A Citation Needed For a Quote About Love From Aquinas

Love is not only a word; it’s a feeling. Love encompasses an array of positive and powerful emotional states, from the strongest personal virtue, a unique quality of friendship, to the easiest common pleasure. Love is not a concept; it is the essence of human nature. For love to flourish, it must be well nurtured and nourished. Love is the state of total, profound joy that arises from our shared humanity.

When paired with a complementary partner, love brings forth beauty, ecstasy, and exhilaration. According to Confucianism, love is also a corresponding noun that denotes something beautiful or splendid. For instance, “a woman’s eye” is a synonym for “love” as it conveys the feeling that one’s eyes are truly the loveliest of all eyes.

In modern times, most Confucianisms take a “restraining” view on romantic love. Love does not necessarily require and demand legal constraints. While most of the Confucian classics feature a character overcoming his/her natural inhibitions in order to fall in love, there are no textual references to any forms of sexual restraint. The only reference to such restraint occurs in the form of the ancient Asian Confucian moral texts such as the Analects, where the princess invites her fairy to marry her and then binds her feet so that no one can step on her feet (thus binding her affection to her fairy), which, of course, foreshadows modern-day’s various forms of sexual restraint.

In terms of contemporary usage, however, when I talk about “love” I refer to a powerful desire that motivates humans to act and to perform, a powerful desire that transcends lust. Lust is strictly a human form of animal motivation; love, by contrast, is the desire that springs from human bonding. In the modern world, this bond is typically symbolized by marriage or romantic attachment. The idea of two people falling in love is almost universally regarded as a contemporary phenomenon. When I use the term “love,” however, what comes to mind is usually a more complex concept that involves both the development of an intense sexual desire and the development of a shared psychological bond.

It would be more appropriate, when referring to “love,” to speak of a human psychological bond that is rooted in interpersonal affection. This bonding is typically typified by a sense of deep friendship, a desire to share life, and a willingness to help others do the same. Such a bond is obviously closer than the platonic love that many individuals experience in their youth, but it is nevertheless very real.

As regards the classic citation needed for this article, Thomas Aquinas offers the following definition of love: “love is the greatest of all the virtues, because it liberates you from the bonds of death.” In light of Aquinas’ quote, one might suppose that love would only be displayed by humans who are immortal. Unfortunately, this is not the case. A wide range of non-human animals display emotional love. Thus, love is a highly valued attribute in a wide variety of animals, including birds, insects, and fish. This citation needs to be amended to state that love is not only a virtue, but a quality that human beings are entitled to enjoy as much as other animals.