Love
Love is a condition or phenomenon of emotional primacy, or absolute value. Love generally includes an emotion of intense attraction to either another person, a place, or thing; and may also include the aspect of caring for or finding identification with those objects, including self love. Love can describe an intense feeling of affection, an emotion or an emotional state. In ordinary use, it usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience usually felt by a person for another person. Love is commonly considered impossible to define.
The concept of love, however, is subject to debate. Some deny the existence of love, calling it a recently invented abstraction. Moreover, approximately 13 percent of cultures reportedly have no word for love.[1] Others maintain that love exists but is indefinable; being a quantity which is spiritual, metaphysical, or philosophical in nature. Love is one of the most common themes in art. An unfinished debate about the authenticity of love as other-regard began with Friedrich Nietzsche's charge that love is merely an ideology constructed by the weak to mask "resentment" about their lack of power. Critics of Nietzsche's view find gratuitous his assumptions that self-interest and the "will to power" overshadow all other concerns.
Love has several different meanings in the English language, from something that gives a little pleasure ("I loved that meal") to something that one would die for (patriotism, pair-bonding). And in contrast to the definition at the top, frequently people use the verb "love" to indicate want or desire for themselves as opposed to for another. For example: "I love ice cream," does not refer to desiring wellness for ice cream, but rather to the desire for ice cream. The word also frequently indicates elevated appreciation or admiration: "I love that artist."
Cultural differences make any universal definition of love difficult to establish. See the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Expressions of love may include the love for a soul or mind, the love of laws and organizations, love for a body, love for nature, love of food, love of money, love for learning, love of power, love of fame, love for the respect of others, et cetera. Different people place varying degrees of importance on the kinds of love they receive. Love is essentially an abstract concept, easier to experience than to explain. Many believe, as stated originally by Virgil, that "Love conquers all", or as stated by The Beatles, "all you need is love". Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of 'absolute value', as opposed to 'relative value'.