How Would You Define Love?

What is love to you? What does it mean? The Oxford dictionary defines it as a deep feeling of affection for someone else. That seems a little simple to me. Love is difficult to define isn't it. Think about it. If you had to come up with a definition.

Why do we need it? Why do we want it? The old saying love hurts is very true. I think that love is probably defined in a different way by each of us, meaning we probably each have a different view as to what love is. Psychologically, we all need it, we all seek and desire it. It is all powerful. It can bring the strongest man to his knees. The brain releases powerful chemicals when love blooms...its strange.... How would I define love:

Love to me is putting the desires of someone elses above my own. Their happiness, their needs...all more important than my own. Its being comfortable enough with each other to laugh at our mistakes. Its being able to tell each other any and everything. Its trusting that we will do what we say we will. Its being able to sit and say nothing at all....and yet totally understanding the silent conversation... it makes the world go around...

What is LOVE to you?

I like your thread- S&F

Love is Everything- the strongest force in the world, and it's really "all you need" to be happy.

When I think about love, I picture my partner, my family and my friends.

Different kinds of love and affection...; But in the end, it's the -same/universal language of the souls.

The foundation of the universe and the reason for existence.

Well, I think it's a pretty sweet psychological phenomenon. But I'm also young and innocent so I don't preach to understand such things. ^_^

But it makes you care about someone or something quite a bit.

Great answers! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I was very interested in hearing what others had to say about the subject.

reply to post by Greenize


Unconditional, enduring,unselfish.

To me love is unconditional, respectful, not jealouse, never leaves you. Puts up with you when your a demon as well as when you are an angel. Puts you in your place when you need it. Loves you when you get fat or grey, when you pass gas and burp, when your giving birth or dieing from cancer. When you turn from it and fall for someone else and it waits for you to come back. To me that is love and that is my husband.

a feeling similar to eating too much chocolate

but seriously, love is the vibration of immortality and truth imo.

Love is a necessary ppsychological phenomenon, the purpose of which is to ensure the survival of social animals by creating a bond between them.

reply to post by Greenize


I could post what I think love is. But it would be a contradiction to everything else I believe in.

So I say this. Love is a paradox. A deep feeling of something that can make you either go against your deepest beliefs or bring you to your knees. Love is a chemical attraction that is a combination of Hormones and Pheromones that is directed entirely by the limbic portion of the human brain.

I have never had a good experience with love. At least I can say my significant other has never died on me. So I can't say love is a good thing. But I will not say it is a bad thing as I know many people who found happiness in love.

"Love is not consolation. It is light." - Friedrich Nietzsche

I don't really think I have ever been in love. Or might I say, I don't believe I have ever been in love with a woman.

How would one define how you know you are in love when it is in relation to a significant other?



[edit on 23-7-2009 by Eleutheria]

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

Love is energy that flows through your soul. You can close your eyes and breathe it in. When it subsides, the feeling of contentment and joy is overwhelming. It comes in waves. After 13 years of marriage and kids, I still feel it. I can look at my husband fixing the lawn mower and feel it. I see my kids playing and feel it. I can smell my mom's cooking and feel it. How could a human being survive without it?

M. Scott Peck MD in his all time best selling work "The Road Less Travelled, a new psychology of love, traditional values and spiritual growth" defined love thusly:

Love is the will to give of one's self for the sake of another's spiritual grwoth and well being.

The "feeling" of love, he felt, needed to be differentiated from "real love" which is a free choice and an act of the will, requiring action, a manifestation or evidence of the love.

Interestingly the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, according to Joseph Campbell, did a study, of individuals who risked their lives to save complete strangers, to find out why they were, in the very moment of the emergency ie: a lady hanging off a cliff from a car accident where someone who happens along risks all and almost goes over themselves to pull them to safety - why they were willing to throw everything away, including their family ties, job, their very self and life, to save a perfect stranger from certain death, and what they experienced at the moment of decision. To a one they all reported that they felt that they could not have lived with themselves afterwards if they did not act, and that, strangely, at the moment, they completely lost all sense of individuality, or concerns for their own life - the pattern that emerged from his study is that these heros who risked all to save a perfect stranger from certain death, was that the REASON they did it, was because at the most fundamental level, the distinction of self and other is an illusion, at that at the very ground of being, we are one, and so to save another, is, paradoxically, to save an aspect of the self, and that it would be utterly pointless and absurd not to act, even if it might mean death.

