“The deepest urge in
every human heart is to
be in relationship with
someone who absolutely
delights in us.”
“Love makes us who we
are, and who we can
become.”
~ Thomas Lewis, M.D.,
“In love the soul acts in
accordance with its nature,
because it is created to live
in connection with other
souls.”
~ Johannes Pedersen,
“Much or even most of
what has been popularly
written about love is
nonsense.”
~ Douglas N. Morgan,
“Love is such a tissue of
paradoxes, and exists in
such an endless variety of
forms and shades, that
you may say almost
anything about it that you
please and it is likely to
be correct.”
“Young people are cynical
about love. Ultimately,
cynicism is the great mask
of the disappointed and
betrayed heart.”
“Love is too large, too
deep ever to be truly
understood or measured
or limited within the
framework of words.”
~ M. Scott Peck,
“Love doesn’t really make
the world go round. It
just makes people dizzy
so it looks like it.”
~ Martha Lupton
“Everyone admits that love
is wonderful and necessary,
yet no one can agree on
what it is.”
~ Diane Ackerman,
“Love, in the Christian
sense, does not mean an
emotion. It is a state not
of the feelings but of the
will; that state of the will
which we have naturally
about ourselves, and must
learn to have about other
“Love is as love does.”
~ Eric Fromm,
Psychiatrist
“The myth of romantic love is a
dreadful lie. As a psychiatrist I
weep in my heart almost daily for
the ghastly confusion and
suffering that this myth fosters.
Millions of people waste vast
amounts of energy desperately
and futilely attempting to make
the reality of their lives conform
to the unreality of the myth.”
“Since love is not a thing, it is
not lost when given. You can
offer your love completely to
hundreds of people and still
retain the same love you had
originally. It is like knowledge.
The wise man can teach all he
knows and when he’s through
he’ll still know all that he has
“The simple but
observable fact is that
the more you love, the
more you are able to
love.”
“For one human being to
love another human being:
that is perhaps the most
difficult task that has been
entrusted to us, the
ultimate task, the final test
and proof, the work for
which all other work is
“Widespread cultural
acceptance of lying is a
primary reason many of us
will never know love. …
To know love we have to tell
the truth to ourselves and
others.”
“Love is an act of faith,
and whoever is of little
faith is also of little
love.”
~ Eric Fromm,
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
it would be utterly scorned.
~ Song of Songs 8:7 (NRSV)
“No one has ever seen
God; but if we love one
another, God lives in us.”
~ 1 John 4:12 (TNIV)
Aheb (Heb.) =
Love as attraction.
A wide catch-all love term,
used to refer to all kinds of
attraction and desire, usually
(but not necessarily) sexual.
Hessed (Heb.) =
Love as loyalty to a person
and their good;
Steadfast commitment and
compassion; Faithful devotion.
“Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love (hesed) for you
will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be
removed,”
says the LORD, who has
compassion on you.
~ Isaiah 54:10 (NIV)
I have loved (aheb) you with
an everlasting love (aheb);
therefore I have continued my
faithfulness (hesed) to you.
~ Jeremiah 31:3 (NASB)
Storge (Gk.) =
a natural, appropriate,
unforced attachment that should
bind members of a family; the
bond between parents and
children; sometimes used of king
and subjects or dogs and their
masters.
For the Father Himself
loves (phileo) you, because
you have loved (phileo) Me,
and have believed that I
came forth from the Father.
~ John 16:27 (NASB)
Phileo (Gk.) =
caring and compassionate
affection;
being fond of, as in a
friendship.
For the Father Himself
loves (phileo) you, because
you have loved (phileo) Me,
and have believed that I
came forth from the Father.
~ John 16:27 (NASB)
Eros (Gk.) =
desire; yearning; longing;
craving;
the strong desire to
possess another person (or
thing), to fuse with them.
Agape (Gk.) =
Unconditional love.
Offered because of the choice
of the giver, not because of the
attraction of the receiver.
Certainly not devoid of feeling,
just not dependant on or led by
emotion.
Woe to you Pharisees,
because you love the most
important seats in the
synagogues and greetings
in the marketplaces.
~ Luke 11:43 (TNIV)
And this is the judgment,
that the light has come into
the world, and people
loved darkness rather than
light because their deeds
were evil.
~ John 3:19 (NRSV)
“Eros is the kind of love that is
directed at someone the
beholder sees as beautiful.
When a young man or a young
woman falls in love, it is
always because the beloved is
seen as attractive.”
~ Leon Morris, Theologian
“Eros ever dwells with want.”
~ Plato, Symposium
He has showed you, O people,
what is good.
And what does the LORD
require of you?
To act justly and to
love (ahab) mercy (hesed)
and to walk humbly with your God.
~ Micah 6:8 (NIVi)
“But God demonstrates his
own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.”
~ Romans 5:8 (TNIV)
“Greater love has no one than
this, to lay down one’s life for
one’s friends.”
~ John 15:13 (TNIV)