what is love?

What is love? For all that I have read every word that certain self-styled sages have written concerning its nature, for all that I have philosophized on it myself as I have grown older, I will never admit that it is either a trifle or a vanity of vanities. It is a kind of madness over which philosophy has no power; a sickness to which man is prone at every time of life and which is incurable if it strikes in old age. Inexpressible love! God of nature! Bitterness than which nothing is sweeter, sweetness than which nothing is more bitter! Divine monster which can only be defined by paradoxes!

-- Giacomo Casanova History of My Life
Translated by Willard R. Trask

on Giacomo Casanova