Love 

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two." St. Augustine

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage, or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Excerpt from The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862

The Atlantic Monthly (also known as The Atlantic) is an American literary/cultural magazine founded in Boston in 1857.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atlantic_Monthly

The Ambrose Bierce Appreciation Society
http://www.biercephile.com/