true love short essay

Essay on Love for Students and Children

500+ words essay on love.

Love is the most significant thing in human’s life. Each science and every single literature masterwork will tell you about it. Humans are also social animals. We lived for centuries with this way of life, we were depended on one another to tell us how our clothes fit us, how our body is whether healthy or emaciated. All these we get the honest opinions of those who love us, those who care for us and makes our happiness paramount.

What is Love?

Love is a set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs with strong feelings of affection. So, for example, a person might say he or she loves his or her dog, loves freedom, or loves God. The concept of love may become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way.

Love has a variety of feelings, emotions, and attitude. For someone love is more than just being interested physically in another one, rather it is an emotional attachment. We can say love is more of a feeling that a person feels for another person. Therefore, the basic meaning of love is to feel more than liking towards someone.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Need of Love

We know that the desire to love and care for others is a hard-wired and deep-hearted because the fulfillment of this wish increases the happiness level. Expressing love for others benefits not just the recipient of affection, but also the person who delivers it. The need to be loved can be considered as one of our most basic and fundamental needs.

One of the forms that this need can take is contact comfort. It is the desire to be held and touched. So there are many experiments showing that babies who are not having contact comfort, especially during the first six months, grow up to be psychologically damaged.

Significance of Love

Love is as critical for the mind and body of a human being as oxygen. Therefore, the more connected you are, the healthier you will be physically as well as emotionally. It is also true that the less love you have, the level of depression will be more in your life. So, we can say that love is probably the best antidepressant.

It is also a fact that the most depressed people don’t love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also become self-focused and hence making themselves less attractive to others.

Society and Love

It is a scientific fact that society functions better when there is a certain sense of community. Compassion and love are the glue for society. Hence without it, there is no feeling of togetherness for further evolution and progress. Love , compassion, trust and caring we can say that these are the building blocks of relationships and society.

Relationship and Love

A relationship is comprised of many things such as friendship , sexual attraction , intellectual compatibility, and finally love. Love is the binding element that keeps a relationship strong and solid. But how do you know if you are in love in true sense? Here are some symptoms that the emotion you are feeling is healthy, life-enhancing love.

Love is the Greatest Wealth in Life

Love is the greatest wealth in life because we buy things we love for our happiness. For example, we build our dream house and purchase a favorite car to attract love. Being loved in a remote environment is a better experience than been hated even in the most advanced environment.

Love or Money

Love should be given more importance than money as love is always everlasting. Money is important to live, but having a true companion you can always trust should come before that. If you love each other, you will both work hard to help each other live an amazing life together.

Love has been a vital reason we do most things in our life. Before we could know ourselves, we got showered by it from our close relatives like mothers , fathers , siblings, etc. Thus love is a unique gift for shaping us and our life. Therefore, we can say that love is a basic need of life. It plays a vital role in our life, society, and relation. It gives us energy and motivation in a difficult time. Finally, we can say that it is greater than any other thing in life.

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18 Of The Most Illuminating Literary Passages On Love, Life, And Romance By Beau Taplin

• https://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=484337

I can’t remember exactly when I first stumbled upon Beau Taplin’s writing. I suppose it was when I found myself in a used bookstore a few weeks ago with a copy of  Hunting Season in my hands. Then I remembered, later, a friend from Australia had told me some time ago when we were in Nicaragua that he was one of her favorites. Beau’s work largely exists online, on posts that get reblogged thousands of times and on his website – the only place you can buy copies of his books. Here are a select few of some of the most beautiful and illuminating passages from his work.

“ Listen to me, your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest—thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the under wood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated. ”

“ often, when we have a crush, when we lust for a person, we see only a small percentage of who they really are. the rest we make up for ourselves. rather than listen, or learn, we smother them in who we imagine them to be, what we desire for ourselves, we create little fantasies of people and let them grow in our hearts. and this is where the relationship fails. in time, the fiction we scribble onto a person falls away, the lies we tell ourselves unravel and soon the person standing in front of you is almost unrecognizable, you are now complete strangers in your own love. and what a terrible shame it is. my advice: pay attention to the small details of people, you will learn that the universe is far more spectacular an author than we could ever hope to be. ”, human beings are made of water–-, we were not designed to hold ourselves together, rather run freely like oceans like rivers, “ one day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. however, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find – is they are not always with whom we spend our lives. ”, “ home is not where you are from, it is where you belong. some of us travel the whole world to find it. others, find it in a person.”, “ it’s 4am and i can’t remember how your voice sounds anymore. ”, “ it’s strange how your childhood sort of feels like forever. then suddenly you’re sixteen and the world becomes an hourglass and you’re watching the sand pile up at the wrong end. and you’re thinking of how when you were just a kid, your heartbeat was like a kick drum at a rock show, and now it’s just a time bomb ticking out. and it’s sad. and you want to forget about dying. but mostly you just want to forget about saying goodbye. ”, “ there was never going to be an “us” because you wanted to be missed more than you wanted to be loved. ”, “ it is a frightening thought, that in one fraction of a moment you can fall in the kind of love that takes a lifetime to get over. ”, “ the one thing i know for sure is that feelings are rarely mutual, so when they are, drop everything, forget belongings and expectations, forget the games, the two days between texts, the hard to gets because this is it, this is what the entire world is after and you’ve stumbled upon it by chance, by accident – so take a deep breath, take a step forward, now run, collide like planets in the system of a dying sun, embrace each other with both arms and let all the rules, the opinions and common sense crash down around you. because this is love kid, and it’s all yours. believe me, you’re in for one hell of a ride, after all – this is the one thing i know for sure. ”, “ the single greatest thing about love, in my experience, is the way it is doomed to pain and loss from its onset. whether it is the spouse that outlives their lover, or loses them to another, there is no escaping that most solemn of inevitabilities. that two people can commit themselves to all this sadness and heartache in the name of such brief happiness, the warm touch of familiar skin, the unrivalled pleasantness in waking up beside the same person you spent the entire night with in your dreams, is all the proof i need that insanity exists, and it is fucking beautiful. ”, “ it’s you. it’s been you for as long as i can remember. everyone else has just been another failed attempt at perfecting the art of pretending you’re not. i miss you. ”, “ i want somebody with a sharp intellect and a heart from hell. somebody with eyes like starfire and a mouth with a kiss like a bottomless well. but mostly i just want someone who will love me. when i do not know how to love myself. ”, “ do not call me perfect, a lie is never a compliment. call me an erratic damaged and insecure mess. then tell me that you love me for it. ”, “ the hours between 12am and 6am have a funny habit of making you feel like you’re either on top of the world, or under it. ”, “ my heart beats in almosts. it’s constantly in pursuit of those whom it desires but the moment it comes too close, it stops, turns, and bolts in the other direction. i hold onto what makes me miserable and i let the good things go. i’m self destructive.” i said. “it’s the way i’ve always been.”

