defining the four letter word

"this is love ... when you think of your past love, you may view it as a failure. but when you find a new love, you view the past as a teacher. in the game of love, it doesn't really matter who won or last. what is important is you know when to hold on and when to let go. you know you really love someone when you want him/her to be happy, even if their happiness means that you're not part of it. everything happens for the best. if the person you love doesn't love you, don't be afraid to love someone else again for you'll never know unless you give it a try. you'll never learn to love a person unless you risk for love.

love strives and hurt you. if you don't get hurt, you don't learn how to love. love doesn't hurt all the time. though the hurting is still there to test you, helping you grow.

don't find love, let love find you. that's why it's called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall -- you just fall.

you cannot finish a book without closing its chapters. if you want to go on, then you have to leave the past as you turn the pages.

love is not destroyed by a single failure or won by a single caress. it is a lifetime venture in which we are always learning, discovering and growing. the greatest irony of love is letting go when you need to hold on and holding on when you need to let go. we lose someone we love only when we are destined to find someone else who can love us even more than we can love ourselves.

on falling out of love, take some time to heal and then go back to the horse. but don't ever make the mistake of riding the same one that threw you the first time.

to love is to risk rejection, to live is to risk dying. to hope is to risk failure, to reach for another is to risk involvement. to expose your feelings is to expose your true self and to love is to risk not to be loved in return. but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

how to define love: fall but do not stumble, be constant but not too persistent, share but never be unfair, understand and try not to demand, hurt but never keep the pain.

love is like a knife. it can stab the heart or it can carve wonderful images into the soul that always last for a lifetime.

love is supposed to be the most wonderful feeling. it should inspire you and give you joy and strength. but sometimes the things that give you joy also hurt you in the end.

loving people means giving them the freedom to choose who they want to be and where they choose to be. for all the heartaches and tears, for the gloomy days and fruitless years, you should give thanks for knowing that there were things that helped you grow. loving someone means giving him the freedom to find his way, whether it leads towards you or away from you.

love is a painful risk to take but the risk must be taken no matter what, how scary or painful, for only then you'll experience the fullness of humanity and that is love. only love can hurt your heart. fill you with desire and tear you apart. only love can make you cry and only love knows why. if you're not ready to cry, if you're not ready to take the risk, if you're not ready to feel the pain, then you're not ready to fall in love. there was a time in our lives when we become afraid to fall in love, cause every time we do, we get hurt and it takes time to mend the heart. when you decide to fall, allow it to grow and when you promised to love, never let it die.

you know, i am once confused about love, but then after some time, i realized the real meaning of love and now i can say that it is really a very mysterious thing. you see, if you find yourself in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle to yourself. there is nothing wrong with you; love just didn't choose to rest in the other person's heart. if you find someone else in love with you and you don't love him/her, feel honored that love came and called at your door, but gently refuse the gift you cannot return. do not take advantage, do not cause the pain. how you deal with love is how you deal with another, and if someone falls in love with you, then love chooses to leave, do not try to reclaim or assess blame, let it go. there is a reason and there is a meaning. you'll know in time.

you cannot choose love, but love chooses you. all you can do is accept it for all its mysteries when it comes into your life. feel the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away, give it back to the person who brought it alive in you. give it to the world around you in anyway you can. that is where many lovers go wrong. being mean so long without love, they understand only love as need. they see their hearts as empty places that will be filled by love and the begin to look at love as something that flows to them rather than from them. the first blush of new love is filled to overflowing, but as their love cools, they revert to seeing their love as a need. they cease to be someone who generates love and instead become someone who seeks love. they forgot that the secret of love is that it is a gift and that it can be made to grow only by giving it away.

remember this and keep it in your heart. love has its own time, its own seasons and its own reason for coming and going. you cannot bribe it neither coerce it nor reason it into staying. you can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you. but if it chooses to leave from your heart or from your lover's heart, there is nothing you can do and there is nothing you should do. love always has been always will be a mystery. be glad it came to live for a moment in your life."

-- author unkown