This is within us all, this capacity - too bad it takes a near death experience to bring it out and into the realm of action.

But this stuff about how it's just a biological instinct or a mere feeling, that doesn't even begin to define love imho.

It's intrinsic to the very nature of being, and being human, and there is no greater need or urge than to love and be loved, and it's not just about avoiding lonliness either, and it's not just chemicals, although they might serve to mediate the experience of love.

No I agree with Peck, it's true nature involves free will, a choice, and an act of love, which involves selfless giving or extending of the self, for the sake of another, enlarging the sphere of love in the process.

Great thread. S and F

To me

Love is unconditional. I don't differentiate between romantic, friendly, family love, the love of enjoying something, it's all the same thing. We try to limit who and what, and how we love. But Love at it's core is an undefined experience that is so wonderful. Also, there is no object of "Love" you are not In Love with someone. You are both there sharing the experience of Love. Love is the original power of the Universe from which all things come.

If you Love a person, their needs are above yours. You want them to be happy, even if it causes you suffering. Love is selfless, it is devotion.

The experience of Love is the purest expression of what we are. At our core, we are motivated, driven by Love.

In a world where everyone believes that they are the body, people still through away their lives thoughtlessly when Love is called into play. That's even more telling than those who believe in life beyond physical death. For people who believe they are the body to willingly throw their lives away and sacrifice for Love, just shows what a powerful motivating force Love can be.

Love, in an undefined manner is eternal, nothing can possibly happen to cut off the feeling of Love.

Any type of Love that relies on conditions, such as affection, faithfulness, closeness, history, peace, is not true love. That type of Love is fleeting.

We can be around someone we love with all of our hearts, and yet not feel the joy of Love. We can actually not enjoy their company. It is not Love from them that we feel, but the Love comes from ourselves. They provoke within us feelings of Love. That means Love comes from within, and when we truly learn to love, we will never stop giving it.

I could speak of this for ever, but I find keeping it short tends to work better.

Love is a simple chemical reaction that occurs in our brains. It's as simple as that. there really is no need to think too much about what it really is. What we should think about, however, is about what love can actually DO to you.

Love is probably one of the most dangerous chemical reactions that occur in our brains. Love can make a man go to war. Love can force a woman to kill a man trying to kidnap her child. Love can make a coward protect his friends at the cost of his life.

Basically, love is that emotion that makes humans do the impossible. It is illogical and usually makes one act against their instincts or beliefs.

in fact, all humans love something or someone, without love a human being would feel empty and his life will have no meaning.

Love is emptiness of self, and openness to all.

reply to post by Greenize


I see there are already some very interesting answers on the subject.

I agree with many of the other posts as well, however, I prefer to define it this way.

I've heard people say that "LOVE" is the recognition of your soul's counterpoint in another." This is not far from the truth yet I believe it to be a little deeper than this.

"LOVE" is the recognition of one's SELF in another."

Jesus said "Love thy neighbor as thyself" which is to say recognize yourself in every other person thereby being able to love them as yourself. He didn't say "Love thy neighbor AS you love yourself but AS....THY....SELF. This is the reason that Jesus was able to show compassion and love to everyone even the one's who put him to death.

Furthermore, love is derived from a state of peace. Being at peace with one's self is essential for being able to love yourself. You cannot love others if you cannot love yourself. There can be no outer peace without inner peace.

A Flower For YOU.

[edit on 24-7-2009 by InthekNOwla]

Originally posted by Eleutheria
I don't really think I have ever been in love. Or might I say, I don't believe I have ever been in love with a woman.

How would one define how you know you are in love when it is in relation to a significant other?

[edit on 23-7-2009 by Eleutheria]

You poor baby, you must be very young. When you fall in love you will know it. You will not have to ask, Is this love? or you may be in denial because you have fought the fear of loving and loosing, but when you feel it you will be like a rabid dog in that you will walk into the flames of hell to be with the one you love. You will see, you will see...