“and why do you think that is” 

“because it’s simpler to destroy something you love,” i said. 
“than it is to watch it leave. ”, “ i just want to be the person you miss at 3am. ”, “ she was unstoppable. not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them. ”, for more from koty follow her on facebook ..

About the author

Koty Neelis

Former senior staff writer and producer at Thought Catalog.

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Can One Really Define Love? Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

What is love? It seems to be as baffling as the question “What is the meaning of life?” Liking and attraction seem to be of lesser degree when compared to love yet attraction is also closely associated with friendship. These are three concepts that mean lot of things to different people.

When it comes to love, one will encounter countless lines that attempt to define it. We all have heard that love is blind. Love is what makes the world go round. Love is all there is. Novels, poems, short stories and songs, all kinds of literature have immortalized love. Why? Plato said it right: At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. Since the beginning of time, love has been there to propel people who fall in it to do crazy – or at least extraordinary things. Those who stumble into it go into a trance, seeing everything or everyone who stands against it as a threat to their happiness.

The dictionary says that love is the passionate devotion to another being but its essence must not be entirely confined to its lexical meaning. The New Testament alone exemplifies three types of love. The romantic, sexual love or eros , the love of friendship or phileo , and the unconditional love of the Divine or agape . While the first two may come easily for most people, agape does not because it is the unconditional love that is usually ascribed to the Divine. (Boyer, 1999).

Some hold that love is nothing but a physical response to another whom the agent feels physically attracted to. Physical determinists for example, consider love to be an extension of the chemical-biological constituents of the human creature and is explicable according to such processes. Others who consider love to be an aesthetic response hold that love is knowable through the emotional and conscious feeling that it provokes and it cannot be captured in rational or descriptive language but by metaphor or by music. The spiritualist vision of love incorporates mystical as well as traditional romantic notions of love, but rejects the behaviorist or physical determinist’s explanations. (Moseley, 2001).

Love may be defined in any way imaginable to man and may differ from one person to another. Hence, although each of us has his own way of looking at love, it can’t nevertheless be denied that love is universal and everyone, anywhere can feel it.

Levels of physical attractiveness can influence people in so many powerful ways. A person’s characteristics based on an individual’s perception of physical attractiveness can either add to one’s status or stigmatize them. Males and females have different cognitive schemas about the attractiveness of the opposite sex. This is because one’s gender determines the how the person will view their own attractiveness and how that person will view another one’s physical attractiveness.

There are several theories that apply to physical attraction and one of this is the reinforcement theory. This means that when a person is paired with a stimulus that elicits a positive effect or reward, the result is increased liking of that person. One can begin to like a physically attractive person because he is pleasing to look at which is your own personal reward. Meanwhile, the attractive person also gets the benefits of being attractive because once a positive reward is associated with an individual; your liking of them will increase.

There are actually three factors that influence attraction. One of this is proximity. It seems that people tend to like those that are closer to them By this we mean, of greater proximity rather than those far from them. This is because if people are close to each other, they often see each other. Perhaps because they are able to nurture relationships with each other. It is difficult for people to cultivate relationships when they are far apart. (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).

One other factor is physical attractiveness. According to Robert B Cialdini, an influential psychologist, physical attractiveness is an important component in degree of influence. He stipulates that physically attractive people have a huge social advantage in our culture. They are better liked, more persuasive, more frequently helped, and seen as possessing better personality traits and intellectual capabilities (Cialdini 1984). This is what some experts call the halo effect. This happens when positive characteristics of a person, spell the way a person is viewed by others (Henricks, Chris, et. al, 1998). There is the notion that people who are above average in physical attractiveness is also above average in other aspects as well.

Sometimes this can be a disadvantage too. The physically attractive people may think that things are being done for them just because they look good rather than their innate attributes. (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).The third factor in attraction is similarity. People who are similar in tastes and likes tend to attract each other. When they find that they have a lot of commonalities, they tend to go together. It is like the saying that says, “birds of the same feather, flock together.”

People are interested in establishing relationships with others who are similar to themselves. In this connection, if the goal of attraction is partnership, and apart of this partnership is sharing life with someone else, then it is wise to choose a partner with similar background and interests. The person who is similar with another one in terms of interests, then, there would be less problems since there is a meeting of minds. They will want to do the same activities and share the same hobbies as you do. (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).

One way to get someone to like you is to like them. This action is called a reciprocity norm. This means that whatever is done to you should be done in return. The value of indebtedness comes into play here. When someone does something for us, often we feel indebted to that person, so the action is often reciprocated. Many great thinkers today find that whatever good feelings you give to others will return back to you. In the context of the reciprocity norm, it means that the way to get someone to like us is to like them first. What you give will come back to you a hundredfold.

Sternberg has a theory of love, which involves 3 dimensions: passion, intimacy, and commitment. He suggests that the combination of these dimensions can be used to classify different types of love or mutually good feelings. So, Sternberg is suggesting that not all loving relationships are created equal. I might suggest that true love – the love that creates a special and precious relationship between two people – is one that would have all 3 of Sternberg’s dimensions (Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations).

