Dumbledore's Love

[johnbowman19]

No: HPFGUIDX 147651

Hello all
It has been some time since my last post, so the appropriate 
apologies need to be made if this topic has been discussed recently 
because I am not in the mood to battle Yahoomort: I am sorry if this 
has been discussed into oblivion, but if someone can point me in the 
right direction of posts on the subject, I would be eternally 
grateful. I have been rereading the HPB sections at a time so as to 
give me time to think about each part I chose to read individually, 
and my latest section (or chapter) was "Lord Voldemort's Request". 
We all know what happens in this chapter so I will skip to my 
question to save time. What did Voldemort mean by (paraphrasing)"

Your famous pronouncement that love is greater than my flavor of 
magic
"?
When I read this I took it literally meaning that somehow Dumbledore 
announced to the whole wizarding world that love was indeed a magic 
that could conquer all other forms of magic. I imagined him getting 
on the wizarding wireless network after his grand defeat of the Dark 
wizard Grindelwald to discuss his battle and making such a 
statement. So then my question becomes what did you all think of 
this statement?
Is there a great academy that the wizard scholars who study the very 
fabric of magic go to and discuss the nature of magic? How else 
could Dumbledore make such a famous pronouncement? Indeed if it is a 
pronouncement, it would mean Dumbledore is a in a position of power 
to ascertain the greatest of all magics, otherwise it would merely 
be a statement and not a pronouncement. Clearly Dumbledore must have 
extensively studied the 31 different flavors of magic ( a la Baskin-
Robins) to know which is best, so he must have gained said knowledge 
outside of Hogwarts because we know from the books that some flavors 
are just taboo. This must be a hint about his life before he came 
back to Hogwarts meaning he traveled just as extensively if not more 
so than Voldemort. 
And wondering about the life of Dumbledore has led me to another 
question of his character: How does Dumbledore know what love is? JK 
has already told us that he was burdened with always being the one 
with the answers. He never had an equal. He was forced to sit on his 
mountaintop of knowledge and help others ascend its cliffs. From 
this, I would argue that Dumbledore never knew true love because to 
have true love he would have had to find his equal. I know there are 
many different types of love, and he could certainly feel the love 
of a king over his subjects, but could he ever know the love that 
wills one to bind oneself to another for life? I would opine he did 
not because he never found an equal worth binding oneself to unless 
it was Fawkes (which would just lead to the absurd subject of 
animal/wizard marriages). And if his idea of love did not include 
the love a man for a woman could his whole idea of love be lacking, 
thus making his pronouncement hallow? Meaning Harry's greatest power 
would come up wanting in the final confrontation with Voldemort 
because Dumbledore misunderstood love.
 
John (who hopes for a series written about Dumbledore)