I've heard and believe the concept that love is an action verb, not just a feeling (analagous to Michele's assertion that love is a choice). I'm posting this quote by Harry Stack Sullivan (one of America's foremost non-Freudian psychiatrists) because it helps clarify, at least to me, the meaning of love and what is required of one who truly loves another. I've also given this to my sons to help them distinguish among lust, infatuation, and love.

When the satisfaction or security of another person becomes as significant to one as is one's own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists. So far as I know, under no other circumstances is a state of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the word. --Harry Stack Sullivan
Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.
C. S. Lewis