Love in its many forms is a way of bringing joy into our lives, and we all treasure the moments of love that we know and have known. Loving is a way of giving, both to the person receiving and the one giving. Through loving, a person becomes closer to himself as he shares himself to another one and opens the way for sharing. The meaning of love is limitless because love is relative from person to person. How one would see it would be different from how another would. Love teaches us in different ways. It remains a mystery, a puzzle that must be left to work out on its own – or better yet, just left to retain its mystique.

Works Cited

Boyer, Janet. “What Is Love?” 1999. Web.

Moseley, Alex. “Philosophy of Love”. From The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2001. Web.

“Social Psychology, Interpersonal Relations,” 2008. Web.

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• Psychology: Happiness from a Personal Viewpoint
• Love as a Multi-Faceted Concept
• Learner Difference and Learner Needs
• Reciprocity in the Capitalist Workforce
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• Death and Grief in “Tuesdays with Morrie” and “Dakota 38”
• "What Makes People Happy" by Yolanda Yepes
• Empathy, Equality and Justice as Reflective Values
• "Using Art to Encourage Empathy" by E. Scarry
• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2021, September 29). Can One Really Define Love? https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-love/

"Can One Really Define Love?" IvyPanda , 29 Sept. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-love/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Can One Really Define Love'. 29 September.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Can One Really Define Love?" September 29, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-love/.

1. IvyPanda . "Can One Really Define Love?" September 29, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/what-is-love/.

Bibliography

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18 True Romantic Stories That Are More Heartwarming Than Any Rom-Com

Warning: You will need tissues. And maybe chocolate.

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Of course The Notebook , Titanic , and When Harry Met Sally all have a special place in our heart (and film queue). But you know what we adore even more than these classic rom-coms ? Tales of love that are actually real . In anticipation of Cupid's favorite holiday , we’ve rounded up the most touching and tear-jerking true romantic stories that are sweeter than anything you'll find in a Valentine's Day movie . So, while you're stressing about scoring the perfect gift for him , her, and everyone in between , let these tender accounts, stripped from actual headlines, remind you what February 14 is actually about...besides chocolate.

Bob Harvey and Annette Adkins

Bob Harvey first met Annette Adkins during study hall in 1955—and was immediately smitten. "I couldn’t take my eyes off her," Harvey told the New York Times . "She had auburn hair and a stunningly beautiful face and her eyes were just, wow." The two teens ended up going to prom together, but as many young relationships go, they lost touch after high school and married other people. Harvey never forgot about Adkins, though. In 2017, after his wife died, he searched for Adkins on Google and discovered she had also become widowed. He sent her a card with his phone number and after chatting for a bit, Harvey drove 500 miles to visit her, stopping only for gas and a bouquet of carnations. "I handed her the flowers, and then I cupped her face in my hand and said, 'Whether you like it or not, I’m going to kiss you,'" he recalled. In October, the high school sweethearts married at a '50s-style diner and danced to Johnny Mathis—just like they did at prom 63 years earlier.

Matthew Pomeroy and Natasha Lamb

Talk about an encore! On December 27, Matthew Pomeroy, who plays the title character in a British production of Aladdin , proposed to his girlfriend, Natasha Lamb, who plays Jasmine, just after taking their final bows. "For the last four years, you have changed my life," he told Lamb before pulling out a shining, shimmering, splendid ring. "I love you with all my heart. You're my best friend, and if you'd let me, I want to be your husband."

Elan Gale and Molly C. Quinn

What do you get when you cross an American actress with a former producer of ABC’s The Bachelor ? A made-for-TV marriage proposal. During a weekend getaway to Seattle, Elan Gale and his then-girlfriend of eight months, Molly C. Quinn, stopped by a jewelry store where she fell in love with a vintage emerald ring. "If you ever do propose to me, try to find something to kind of look like this," said Quinn. The next day, Gale returned to the store, bought the ring, and placed it in a box under their bed—for the next three years. "That’s where the ring has been hiding for the last 40 months," he recalled in an Instagram post . "Three feet away from where Molly sleeps every night." In December 2019, while on a ski trip in Japan, Gale finally popped the question.

Liz and Scott Shoesmith

Most wedding-planning checklists include picking a dress, finding a venue, and booking a photographer. Liz Shoesmith's also included learning how to sign the lyrics to one of her favorite songs. Instead of the traditional walk down the aisle, the Australian bride surprised her husband, who is deaf, by signing the words to Christina Perri's hit song, "A Thousand Years" as she walked towards him. "Every time I had practiced it leading up to the day I would make mistakes or go blank," she told Inside Edition . "But when I was left at the top of the aisle and locked eyes with Scott, I didn’t look away. It honestly felt like we were the only ones in the room."

Jessica Share and Aaron Long

More than a decade after using an anonymous sperm donor to start a family, Jessica Share met her daughter's biological father—and fell in love with him. In 2016, Share's daughter, Alice Mikell, asked her grandmother for a 23andMe kit to look into her genealogy. When the results came back eight weeks later, Aaron Long was listed as a 50 percent parental match. Mikell and Share connected with Long, and eventually, the two parents decided to meet. "When we met in person, the attraction seemed harder for either of us to deny," Long told Good Morning America . Share, though, had reservations: "This was not my relationship or my journey to jump into and mess up forever," she said in the same interview. Now, two and a half years later, Share, Long, and Mikell live together in Seattle, along with Long's 22-year-old daughter Madi, who he also had through sperm donation. "A few people have called us some sort of new Brady Bunch ," Share told People . "I think [Mikell] thinks it’s kind of funny that everybody thinks it’s a big deal."

