Difference Between Love and Passion

Main Difference – Love vs Passion

Love and passion are two extremely powerful emotions. Although these two emotions overlap in some cases, there is generally a clear cut difference between love and passion. Passion refers to the sexual and romantic feeling. Love is strong affection we feel for someone close to us. When we talk about the love between a couple, passion is a part of the love. However, if we are talking about the love between a mother and a child, passion has no role in that relationship. Therefore, the main difference between love and passion is that love is deep affection whereas passion is the romantic or sexual love.

This article looks at,

1. What is Love – Meaning and Characteristics

2. What is Passion – Meaning and Characteristics

3. Difference Between Love and Passion

What is Passion

The term passion basically has two meanings. It can refer to a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something. It can also refer to a strong sexual or romantic feeling for someone. Passion is extremely strong and barely controllable. When compared with love, passion is associated with desire. However, passion (sexual or romantic love) may fade over time.

Passion can be a motivation for an occupation or a hobby as well. If someone has great enthusiasm and excitement towards some subject or field, that passion motivates him to pursue an occupation in that particular field.

What is Love

Love can refer to a wide range of emotions and feelings. Affection, caring, liking, and attachment are some of these feelings and emotions. Love is a strong emotion we feel towards a person who is close to our hearts.

Ancient Greeks categorized love into four types known as storge, phileo, eros and agape. Storge is the love we feel towards family and relations. Phileo is the warm, affectionate, platonic love. This is the kind of love we feel towards friends. Eros is the passionate love which is between lovers; this is characterized by desire and longing. Agape is pure and ideal love, as opposed to eros. As these categories suggest, this emotion does not only refer to passionate or romantic love. It can refer to love in different relationships; for example, the relationship between parents and children, the relationship between siblings, relationship between friends, and the relationship between husband and wife.

The love we feel towards a person differs according to the relationship we have with that person. Love we feel towards a sibling is different from the love we have for a lover. Love for a sibling is tinged with other emotions like friendship, warmth, kindness, affection, caring and protectiveness whereas love for a lover is tinged with emotions like desire, attraction, and affection.