We are often inclined to think that we have exhausted the various natural forms of love with a man's love for his wife, his children, his friends, and to a certain extent for his country. Yet precisely the most fundamental form of passion is missing from this list. . . . A universal love is possible; it is the only complete and final way on which we are able to love.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Field Notes on the Compassionate Life by Marc Ian Barasch