Sunette Thompson and Lisa Wyatt

In July 2018, Sunette Thompson and her then fiancée, Lisa Wyatt, traveled to New Orleans for a few fun-filled days at Essence Festival. But unbeknownst to Wyatt, there was a much bigger event on that weekend's agenda: their wedding. On the morning of July 8, 2018—which was also the couple's 10th anniversary—Wyatt served Thompson breakfast in bed and told her to change into the tux hanging in the closet. Once Wyatt was dressed, she was blindfolded and taken down to the hotel's courtyard, where more than 100 of the couples' friends and families had gathered. "Needless to say, I was completely overwhelmed!" Wyatt told Essence Magazine . "As I surveyed the audience, I cried profusely…the ugly cry!"

K.T. Robbins and Jeannine Pierson

If there's a story that proves true love stands the test of time, it's this one. In 1944, 24-year-old K.T. Robbins met 18-year-old Jeanine Ganaye while he was stationed in Briely, France, and over the next three months, the two fell in love. But their courtship came to a crashing halt when Robbins was transferred to fight on the Eastern Front during World War II. After the war, Robbins went home to Memphis and got married to another woman. Back in France, Gayane, now Pierson, also moved on with her life. Fast forward to 2019 when Robbins returned to France for the 75th anniversary of D-Day and was interviewed by journalists from the television station France 2 about his World War II experience. The reporters helped Robbins track down Pierson, and the two long lost lovers, both 92, reunited in the French nursing home where Pierson lives. "I always loved you," Robbins told her as they embraced. "You never got out of my heart." After spending a couple of hours together, the two had to say goodbye—but they vowed to meet again soon.

Jillian Hanson and Max Allegretti

Two and a half years ago, Jillian Hanson was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. Knowing she would face a tough battle ahead, she offered her boyfriend, Max Allegretti, an "out" before things got too intense. But Allegretti didn't flinch, and instead stayed by her side during two years of aggressive treatment. "They tell you how sick you get during treatment, but no one can really prepare you for any of this," Hanson wrote in a personal essay . "He took care of me everyday and reminded me how beautiful I was." On her last day of chemo, Allegretti knew exactly how he wanted to celebrate: By asking Hanson to marry him. "I wasn't expecting it," she told Good Morning America . "That was the ultimate high—getting engaged brought great light to me after a really dark spot."

Lee Loechler and Sthuthi David

After a magical proposal, Lee Loechler and Sthuthi David are destined to live happily ever after. When Loechler took David to a packed theater to see her favorite movie, Sleeping Beauty, she thought it was just a typical date night—but it was actually a cinematic event six months in the making. Loechler, a filmmaker, had spent half a year altering the animation of the film's iconic kissing scene, changing both the characters (so they more closely represented the real-life couple) and the storyline (so it set up the big question). She said yes, and now the fairytale continues.

Camre and Steve Curto

When Camre Curto gave birth to her son, Gavin, she suffered a stroke and a seizure, which caused her to be placed in a medically induced coma. When she awoke, both her long-term and short-term memory were gone, and she did not know who she or her family was. A few months later, she still didn't remember her husband, Steve. "We were sitting on the couch and she told me, 'I don't who you are but I know I love you,'" he recalled to People . Those words inspired Steve to write a book—called But I Know I Love You —that would help Camre remember their 10-year love story, recounting everything from their very first date to their wedding to the birth of their son. It's working, and today, Camre knows and remembers Gavin and Steve.

Terry Farley and Steve Downey

More than three decades after they first dated, two high school sweethearts reconnected—thanks to LinkedIn. In the fall of 2012, Terry Farley—who had gotten divorced a couple years earlier—happened upon the profile of her first boyfriend, Steve Downey. She clicked on it, but was hesitant to message him. She told NPR , "I was not going to be the old girlfriend that popped out of nowhere and said 'Remember me?'" But a month later, when Downey was looking at his LinkedIn page, he noticed Farley's name in the section that tells you who has been looking at your profile. Downey wrote her a quick message, which turned into phone calls, which turned into an invitation to visit Farley at her home in Tallahassee, Florida. "I didn't see anything except my first love, my first crush," she told Today . "It felt like we were picking up where we left off." Eventually, Downey moved to Tallahassee, and in 2015, they tied the knot.

Tori Monaco and Berkley Cade

What are the chances of two people planning a proposal on the same day, at the same time, and without the other knowing? Probably pretty small—but that's precisely what happened for Tori Monaco and Berkley Cade.

In February 2018, the pair was playing a game of Pictionary at Cade's parents' house in Seattle, and as Cade tried to draw the phrase "Will you marry me?" on the board, Monaco got down on one knee and asked her that exact question. Stunned, Cade reached behind the couch and pulled out a ring box herself. The mastermind behind the simultaneous proposal? Cade's mom, Kristy, who separately suggested to both women that they propose during a game of Pictionary when they visited Washington.

Barbara and Robert Shackleford

This Christmas was Barbara Shackleford's first one without her high school sweetheart, Robert, who passed away in May after 59 years of marriage. But she still felt his warmth, thanks to a special surprise from her family: the love letters she and Robert exchanged in 1962 while in college. "She had no idea he kept the letters and it really brought back a lot of memories of her early years loving him," Shackleford's granddaughter told Today . "She said it was the best gift she could have asked for."

Anne and Bill Duncan

Anne and Bill Duncan are in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. But unlike most couples going through this new and exciting stage, the Duncans are married—and have been for 12 years. After living with dementia for nearly a decade, Bill started having trouble recognizing and remembering Anne. When he asked her to marry him (again), Anne said yes. Two days later, the happy couple celebrated their second wedding surrounded by friends and family. "It was wonderful," Anne posted on Facebook. "And what's even more amazing is two weeks later, Bill still thinks he's just married his new girlfriend and it makes him very happy."

