Love does not seek a cause or a fruit outside of itself. Its fruit is its action. I love because I love; I love to love. Great is love; however, if it returns to its beginning, if it is returned to its origin, poured back into its source, it still draws from the source from which it can ceaselessly flow. Of all the movements, thoughts, and feelings of the soul, love is the only thing by which a creature, albeit unevenly, can respond to the Creator or repay in a similar manner. (...) Even if a creature loves less because it is lesser, yet, if it loves with its whole being, nothing is lacking where it is whole.
(St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon on the Song of Songs, Sermo 83,4.6)
