When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.
— C. S. Lewis, Letters, 8 November 1952
What if someone asked, “Are you dating anyone?” and you answered, “I’m really involved in loving myself right now.
— SARK, Prosperity Pie, p. 85
We are all here for a single purpose: to grow in wisdom and to learn to love better. We can do this through losing as well as through winning, by having and by not having, by succeeding or by failing. All we need to do is to show up openhearted for class.
— Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Kitchen Table Wisdom, p. 80
It’s reasonable to believe that everyone I love has the right to choose their level of happiness.
— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 155
Book love is something like romantic love. When we are reading a really great book, burdens feel lighter, cares seem smaller, and commonplaces are suddenly delightful. You become your best optimistic self. Like romantic love, book love fills you with a certain warmth and completeness. The world holds promise. The atmosphere is clearer and brighter; a beckoning wind blows your hair.
But while romantic love can be fleeting, book love can last. Readers in book love become more skilled at choosing books that thrill them, move them, transport them. Success breeds success, as these lucky people learn how to find diamonds over and over. They are always reading a good book. They are curious, interested — and usually interesting — people. That keen observer of reading, Holbrook Jackson, wrote in 1931, “Book-love…never flags or fails, but, like Beauty itself, is a joy for ever.”
— Steve Leveen, The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, p. 7
Hatred, anger, mistrust, and fear enter our lives every day in a thousand different ways. We’re all wounded by these evils, but we can all be healed through the power of love and forgiveness — a power readily available to all of us when we have faith….
Faith is a living thing that must be nurtured every day through prayer, kindness, and acts of love. It will lead us through our darkest days and restore love and light to even the most troubled soul in the most dire of circumstances….
Faith has transformed my life, and it can transform yours. In fact, it is powerful enough to transform the entire world.
— Immaculee Ilibagiza, Led by Faith, p. 192
Try, if you can, to hate someone and be happy. Try to resent somebody and be joyous. Try to be angry at someone and be peaceful. Try to judge someone and feel free. Try to control someone and not feel controlled. Try to be fully independent and intimate. Try to cheat somebody and feel safe. It can’t happen, because what you do to another you’re doing to yourself. Love works! . . .
First, love! Love and enjoy everything! If you’re waiting to be happy before you start being loving, then you’ll find that you’re in for a very long wait. Similarly, if you’re waiting to be successful before you’re truly loving and generous, then you’ll be greatly disappointed and frustrated. There’s no such thing as happiness without love first, health without love first, peace of mind without love first, or freedom without love first. First, love! . . .
Resentment costs too much. Make no mistake — you are the one who has to pay the bill for the resentment you hold on to. It is your nervous system, your lungs, your muscles, your heart, your perception, and your mind that deteriorates and decays during every moment you try to defend yourself with hate. . . .
The problem with resentment is that you cannot be resentful and happy. There’s an old saying: “If your heart has room for one enemy, it is not a safe place for a friend.” You cannot hate and be happy. You cannot hate and love. You cannot hate and win. You cannot hate and be free. You cannot hate and be present. You cannot hate and have a future. The bottom line is . . .
You cannot carry resentment and peace of mind at the same time.
As long as you still value resentment, forgiveness will have no appeal. Forgiveness only has appeal for those who are interested in freedom, love, peace of mind, and joy.
— Robert Hold, PhD, Happiness Now! p. 185, 207-208
Of course love is never earned. It is a grace we give one another. Anything we need to earn is only approval.
Few perfectionists can tell the difference between love and approval. Perfectionism is so widespread in this culture that we actually have had to invent another word for love. “Unconditional love” we say. Yet, all love is unconditional. Anything else is just approval.
— Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, Kitchen Table Wisdom, p. 47
Not forgiving ourselves, not forgiving others, not forgiving, even when the whole world thinks we should, is a part of who we are. It is as natural to us as our defenses, our repression, our dissociation, our denial. No one is able to look at himself whole. No one is so evolved as to deal creatively with every loss and insult. No one is free from illusions about himself, positive and negative. No one is immune to the joys of victimhood and revenge. We all have this in us. We are all enmeshed to some degree in our inner dramas and the unimaginable passions and loyalties they represent, which hold sway over us in ways that not even we can know. If we can see some of this in ourselves, accept it, be concerned about it, talk about it, it is less likely to control or overwhelm us. We will have a better chance to stay connected, to expand our zone of connection, to dissolve whatever scar tissue we can from a life of hurt and conflict, and move on to the goodness of love.
— Robert Karen, PhD, The Forgiving Self, p. 279
In spite of all my efforts as a mother, my children will not wake up one morning and be perfect. Just as I will never “arrive” as a mother, they will never “arrive” as children. My work is to companion them on their journeys, guiding, loving, and teaching them to love themselves along the way. Maybe that’s what our responsibility is to ourselves, too, as parents — loving ourselves at our best, in uncertainty, and in spite of flat-out failure.
— Lisa Groen Braner, The Mother’s Book of Well-Being, p. 168