Dominic Spence and Nick Gilyard

Need proof that true love is worth the wait? Dominic Spence and Nick Gilyard met while they were teenagers in high school, but lost touch when they headed in different directions for college: Spence attended the University of Central Florida in Orlando, while Gilyard went to college in Kentucky. They reconnected, though, when Gilyard helped a friend move into her dorm in Orlando and asked Dominic to dinner. "That night we talked for 4 hours and shut down the restaurant," Gilyard said in an Instagram post . They started dating long-distance—for the next seven years. In 2015, Spence and Gilyard got engaged during a trip to London and nearly two years later, they were married. "Dominic and I feel lucky to have found love at such a young age. However, falling in love with another black man was scary in ways neither of us could have ever imagined. It forced us to face the very real resistance from society for being not only homosexuals but black men as well," Gilyard said in the same Instagram post. "We hope to encourage other black and brown men and boys everywhere to be true to who they are. And when they find love in each other's eyes, to know that their love is just as strong and beautiful as anyone else's."

Brad Davis and Jodi Stanowick

As a young girl, Ana Stanowick's mom, Jodi, would often bring home a new coffee mug to add to her collection—despite her then-husband's angry protests. When the couple divorced five years ago, Jodi and her massive collection were ready to find a new man. Enter Brad Davis, who pulled off the ultimate public display of affection when he built Jodi a custom, ceiling-high shelf for her beloved coffee cups, just before moving in together. "I wanted to do this for Jodi so that she could enjoy all of the mugs every day instead of just drinking out of one each day," Davis told Today . We'll raise a glass mug to that!

Sidd Sinha and Melanie Diaz

Wedding proposal in aisle three! Last year, Sidd Sinha proposed to his girlfriend, Melanie Diaz at the Trader Joe's in New York City's Upper West Side. Sinha concocted the elaborate plan, which included a made-up "millennial grocery tour" featuring special signs that were symbolic of their relationship. "She's made it perfectly clear that Trader Joe's is her favorite grocery store, so I knew if I went that route I had to do it there," Sinha told Good Morning America . The final stop on the tour? The sample station, where an employee was passing out chocolate-covered almonds. Inside Diaz's cup, though, was an engagement ring. A dream come true, indeed!

Judy and Will Webb

Judy and Will Webb were together until the very end— really . The couple, who spent almost every day together during their 56 years of marriage, died just hours apart on March 6, while—wait for it—holding hands.

For more ways to live your best life plus all things Oprah, sign up for our newsletter!

Melissa is a former editor at Oprah Daily. 

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Essays About Love: 20 Intriguing Ideas for Students

Love can make a fascinating essay topic, but sometimes finding the perfect topic idea is challenging. Here are 20 of the best essays about love.

Writers have often explored the subject of love and what it means throughout history. In his book Essays in Love , Alain de Botton creates an in-depth essay on what love looks like, exploring a fictional couple’s relationship while highlighting many facts about love. This book shows how much there is to say about love as it beautifully merges non-fiction with fiction work.

The New York Times  published an entire column dedicated to essays on modern love, and many prize-winning reporters often contribute to the collection. With so many published works available, the subject of love has much to be explored.

If you are going to write an essay about love and its effects, you will need a winning topic idea. Here are the top 20 topic ideas for essays about love. These topics will give you plenty to think about and explore as you take a stab at the subject that has stumped philosophers, writers, and poets since the dawn of time.

For help with your essays, check out our round-up of the best essay checkers .

1. Outline the Definition of Love

2. describe your favorite love story, 3. what true love looks like, 4. discuss how human beings are hard-wired for love, 5. explore the different types of love, 6. determine the true meaning of love, 7. discuss the power of love, 8. do soul mates exist, 9. determine if all relationships should experience a break-up, 10. does love at first sight exist, 11. explore love between parents and children, 12. discuss the disadvantages of love, 13. ask if love is blind, 14. discuss the chemical changes that love causes, 15. outline the ethics of love, 16. the inevitability of heartbreak, 17. the role of love in a particular genre of literature, 18. is love freeing or oppressing, 19. does love make people do foolish things, 20. explore the theme of love from your favorite book or movie.

Defining love may not be as easy as you think. While it seems simple, love is an abstract concept with multiple potential meanings. Exploring these meanings and then creating your own definition of love can make an engaging essay topic.

To do this, first, consider the various conventional definitions of love. Then, compare and contrast them until you come up with your own definition of love.

One essay about love you could tackle is describing and analyzing a favorite love story. This story could be from a fiction tale or real life. It could even be your love story.

As you analyze and explain the love story, talk about the highs and lows of love. Showcase the hard and great parts of this love story, then end the essay by talking about what real love looks like (outside the flowers and chocolates).

This essay will explore what true love looks like. With this essay idea, you could contrast true love with the romantic love often shown in movies. This contrast would help the reader see how true love looks in real life.

An essay about what true love looks like could allow you to explore this kind of love in many different facets. It would allow you to discuss whether or not someone is, in fact, in true love. You could demonstrate why saying “I love you” is not enough through the essay.

There seems to be something ingrained in human nature to seek love. This fact could make an interesting essay on love and its meaning, allowing you to explore why this might be and how it plays out in human relationships.

Because humans seem to gravitate toward committed relationships, you could argue that we are hard-wired for love. But, again, this is an essay option that has room for growth as you develop your thoughts.

There are many different types of love. For example, while you can have romantic love between a couple, you may also have family love among family members and love between friends. Each of these types of love has a different expression, which could lend itself well to an interesting essay topic.

Writing an essay that compares and contrasts the different types of love would allow you to delve more deeply into the concept of love and what makes up a loving relationship.

What does love mean? This question is not as easy to answer as you might think. However, this essay topic could give you quite a bit of room to develop your ideas about love.

While exploring this essay topic, you may discover that love means different things to different people. For some, love is about how someone makes another person feel. To others, it is about actions performed. By exploring this in an essay, you can attempt to define love for your readers.

What can love make people do? This question could lend itself well to an essay topic. The power of love is quite intense, and it can make people do things they never thought they could or would do.

