Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states , from the most sublime virtue or good habit, or the deepest interpersonal affection , to the simplest pleasure. Most commonly, love refers to a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment.
Love is considered to be both positive and negative, with its virtue representing human kindness , compassion , and affection β"the unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for the good of another"βand its vice representing a human moral flaw akin to vanity , selfishness , amour-propre , and egotism. It may also describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, oneself, or animals.
Ancient Greek philosophers identified six forms of love : familial love storge , friendly love or platonic love philia , romantic love eros , self-love philautia , guest love xenia , and divine or unconditional love agape. Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of love: fatuous love , unrequited love , empty love , companionate love , consummate love , infatuated love limerence , amour de soi , and courtly love. The color wheel theory of love defines three primary, three secondary, and nine tertiary love styles, describing them in terms of the traditional color wheel.
The triangular theory of love suggests intimacy, passion, and commitment are core components of love. Love has additional religious or spiritual meaning. This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states. The word "love" can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts.
Many other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts that in English are denoted as "love"; one example is the plurality of Greek concepts for "love" agape , eros , philia , storge. Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what is not love antonyms of "love". Love, as a general expression of positive sentiment a stronger form of like , is commonly contrasted with hate or neutral apathy.
