Henry Bergson

This being the case, there is nothing to prevent the philosopher from following to its logical conclusion the idea which mysticism suggests to him of a universe which is the mere visible and tangible aspect of love, and of the need of love, together with all the consequences entailed by this creative emotion: I mean the appearance of living creatures in which this emotion finds its complement; of an infinity of other beings without which they could not have appeared, and lastly of the unfathomable depths of material substance without which life would not have been possible.

Bertrand Russell

There are certain things that our age needs, and certain things that it should avoid. lt needs compassion and a wish that mankind should be happy; it needs the desire for knowledge and the determination to eschew pleasant myths; it needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness. The things that it must avoid, and that have brought it to the brink of catastrophe, are cruelty, envy, greed, competitiveness, search for irrational subjective certainty, and what Freudians call the death wish.

The root of the matter is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it, for fear of the derisive smile with which wise cynics will greet my words. The thing I mean - please forgive me for mentioning it -- is love, Christian love, or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty. If you feel this, you have all that anybody should need in the way of religion. Although you may not find happiness, you will never know the deep despair of those whose life is aimless and void of purpose; for there is always something that you can do to diminish the awful sum of human misery.

Albert Camus

He notes the following in his journal in June 1938: "Misère et grandeur de ce monde: il n'offre point de vérités mais des amours. L'Absurdité règne et l'amour en sauve"
English: "The misery and greatness of this world: it offers no truths, but only objects for love. Absurdity is king, but love saves us from it."

Terry Eagleton

This kind of activity is known as agapē, or love, and has nothing to do with erotic or even affectionate feelings. The command to love is purely impersonal: the prototype of it is loving strangers, not those you desire or admire. It is a practice or way of life, not a state of mind. It has no connection with warm glows or personal intimacies. Is love, then, the meaning of life? It has certainly been the favourite candidate of a number of astute observers, not least of artists. Love resembles happiness in that it seems to be a baseline term, an end in itself. Like happiness, it seems to be of our nature. It is hard to say why you should bother giving water to the thirsty, not least if you know that they will die anyway in a few minutes' time.

Jean Grondin

The great meaning of life is love, by which we live, which one gives and receives and which no doubt attests to a meaning that is greater than us. This meaning is immortal.