With this love essay, you could look at historical examples of love, fiction stories about love relationships, or your own life story and what love had the power to do. Then, at the end of your essay, you can determine how powerful love is.

The idea of a soul mate is someone who you are destined to be with and love above all others. This essay topic would allow you to explore whether or not each individual has a soul mate.

If you determine that they do, you could further discuss how you would identify that soul mate. How can you tell when you have found “the one” right for you? Expanding on this idea could create a very interesting and unique essay.

Break-ups seem inevitable, and strong relationships often come back together afterward. Yet are break-ups truly inevitable? Or are they necessary to create a strong bond? This idea could turn into a fascinating essay topic if you look at both sides of the argument.

On the one hand, you could argue that the break-up experience shows you whether or not your relationship can weather difficult times. On the other hand, you could argue that breaking up damages the trust you’re working to build. Regardless of your conclusion, you can build a solid essay off of this topic idea.

Love, at first sight is a common theme in romance stories, but is it possible? Explore this idea in your essay. You will likely find that love, at first sight, is nothing more than infatuation, not genuine love.

Yet you may discover that sometimes, love, at first sight, does happen. So, determine in your essay how you can differentiate between love and infatuation if it happens to you. Then, conclude with your take on love at first sight and if you think it is possible.

The love between a parent and child is much different than the love between a pair of lovers. This type of love is one-sided, with care and self-sacrifice on the parent’s side. However, the child’s love is often unconditional.

Exploring this dynamic, especially when contrasting parental love with romantic love, provides a compelling essay topic. You would have the opportunity to define this type of love and explore what it looks like in day-to-day life.

Most people want to fall in love and enjoy a loving relationship, but does love have a downside? In an essay, you can explore the disadvantages of love and show how even one of life’s greatest gifts is not without its challenges.

This essay would require you to dig deep and find the potential downsides of love. However, if you give it a little thought, you should be able to discuss several. Finally, end the essay by telling the reader whether or not love is worth it despite the many challenges.

Love is blind is a popular phrase that indicates love allows someone not to see another person’s faults. But is love blind, or is it simply a metaphor that indicates the ability to overlook issues when love is at the helm.

If you think more deeply about this quote, you will probably determine that love is not blind. Rather, love for someone can overshadow their character flaws and shortcomings. When love is strong, these things fall by the wayside. Discuss this in your essay, and draw your own conclusion to decide if love is blind.

When someone falls in love, their body feels specific hormonal and chemical changes. These changes make it easier to want to spend time with the person. Yet they can be fascinating to study, and you could ask whether or not love is just chemical reactions or something more.

Grab a science book or two and see if you can explore these physiological changes from love. From the additional sweating to the flushing of the face, you will find quite a few chemical changes that happen when someone is in love.

Love feels like a positive emotion that does not have many ethical concerns, but this is not true. Several ethical questions come from the world of love. Exploring these would make for an interesting and thoughtful essay.

For example, you could discuss if it is ethically acceptable to love an object or even oneself or love other people. You could discuss if it is appropriate to enter into a physical relationship if there is no love present or if love needs to come first. There are many questions to explore with this love essay.

If you choose to love someone, is heartbreak inevitable? This question could create a lengthy essay. However, some would argue that it is because either your object of affection will eventually leave you through a break-up or death.

Yet do these actions have to cause heartbreak, or are they simply part of the process? Again, this question lends itself well to an essay because it has many aspects and opinions to explore.

Literature is full of stories of love. You could choose a genre, like mythology or science fiction, and explore the role of love in that particular genre. With this essay topic, you may find many instances where love is a vital central theme of the work.

Keep in mind that in some genres, like myths, love becomes a driving force in the plot, while in others, like historical fiction, it may simply be a background part of the story. Therefore, the type of literature you choose for this essay would significantly impact the way your essay develops.

Most people want to fall in love, but is love freeing or oppressing? The answer may depend on who your loved ones are. Love should free individuals to authentically be who they are, not tie them into something they are not.

Yet there is a side of love that can be viewed as oppressive, deepening on your viewpoint. For example, you should stay committed to just that individual when you are in a committed relationship with someone else. Is this freeing or oppressive? Gather opinions through research and compare the answers for a compelling essay.

You can easily find stories of people that did foolish things for love. These stories could translate into interesting and engaging essays. You could conclude the answer to whether or not love makes people do foolish things.

Your answer will depend on your research, but chances are you will find that, yes, love makes people foolish at times. Then you could use your essay to discuss whether or not it is still reasonable to think that falling in love is a good thing, although it makes people act foolishly at times.

Most fiction works have love in them in some way. This may not be romantic love, but you will likely find characters who love something or someone.

Use that fact to create an essay. Pick your favorite story, either through film or written works, and explore what love looks like in that work. Discuss the character development, storyline, and themes and show how love is used to create compelling storylines.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

True Love: 7 Must-Read Memoirs About Love

Books Community

Everybody likes a good love story and it's even better when they’re true. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we’re taking you through the best memoirs about love. In recounting how they made it to bliss, these comedians, book editors and journalists tackle it all: finding love, rejecting love, keeping love and sometimes losing it. Whether you’re looking for it, hiding from it, or already have it in spades, these books about love are sure to warm your heart.

• Romance Is My Day Job by Patience Bloom

As a seasoned editor at Harlequin, Patience Bloom knows romance. But, when Romance Is My Day Job opens, her own love life is decidedly lacking in the passion and glamour that she reads about day in and day out. Then one day, an old flame sends her a Facebook message, and everything changes. This memoir is a heartwarming and plucky look at how real-life romance unfolds, and how even the “experts” among us sometimes struggle to find love.

• Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

We’ve written a lot about Rob Sheffield’s latest memoir , Turn Around Bright Eyes , which tells the story of how he fell in love with his second wife. But, to best appreciate that journey, you have to start at the beginning. In Love Is a Mix Tape , Sheffield chronicles his first love and the utter heartbreak of losing his first wife, through track listings that evoke the nostalgic days of making mix tapes (and then mix CDs) for your crush.

