Leo Buscaglia (quotes) - Wisdom Trove

We all need each other.
Love is always open arms.
Listening is love in action.
In the end you have only you.
Catch the beauty of the moment!
Your talent is God’s gift to you.
What do years have to do with age?
Don’t over analyze your relationships.
A life lived in love will never be dull.
Learn to bend. It’s better than breaking.
Happiness and love are just a choice away.
What love we’ve given, we’ll have forever.
Don’t walk in my head with your dirty feet.
The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all
To love others you must first love yourself.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
People are not here to meet your expectations.
Change is the end result of all true learning.
We all fear what we don’t know – it’s natural.
It is the foregiver who is freed in foregiving.
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch.
The oppposite of Love is not Hate – it’s apathy.
In love, each man is his own personal challenge.
Love creates an “us” without destroying the “me”.
Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.
Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
My rule is always, People first and things second.
Success often lies just the other side of failure.
Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.
When we cling to pain, we end up punishing ourselves.
We don’t love to be loved in return; we love to love.
We are born for love, but it will die if not nurtured.
Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.
If I don’t have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.
Everybody is teaching Everybody to Love at every moment.
The life and love we create is the life and love we live.
We created time, and now we have become the slave of time.
If one wishes to know love, one must live love, in action.
A life without passion is not living, it’s merely existing
One does not fall “in” or “out” of love. One grows in love.
Things omitted are often more deadly than errors committed.
A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.
A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.
The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret
Tact is rubbing out another’s mistake instead of rubbing it in.
Every moment spent in unhappiness is a moment of happiness lost.
God made mud, God made dirt, God made boys so girls could flirt.
Life is a paradise for those who love many things with a passion.
In a crazy world, it’s only your insanity that will keep you sane
Love revels in and grows in the moment and the joy of the moment.
Life is our greatest possession and love its greatest affirmation.
If one wishes to be a lover he must start by saying ‘YES’ to love.
Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.
Labels are distancing phenomena. They push us away from each other.
That’s love. That’s all it means. It means sharing joy with people.
Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.
Every day we are offered new means for learning and growing in love.
There is nothing quite so satisfying, and so healing, as a good cry.
The only lasting trauma is the one we suffer without positive change.
Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance
Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.
Those who think they know it all have no way of finding out they don’t.
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
We are not evil, inadequate or incompetent when our relationships fail.
We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them.
Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.
A total immersion in life offers the best classroom for learning to love.
Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lie’s man’s only promise.
To love oneself is to struggle to rediscover and maintain your uniqueness
To live in love is to live in life, and to live in life is to live in love
The only thing of value we can give kids is what we are, not what we have.
Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.
The hardest battle you’re ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.
It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.
Like any other living, growing thing, love requires effort to keep it healthy.
Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.
Don’t hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.
Love and the self are one and the discovery of either is the realization of both.
Love is a dynamic interaction, lived every second of our lives, all of our lives.
Love is always changing and unless we stay aware and change with it, it eludes us.
To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naive.
We are so ruled by what people tell us we must be that we have forgotten who we are.
Value yourself. The only people who appreciate a doormat are people with dirty shoes.
When it comes to giving love, the opportunities are unlimited, and we are all gifted.
He who remains calm while those around him panic probably doesn’t know what’s going on.
I love to think that the day you’re born, you’re given the world as a birthday present.
There is only the moment. The now. Only what you are experiencing at this second is real.
A life without love, no matter how many other things we have, is an empty, meaningless one.
To love others you must love yourself…You can only give to others what you have yourself.
What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.
You are the only you … You are the best you. You will always be the second best anyone else.
The only people who become wealthy by being concerned with the future are insurance companies.
There are many miracles in the world to be celebrated and, for me, garlic is the most deserving.
A loving relationship is a wanting to celebrate, communicate, and know another’s heart and soul.
“To be is to do,” says the existentialist. “One only becomes real (human) at the point of action.”
Live nutty. Just occasionally. Just once in a while. And see what happens. It brightens up the day.
Our talents are the gift that God gives to us… What we make of our talents is our gift back to God
What love we’ve given, we’ll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.
Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt, but it is the only way to live life completely.
Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.
We need to learn to let go as easily as we grasp and we will find our hands full and our minds empty.
It is when we ask for love less and begin giving it more that the basis of human love is revealed to us.
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate – it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn.
No one gets out of this world alive, so the time to live, learn, care, share, celebrate, and love is now.
If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.
Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness.” -Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998)
One must never be satisfied with his ability to love. No matter where he is, it is always just a beginning.
The human need to play is a powerful one. When we ignore it, we feel there is something missing in our lives.
We are no longer puppets being manipulated by outside powerful forces: we become the powerful force ourselves.
In order to learn, you have to be free. You have to be free to experiment, free to try, free to make mistakes.
Man is happiest when he is creating. In fact, the highest state of which man is capable lies in the creative act.
Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.
One cannot give what he does not possess. To give love you must possess love. To love others you must love yourself.
Most of us remain strangers to ourselves, hiding who we are, and ask other strangers, hiding who they are, to love us.
Forgive others, forgive yourself, forgive yourself for not being perfect, and accept responsibility for your own life.
I’d like to be remembered for being a good, kind, loving, gentle man who attempted to live wisely, and who cared a lot.
You have the choice. You can choose joy over despair, happiness over tears, action over apathy, growth over stagnation.
Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time… It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.
Love requires that we overcome the traditional and self-defeating fears that place distance between ourselves and others.
Love is always bestowed as a gift – freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.
Man has no choice but to love. For when he does not, he finds his alternatives lie in loneliness, destruction and despair.
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.
I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.
When we give ourselves in love we become our most vulnerable. We are never safe. We become open to disappointment and hurt.
You can only give away what you have … If you have love, you can give it. If you don’t have it, you don’t have it to give.
Happiness is intrinsic, it’s an internal thing. When you build it into yourself, no external circumstances can take it away.
The most important thing in the world is that you make yourself a loving person, because this is what you will be giving away.
Celebrate your humanness, celebrate your craziness, celebrate your inadequacies, celebrate your loneliness … but celebrate YOU!
When we feel joyful, euphoric, happy, we are more open to life, more capable of seeing things clearly and handling daily tensions.
After all, the wrong is done. It is past and cannot be changed. We have only the present and the future upon which to move forward.
Nine times out of ten, when you extend your arms to someone, they will step in, because basically they need precisely what you need.
Life is a great and wondrous mystery, and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now. Don’t miss it.
Choose the way of life. Choose the way of love. Choose the way of caring. Choose the way of goodness. It’s up to you. It’s your choice.
The most unfortunate thing that happens to a person who fears failure is that he limits himself by becoming afraid to try anything new.
We treat our encounters with them with carefree casualness. We are certain that our relationships will naturally take care of themselves.
Based on a string of bad breakups, I was forced to examine my choice of partners. Surely, that must have abolished me from any wrongdoing.
Love is like a mirror. When you love another you become his mirror and he becomes yours …. And reflecting each other’s love you see infinity.
Each man lives love in his limited fashion and does not seem to relate the resultant confusion and loneliness to his lack of knowledge about love.
I’ve always thought that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way.
This loving person is a person who abhors waste – waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.
Love yourself-accept yourself-forgive yourself-and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.
The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.
Love is not a thing, it is not lost when given. You can offer your love completely to hundreds of people and still retain the same love you had originally.
Relish love in your old age! Aged love is like aged wine; it becomes more satisfying, more refreshing, more valuable, more appreciated and more intoxicating!
Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever.
Ninety per-cent of what we worry about never happens, yet we worry and worry. What a horrible way to go through life! What a horrible thing to do to your colon!
If one wishes to know love, one must live love, in action. Thoughts, readings and discourse on love are of value only as they present questions to be acted upon.
If you don’t like the scene you’re in, if you’re unhappy, if you’re lonely, if you don’t feel that things are happening, change your scene. Paint a new backdrop.
It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.
It has the power to uplift, to heal, to stimulate, surprise, open new doors, bring fresh experience and create excitement in life. Certainly it is worth the risk.
Assume that people are good until you actually and specifically learn differently. And even then, know that they have potential for change and that you can help them out.
To this day I cannot see a bright daffodil, a proud gladiola, or a smooth eggplant without thinking of Papa. Like his plants and trees, I grew up as a part of his garden.
The essence of education is not to stuff you with facts but to help you discover your uniqueness, to teach you how to develop it, and then to show you how to give it away.
We are not for everyone and everyone is not for us. The question is, ‘If we cannot be with another, can we at least not hurt them? Can we, at least, find a way to coexist?’
Live now. When you are eating, eat. When you are loving, love. when you are talking with someone, talk. When you are looking at a flower, look. Catch the beauty of the moment!
A life of love is one of continual growth, where the doors and windows of experience are always open to the wonder and magic that life offers. To love is to risk living fully.
