Many people describe love as a great emotion or a feeling in a person heart. I have my own personal belief that being in love is when you find the person that completes you: your soul, your mind, and your life. I want to know what everyone else thinks. What is love?
My dictionary has love as:
Main Entry: love
Pronunciation: 'l&v
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lufu; akin to Old High German luba love, Old English lEof dear, Latin lubEre, libEre to please
Date: before 12th century
1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests b : an assurance of love
2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion
3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration b (1) : a beloved person : DARLING – often used as a term of endearment (2) British – used as an informal term of address
4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person’s adoration of God
5 : a god or personification of love
6 : an amorous episode : LOVE AFFAIR
7 : the sexual embrace : COPULATION
8 : a score of zero (as in tennis)
9 capitalized, Christian Science : GOD
- at love : holding one’s opponent scoreless in tennis
- in love : inspired by affection
Main Entry: 2love
Function: verb
Date: before 12th century
Inflected Form(s): loved; lov.ing
transitive senses
1 : to hold dear : CHERISH
2 a : to feel a lover’s passion, devotion, or tenderness for b (1) : CARESS (2) : to fondle amorously (3) : to copulate with
3 : to like or desire actively : take pleasure in
4 : to thrive in
intransitive senses : to feel affection or experience desire
Additionally my thesaurus coughs up:
worship, adore, passion, devotion, adoration, amour, etc.etc.
besides that I would probably say you go into IMHO land.
I got the link by entering your subject heading at http://www.aj.com . Honestly people, just thirty seconds with a search engine will answer any question! 
Of course, the your wording leads me to think that you want Manhattan to move this to IMHO. Good luck. I think he’s a little tired of being an internet switchboard operator…
Love is a fiction created and perpetuated by the matriarchy for the purpose of oppressing males. It is ephemereal, transient, indefinable: in a word, the perfect excuse. For example: “You’re a great guy, but I just don’t LOVE you.”
No need to admit that you would never be caught dead with someone as ugly/poor/whatever as them, simply tell them that but for some indescribable something you’d go out with them. The perfect cop-out. No need to seem shallow by turning them down with a deriding “No way, fat boy” or “You’re joking, right?”, you can take the moral high-ground and support some superior ethic called “love”. The fact that this love doesn’t exist is a minor detail hidden in the recesses of one’s twisted, dark soul.
And, when one decides that someone that was once usefull no longer fulfills a required function, how easy it is to say “I’m sorry, but I don’t love you any more” and be free from guilt that the real reason is because they are unattractive or not wealthy or upper-class enough.
Big deep breath
Well, ok, I don’t really believe that. Not at all. But gosh darn it, sometimes I just gotta vent!
BK needs a hug. 
I like to think of love as a ‘force’.
The most powerful one in the universe, to be sure.
If you believe in the Christian God–or any similar variation thereof–you would even believe that the entire universe in itself was created out of love.
People share their lives with each other out of love.
An architect pursues his career path and designs new blueprints out of love.
Jesus let himself be nailed and slain on a cross for love.
And if you need an extreme example: Hitler’s love was in the form of a dream for a 1000 year long global empire.
Love can make you do stupid things, valiant things, evil things, good things, or weird things. And so forth.
Since it -can- do all of these different things–that’s why I like to think of it as a ‘force’ instead of a simple emotion.
Anyone agree? Disagree?
-Ashley (He passes a hug down to BlackKnight before sticking his post up!) “Hang in there!”
Ashtar–
I love your answer.
Love is also a choice to care for someone no matter what…
including a rebellious teen who fights everything you stand for, a parent who is aged and unable to care for themself, a hospice patient faced with death, and on and on!
I think in our culture, love tends to be about good feelings and having someone to meet OUR needs, which falls far short of the definition, IMHO.
What a GREAT QUESTION! I can’t really answer it, but have another to go along with it. How can it be the same emotion when we use the same word to describe the feeling between lovers, parents and children, siblings, and so forth?
PillEater:
It’s not the same emotion. This is one of those odd cases where English actually has a word without synonyms in English (whereas many English words, especially for emotions, have many partial synonyms that imply different shades of emotion: sad, depressed, morose, lamenting, grief-stricken…)
(Before anyone corrects me, yes, there are partial synonyms such as passion, but they really don’t imply different shades of love so much as a different emotion, IMO.)
But what we lump together as love, the ancient Greeks, at least, were able ot separate:
Eros was the love between lovers (and is also where we derive our word erotic).
Philia was the love between brothers (cf. Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love). I would posit that the love between brothers, between sisters, and between siblings of opposite gender are three different subsets of this feeling, but the ancient Greeks didn’t really care about women.
Agape was the love between friends. These are real friends I’m talking about, not just the people with whom you hang around the water-cooler
As far as I know, they didn’t have a specific word for the love between parents and children. I would suggest that while children are being raised, that love is a subset of philia, but a bit stronger; after we’re mature adults, I would think that many of us have an agape relationship with our parents.
Oh yeah, I forgot one… narcissia (I think that’s right), the love for oneself. Some people, notably the Greek mythical character Narcissus from whom they derived the word, and Dennis Rodman, take this a bit too far.
LL
I like Ashtar’s description of love as a force. I personally see love as a bonding of souls… imagine if each person is a candle. Love (Eros) is letting the wax of each candle pour into one another, mixing together and becoming inseperable.
It’s also the most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt in my life.
It’s also addictive. I find myself nicking more for Tazzy than for cigarettes…
Robert Heinlein defined love as that state of being where anothers happiness and well-being is essential to your own.
I like to think that qualifies well across the different types seen here?
Heck, I could be wrong.
Love is a Great Debate.
“Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy. It does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
To me, real love is a deep feeling in your soul that induces self-sacrifice; like an eagle would be nothing without flight, love becomes nothing without action.
Actually, you are thinking of charity. But, one man’s poor translation…
Yes, I am aware of the translational differences. I still think both are true, for what is charity but “love of humanity”? (www.webster.com)
You love somebody when you value their happiness and well-being more than you value your own.
Actually, jmullaney is literally correct in asserting that the biblical word is charity. If you look at the verses in context(see 1 Corinthians 13), the word means the type of love so strong, you are acting on it. Not sexually, as many feel the definition of love to be, but patience, kindness, et al, are outward displays of love. So, to be quite frank, to use the term “love” in this chapter is appropriate, but charity is a much better word. Looks like the KJV DOES have some advantages over modern translations, after all
Funny, I don’t recall saying he wasn’t correct…
“Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.” – the RCC.
A somewhat distinct meaning.
I’ve nothing against the RCC, but I don’t typically go to them for definitions. As far as I’m concerned (because love is action to me), the two meanings are pretty much interchangeable.
Seems to me you’re preaching to the choir. Anybody care to get back to the OP?