• Screw Everyone by Ophira Eisenberg

In her no-nonsense, wisecracking way, comedian Ophira Eisenberg recounts all of the relationships that led this skeptic to actually dive into getting married. Almost anthropological in her methods, Eisenberg recounts her childhood perceptions of marriage, her first experimentations as a teenager and twentysomething, and the good and bad relationships she kept returning to over the years. But the best is when she meets her husband, and especially the chapter about their wedding day. This is a great read for any stalwartly single friend who scoffs at monogamy.

• I Don't Care About Your Band by Julie Klausner

The real heartbreakers aren’t the obvious players, they’re the “sensitive” types who seem like they’d treat you right—just ask Julie Klausner . In this bitingly funny memoir, Klausner recounts a long history of romantic failures and writes a taxonomy of the men she’s unsuccessfully dated. Written on the heels of a wildly popular Modern Love column in the New York Times about being snubbed by an indie-rocker, I Don’t Care About Your Band is Klausner’s cynical treatise on dating jerks in your 20s.

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Modern Love

25 Modern Love Essays to Read if You Want to Laugh, Cringe and Cry

The popular column, which began in 2004, has become a podcast, a book and an Amazon Prime streaming series. Here are some of its greatest hits.

By Daniel Jones

Whether you’re new to Modern Love or a longtime fan, we think you’ll enjoy this collection of some of our most memorable essays. You’ll find some of our most read and most shared of all time, and others that really got readers talking (and tweeting, and sharing). We present, in no particular order, the quirky, the profound, the head scratching and the heartbreaking. (A handful of these essays and dozens more of our most memorable columns can also be found in the Modern Love anthology .)

To keep up on all things Modern Love — our weekly essays, podcast episodes and batches of Tiny Love Stories, along with other relationship-based reads from The Times — sign up for Love Letter , a weekly email. And check out the “Modern Love” television series , based on this column, on Amazon Prime Video.

1. No Sound, No Fury, No Marriage

By Laura Pritchett

After her peaceful marriage quietly dissolves, a woman comes to appreciate the vitality of conflict and confrontation.

2. Sometimes, It’s Not You, or the Math

By Sara Eckel

He didn’t care that I was 39 and hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in eight years.

3. Am I Gay or Straight? Maybe This Fun Quiz Will Tell Me

By Katie Heaney

A young woman seeks answers to her sexual orientation online, where the endless quizzes she takes deliver whatever label she wants.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Romeo and Juliet — Romeo and Juliet: An Example Of ‘True’ Love

Romeo and Juliet: an Example of 'True' Love

• Categories: Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare

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Published: Apr 29, 2022

Words: 613 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Works Cited:

• American Academy of Pediatrics. (2021). About the AAP. Retrieved from https://www.aap.org/en-us/Pages/About-the-AAP.aspx
• Baker, J. (2019). Becoming a pediatrician. Pediatrics, 143(5), e20191002.
• Bhuiyan, M. U., Begum, M. A., & Khanam, N. (2017). A career in pediatrics: Personal motives and future aspirations of medical students. Journal of Pediatric and Neonatal Individualized Medicine, 6(1), e060126.
• Children's Hospital Association. (2021). Pediatrician career. Retrieved from https://www.childrenshospitals.org/About-Childrens-Hospitals/Careers-in-Childrens-Hospitals/Careers/Pediatrician
• Cohen, S. M., & Berman, D. M. (2015). Career paths and perceptions of pediatric residency graduates who have completed combined residency programs. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 7(4), 592-598.
• Duderstadt, K. G., Gorrin-Rivas, M. J., & Evans, D. V. (2015). Preparation for a career in pediatrics: Current students and their mentors. Academic Pediatrics, 15(3), 233-238.
• Freed, G. L. (2018). The future of pediatrics: The work force. Pediatrics, 141(Supplement 3), S250-S254.
• National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. (2021). What is a pediatric nurse practitioner? Retrieved from https://www.napnap.org/about-napnap/what-pediatric-nurse-practitioner
• Raphael, J. L., Kim, E. J., & Joyner, B. L. (2019). Predictors of interest in pediatric careers among graduating US medical students. Pediatrics, 144(5), e20191017.
• World Health Organization. (2021). Child and adolescent health.

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Definition Essay: Love

Love is something that means very different things to different people. For some, love can be purely romantic, or even purely sexual. For others, real love is utterly unconditional and only truly exists between family members, or between people and a deity. And for some people, love is fluid, ever changing, and everywhere, and is felt for family, friends, partners, pets, and even inanimate objects, dead artists, and fictional characters. None of these people would be right or wrong, but one thing is certain: love is the most powerful force in the entire universe.

Between partners of any description, be they married or cohabiting, boyfriend and girlfriend, straight or gay, young or old, love is a relationship of mutual understanding and respect. Marriages and partnerships are often built on common ground that people find when they first meet; this can be as deep as sharing religious, philosophical or religious beliefs, or as simple as finding that you love the same film, book, or band.

This kind of love is often reliant on some kind of ‘chemistry’: that strange feeling that they give you in the pit of your stomach, and the feeling that nothing in the world is more important to you than enjoying the moment you’re in together. Some people feel that they experience love at first sight, where they know from the minute they set eyes on each other that they want to to be with that person, but something built on common interests and understanding must be stronger.

A parent’s love for a child can also often be described as love at first sight, but this is very strong because it comes from a natural instinct to protect our offspring. This love can often start before the baby is even born: you only have to look at the pride and excitement of many parents-to-be when they have their scans and feel their baby kick for the very first time. This kind of love is also felt by a child for its mother; it is unconditional for at least the first few years of life, and can also be felt between siblings.

