serotonin effects of being in love have a similar chemical appearance to obsessive-compulsive disorder; which could explain why a person in love cannot think of anyone else. The long-term attachment felt after the initial "in love" passionate phase of the relationship ends is a result of chemicals such as oxytocin.

Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side-effects such as an increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years and studies have found that a protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these levels return to as they were after one year.

Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding which promotes relationships that last for many years, and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin than short-term relationships have.

Psychological understandings

Swans forming a heart, a common symbol for love; scientists have recently begun to study the chemistry of pair bonding in animals as models for human bonding.

Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. A variety of psychologists have developed their own understandings of love; a sample of the more influential ones are described below.

John Money

Abnormal sexology researcher John Money developed the concept of "lovemaps," defined as a set of love attachment predispositions, or neurological love templates, developed or acquired through association in early youth. According to Money, a lovemap is "a developmental representation or template in the mind and in the brain depicting the idealized lover and the idealized program of sexuoerotic activity projected in imagery or actually engaged in with that lover." These lovemaps help to explain why people like particular sexual experiences, particularly abnormal ones such as necrophilia or coprophilia. Although the concept of lovemaps originally developed from studies of atypical love, it has been applied to discussions of love in general.

Robert Sternberg

Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love with three different components of love: Intimacy, Commitment, and Passion.^[2]

1. Intimacy – which encompasses the feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness.
2. Passion – which encompasses the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation.
3. Decision/Commitment – which encompasses, in the short term, the decision that one loves another, and in the long term, the commitment to maintain that love.

Intimacy is a form by which two people can share secrets and various details of their personal lives. Intimacy is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is going to last forever. The last and most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. The “amount” of love one experiences depends on the absolute strength of these three components; the “kind” of love one experiences depends on their strengths relative to each other.

These three components, pictorially labeled on the vertices of a triangle, interact with each other and with the actions they produce and with the actions that produce them so as to form seven different kinds of love experiences:

	intimacy	passion	commitment
Liking or friendship	x
Infatuation or limerence		x
Empty love			x
Romantic love	x	x
Companionate love	x		x
Fatuous love		x	x
Consummate love	x	x	x

The size of the triangle functions to represent the amount of love - the bigger the triangle the greater the love. The shape of the triangle functions to represent the kind of love, which typically varies over the course of the relationship: passion-stage (right-shifted triangle), intimacy-stage (apex-triangle), commitment-stage (left-shifted triangle), typically. Of the seven varieties of love, consummate love is theorized to be that love associated with the “perfect couple.” Typically, couples will continue to have great sex fifteen years or more into the relationship, they can not imagine themselves happy over the long term with anyone else, they weather their few storms gracefully, and each delight in the relationship with each other.

Love in culture

Dante looked longingly at Beatrice Portinari as she passed by him with Lady Vanna (in red) in Dante and Beatrice, by Henry Holiday

Love is one of the most featured themes in all of culture, more than knowledge, money, power, or even life itself. Love is the absolute, eternal desire of all human beings, and as such it is the most popular topics in all the arts. For as long as there have been songs and the written word, there have been works dedicated to love.

The type of love often featured is unrequited love. The first century B.C.E. Roman poet Catullus wrote about his unrequited love for Lesbia (Clodia) in several of his Carmina. Perhaps the most famous example in Western culture of unrequited love is Dante Alighieri for Beatrice. Dante apparently spoke to Beatrice only twice in his life, the first time when he was nine years old and she was eight. Although both went on to marry other people, Dante nevertheless regarded Beatrice as the great love of his life and his "muse." He made her the guide to Heaven in his work The Divine Comedy. Additionally, all of the examples in Dante's manual for poets, La Vita Nuova, are about his love for Beatrice. The prose which surrounds the examples further tells the story of his lifelong devotion to her.

Shakespeare touched on the topic in his plays Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night. A more threatening unrequited lover, Roderigo, is shown in Othello.

Unrequited love has been a topic used repeatedly by musicians for decades. Blues artists incorporated it heavily; it is the topic of B.B. King's Lucille and "The Thrill is Gone," Ray Charles' What'd I Say. Eric Clapton's band Derek and the Dominos devoted a whole album to the topic, Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs, which included such famous songs as Layla and Bell Bottom Blues. Many Rock n' Roll musicians also based songs on unrequited love; from The Eagles all the way to Led Zeppelin, almost every classic rock band has at least one song on the topic.

Not all songs of love are unrequited, however. Many feature the theme of new love, "falling in love"

Take my hand, take my whole life too

For I can't help falling in love with you (Can't Help Falling in Love sung by Elvis Presley)

and the joy and anticipation of "endless love" together:

Two hearts,

Two hearts that beat as one

Our lives have just begun. (Endless Love by Lionel Ritchie)

Others find the greatest love to be from God, or in loving oneself:

Learning to love yourself

It is the greatest love of all (Greatest Love of All sung by Whitney Houston)

Perhaps, learning to love yourself is the greatest love because it opens the way to receive love from others.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Allen, Roger, Hillar Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor (eds.). 1995. Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature. London: Saqi Books.
• Bartsch, Shadi and Thomas Bartscherer, (eds.). 2005. Erotikon: Essays on Eros, Ancient and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Eddy, Baker M. 2006. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
• Devine, Tony, Joon Ho Seuk, and Andrew Wilson. 2000. Cultivating Heart and Character: Educating for Life's Most Essential Goals. Chapel Hill, NC: Character Development Publishing. ISBN 1892056151
• Fisher, Helen. Why We Love: the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.
• Froböse, Gabriele, Rolf Froböse, Michael Gross (Translator). 2006. Lust and Love: Is it more than Chemistry? Royal Society of Chemistry. ISBN 0-85404-867-7
• Fromm, Erich. 2006. The Art of Loving. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ISBN 0061129739
• Johnson, P. 2005. Love, Heterosexuality and Society. Routledge: London.
• Jones, Del. 2006. "One of USA's Exports: Love, American Style." USA Today
• Oord, Thomas J. 2004. Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press.
• Peck, M. Scott. 2003. The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. Touchstone. ISBN 0743243153
• R. J. Sternberg. 1986. "A triangular theory of love." Psychological Review, Vol. 93, No. 119, 135.
• R. J. Sternberg. 1987. "Liking versus loving: A comparative evaluation of theories". Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 102, No. 331, 345.
• Sternberg, R. J. 1998. Cupid's Arrow - the Course of Love through Time. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47893-6
• Tennov, Dorothy. 1979. Love and Limerence. Scarborough House. ISBN 0812823281
• Tennov, Dorothy. A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence": The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov. Greenwich, CT: The Great American Publishing Society (GRAMPS).
• Wood, Wood and Boyd. 2005. The World of Psychology. 5th edition. Pearson Education.

External links

• God and Love Beautiful Islam. Retrieved August 11, 2007.
• Love: An Anthology Compiled by Yanki Tauber Chabad.org. Retrieved August 11, 2007.
• Plato's Theory of Love Retrieved August 11, 2007.
• The Thermodynamics of Love Retrieved August 11, 2007.
• Thermodynamics, Psychology, Chemistry, and Love Retrieved August 11, 2007.
• Unrequited love can be a 'killer' BBC News. Retrieved August 11, 2007.

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