“When we give up something for someone we love, no matter how great the sacrifice, there can be no conditions. What we do, we do because we will it, free of implications of future payment, or debt, or guilt. Only in this way is sacrifice a healthy manifestation of love.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 119
“To continue to grow in love is a joyous and mystical journey, full of new insight, excitement and surprise. The eventual payoff, though it may not offer us all of the answers, is well worth the trip.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 118
“Find the person who will love you because of your differences and not in spite of them, and you have found a lover for life.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 94
“It’s not possible to feel loving or worthy of love at the same time that you feel resentful or angry–they are incompatible emotional states; you can feel one and then the other, but not both at once.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 49
“I’m convinced that we use resentment and anger to punish loved ones, not so much for their behavior as for the pain we feel from our reflections in the mirror of love. In other words, it’s what we take their behavior to mean about us that causes us distress, resentment, and anger.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 48
“It is far easier, it seems to me, to become a cynic than it is to work beyond disappointments and rise above wounds. We must be willing to trust again and expect better than we’ve received. True cynics who believe they have become experts at seeing through people have actually succumbed to a different kind of blindness. If we want love, it is better to look for the good in people, even if it means being somewhat of a cock-eyed optimist.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 81
“In the history of humankind, no one has ever felt more lovable by hurting someone he loves.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 41
“To love adequately, you have to tolerate feeling inadequate.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 40
“The more loving experiences we have, the more we have to bring with us when we focus on a deep, intimate relationship. The quality of love is not strained when it is shared; rather it is intensified and most assuredly improves with the experience.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 77
“Perhaps we would feel less frustrated if we could accept the fact that on this earth there is no perfect love, only human love. Then we could expend our energies appreciating and enhancing the love we have.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 75