It is the strength of this feeling that makes love the most powerful emotion that most of us will ever experience. People can do some dreadful things out of hate and fear, but love can push us to do much, much worse. And it is often love that can cause us to hate, whether it’s out of jealousy, or anger because our loved one has been hurt. Love, ultimately, is a sacrifice, whatever the relationship, and it must be the most powerful force in the universe because as human beings, we make true sacrifices for nothing less.

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19 pages • 38 minutes read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Summary and Study Guide

“True Love” by Robert Penn Warren first appeared in his collection entitled Altitudes and Extensions: 1980-1984 , which comprises the new poems in New and Selected Poems: 1923-1985 . Altitudes and Extensions was the last collection of poetry Warren published during his life. It contains many reflections on the past, the working of time, and the inevitability of death. This poem recounts the memory of a childhood or adolescent infatuation, which includes some narrative of the life of the young woman (never named) who is the object of this infatuation.

Warren’s later poetry defies easy categorization. While by this stage he has moved on from the High Modernist and highly formalistic verse that marked his early poetic career, his work nevertheless stands apart from the various schools and movements that characterize the Postmodern poetry of the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, this later poetry is contemporary in form as well as content.

“True Love,” as its title suggests, is a love poem, and for that utilizes some expected conventions of love poetry, such as the hyperbolic praise of the object of the love and the self-abasement of the loving poet. However, this poem also relates the struggle that erupts in the mind and heart of the lover-poet because romantic love exists in a real world: an imperfect world filled with imperfect people. The poem is thus a bittersweet homage to the powers of love and memory as well as a sober reminder of the harsh realities of life.

Poet Biography

Robert Penn Warren was born in 1905 in Guthrie, Kentucky. At age 16 he entered Vanderbilt University where he became a student of the accomplished poet and critic John Crowe Ransom. With Ransom and others at Vanderbilt, such as Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Andrew Lytle, Warren became associated with the Fugitives, a group of writers sometimes credited with initiating a renaissance of Southern literature. Together they published a short-lived (1922-1925) but influential literary journal, The Fugitive . Warren and some of these writers were of the 12, known as the Southern Agrarians, who published a collection of essays titled I’ll Take My Stand (1930). These essays advocate for the South to continue its Agrarian traditions in resisting the encroachment of Northern industrialism. Warren’s contribution to the volume, “The Briar Patch,” deals with the issue of race and defends the policy of separate but equal in race relations. Warren later repudiated the argument.

Warren went on to graduate studies at the University of California, Yale University, and New College at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He maintained an active academic career, serving at Southwestern College, Louisiana State University, the University of Minnesota, and Yale University. While at LSU, with Cleanth Brooks and Charles W. Pipkin he cofounded The Southern Review , a prestigious literary journal to this day. Brooks and Warren collaborated on three influential textbooks: Understanding Poetry (1938), Understanding Fiction (1943), and Modern Rhetoric (1949). These first two established Warren as an advocate for New Criticism, a critical approach that emphasizes meticulous reading of the text itself and puts little regard on biographical or historical context .

Despite these accomplishments, Warren is best known as a novelist and poet. During his lifetime, he published 17 volumes of poetry and 10 novels; his collected poems (edited by John Burt) were published posthumously in 1998. His third novel, All the King’s Men (1946) won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction; its film adaptation (1949) won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Two of his poetry collections, Promises: Poems 1954-1956 (1957) and Now and Then: Poems 1976-1978 won Pulitzer Prizes for that category. In addition to poetry and fiction, Warren published three biographies, three children’s books, two studies of race relations, a study of Theodore Dreiser, a study of the American Civil War, a collection of short stories, and a collection of essays.

Along with his Pulitzer Prizes, Warren won many other accolades, which are too numerous to detail here. Of note, however, are the following: Library of Congress Chair of Poetry (1944-1945), the Bollingen Prize for Poetry (1967), the Third Annual Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (1974), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1980), the MacArthur Prize Fellowship (1981), and he was named the first Poet Laureate of the United States (1986). He died in 1989.

Warren, Robert Penn. “ True Love .” 1985. Academy of American Poets .

The heart “utters words meaningless” (Lines 1-2). The speaker harkens back to an earlier age to describe himself at the age of 10 as “skinny, red-headed, // Freckled” (Lines 3-4). This 10-year-old boy is watching a young woman sitting in a car parked in front of the drugstore; she is drinking from a straw. She is accompanied by a young man who wears a necktie and drives a car. Her beauty “stops [the speaker’s] heart” (Line 8). The boy continues to gaze at the young woman but hopes that she won’t notice him. He marvels at her beauty as compared to himself: “How could I exist in the same world with that brightness?” (Line 13).

The speaker provides observations about the young woman’s family life. He first reveals that her bothers are ne’er-do-wells, saying, “Her grown brothers walked with the bent-knee / Swagger of horsemen. They were slick-faced. / Told jokes in the barbershop. Did no work” (Lines 16-18). Her father has an alcohol use disorder and has isolated himself “on the third floor / Of the big white farmhouse under the maples for twenty-five years” (Lines 20-21). Her mother is religious, “a good, Christian woman, [who] prayed” (Line 24).

The young woman eventually gets married. The father attends “wearing / An old tail coat, the pleated shirt yellowing” (Lines 25-26). The boy, feeling as if he might cry, witnesses the elegant ceremony, saying, “I saw the wedding. There were / Engraved invitations, it was so fashionable” (Lines 27-28). His thoughts then fall upon the young woman on her wedding night, contemplating on what her reaction would be to her presumably first sexual encounter: “I lay in bed that night / And wondered if she would cry when something was done to her” (Lines 29-30).

After the wedding, the young woman does not return home, and her family “[s]ort of drift[s] off” (Line 33) after their home is repossessed. In the final lines of the poem, the speaker is confident that the young woman has nevertheless come to live in comfort: “But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives / In a beautiful house, far away” (Lines 34-35). Then, the speaker ends with a final expression of wonder and awe for the young woman, saying, “She called my name once. I didn’t even know she knew it” (Line 36).

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