We enrich the universe with something far more valuable than money when we contribute love. One act of caring may have more effect, more power than we can realize; here finding entry into a lonely heart, there encouraging and giving hope to a confused mind. The universal love story is written line by line with simple acts of loving people doing a kindness for someone who’s having a hard time.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love
Our children can see us. They can’t see God. Our function is not to describe God’s love or to talk endlessly about it, but to reflect it so that it can be seen.
— Hugh Prather, Spiritual Notes to Myself, p. 71
You need to realize that when you sow the love of God, you will reap the love of God. You need to develop faith in this spiritual law — even though you may not harvest it from the field in which you sowed, or as quickly as you would like.
— John Bevere, The Bait of Satan:Â Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense, p. 14-15
Knitting is love, looped and warm.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Yarn Harlot, p. xiii
Lovers always focus away from negativity, to beauty, goodness, and joy. Though they are aware of the dark side of life, they avoid gravitating to it. Obsession with what is wrong with the world assures our blindness to what is good and right. On the other hand, solutions become more visible in the light of possibilities.
Beauty and goodness are successful forces against ugliness and evil. Negative people look for (and always find) confirmation for the negative, just as positive people look for and find the lightness of being. Both exist. Both are real and are always with us. The difference is as basic as a decision, and as simple as opening our eyes.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 225
Love means the ability to identify with imperfection and to recognize the inadequacies, weaknesses, fears and confusion in ourselves and others. Loving what is unlovable in them is always a challenge. It’s so much easier to dismiss people for their failings than it is to stick by them. I wonder why it is that we are more prone to finding fatal flaws than looking for redeeming qualities?
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 217
Loss of love is always devastating, but it can also be a time for airing out stuffy inner rooms, reassessing values, starting anew. Relationships may become stagnant or wither and die, but life and love continue.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 204
God speaks to us in a thousand voices, each with the same clear message: “I love you. Please trust me on this one.”
— Hugh Prather, Spiritual Notes to Myself, p. 7
It is a sorry and often heard refrain that “love has vanished from our relationship.” As with many such statements, this is unfair to love. It’s not love that has disappeared from the relationship, we have. Lasting love is not a test of endurance. When we are able to appreciate all the little things which brought us together, and deepen that appreciation over the years, we stay together. Such a relationship is one of life’s great success stories.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 181
I’ve learned that love is a decision, renewable every day. Every minute, sometimes!
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together, p. 111