Love is an
emotion of strong
affection and personal
attachment.
[1] In philosophical context, love is a
virtue representing all of human
kindness,
compassion, and affection. Love is central to many
religions, as in the Christian phrase, "
God is love" or
Agape in the
Canonical gospels.
[2] Love may also be described as actions towards others (or oneself) based on compassion.
[3] Or as actions towards others based on affection.
[4]In
English, the word
love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic
pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense
interpersonal attraction ("I love my partner"). "Love" can also refer specifically to the passionate desire and intimacy of
romantic love, to the
sexual love of
eros (cf.
Greek words for love), to the emotional closeness of
familial love, or to the
platonic love that defines
friendship,
[5] to the profound
oneness or devotion of
religious love.
[6] This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even 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.
Science defines what could be understood as love as an evolved state of the survival instinct, primarily used to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species through
reproduction.
[7]