Hold on to your dreams for they are, in a sense, the stuff of which reality is made. It is through our dreams that we maintain the possibility of a better, more meaningful life.
Definition of a relationship – an enduring, mutually-agreed upon connection or union, which fulfills certain needs of the individuals involved and the society in which they live.
Because you are human, you do have magic. Get in touch with it. When you feel the insanity rising, don’t push it down. Let it come out. Just once-and then let me know what happens!
There are all kinds of symbols. Verbal language is only one. Sometimes by opening our mouths, we make dreadful errors. It’s often so much nicer just to look at somebody and vibrate.
We all need to be recognized for what we’re doing, for our work. Every once in a while we need someone to come up to us and say, ‘You’re beautiful. That was well done. That’s nice.’
Why do some people always see beautiful skies and grass and lovely flowers and incredible human beings, while others are hard-pressed to find anything or any place that is beautiful?
I will love you if you are stupid, if you slip and fall on your face, if you do the wrong thing, if you make mistakes, if you behave like a human being ‚Äî I will love you no matter.
Don’t spend your precious time asking “Why isn’t the world a better place?” It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is “How can I make it better?” To that there is an answer.
Don’t look over people’s shoulders. Look in their eyes. Don’t talk at your children. Take their faces in your hands and talk to them. Don’t make love to a body, make love to a person.
Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?
Life is meant to be a celebration! It shouldn’t be necessary to set aside special times to remind us of this fact. Wise is the person who finds a reason to make every day a special one.
We began this process, and fantastic things happened ‚Äî to the way we felt, to the way we made other people feel, and the interaction among us. All this simply by using positive words!
Love is not some complex, mystical abstraction. It is something accessible and human that we learn through our everyday experience, as often at times of failure as in moments of ecstasy.
Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.
To live in love is life’s greatest challenge. It requires more sublety, flexibility, sensitivity, understanding, acceptance, tolerance, knowledge and strength than any other human endeavor.
To laugh is to risk appearing a fool, to weep is to risk appearing too sentimental, to reach out for another is to risk involvement, and to expose feelings is to risk exposing one’s true self.
I was one of those fortunate individuals who grew up in a large, passionate, demonstrative Italian family where we were taught to love as naturally as we breathed and ate giant bowls of pasta!
Say “yes” to life! “Yes” to wonder, to joy, to despair. “Yes” to pain, “yes” to what you don’t understand. Try “yes.” Try “always.” Try “possible.” Try “hopeful.” Try “I will.” And try “I can.”
A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world. The world is an incredible unfulfilled tapestry, and only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Compassion is an act of tolerance where kindness and forgiveness reign. When we make the compassionate choice, we enhance the dignity of each individual, which is the very essence of loving them.
Love can never grow old. Looks may lose their brown and gold. Cheeks may fade and hollow grow. But the hearts that love will know, never winter’s frost and chill, summer’s warmth is in them still.
The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.
Knowing that one is always capable of change, the second step lies in making the decision to change. Change does not occur by merely willing it anymore than behavior changes simply through insight.
The heart is the place where we live our passions. It is frail and easily broken, but wonderfully resilient. There is no point in trying to deceive the heart. It depends upon our honesty for its survival.
Love is spontaneous and craves expression through joy, through beauty, through truth, even through tears. Love lives the moment; it’s neither lost in yesteryear nor does it crave for tomorrow. Love is NOW!
We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure.
It’s amazing – you may not realize it, but so much of what you are not is because you are literally standing in your own way of becoming. And what I’m pleading with you about is, get the hell out of your own way.
We need others. We need others to love and we need to be loved by them. There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.
Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness, to teach him how to develop that uniqueness, and then to show him how to share it because that‚Äôs the only reason for having anything.
…the opposite of love is not hate – it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must “feel” something … or they couldn’t possibly hate. Therefore, there’s some way in which I can get to them.
Experience seems to convince us that only fools trust, that only fools believe and accept all things. If this is true, then love is most foolish. For if it is not founded on trust, belief and acceptance, it’s not love.
Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable. The purpose of life is to matter-to count, to stand for something, to have it make so difference that we lived at all.
It is difficult for some people to accept that love is a choice. This seems to run counter to the generally accepted theory of romantic love which expounds that love is inborn and as such requires no more than to accept it.
Man seldom questions the fact that ugliness and evil are to be found in the world. But he’s never as ready to accept that life also offers unlimited beauty and potential for joy as well as endless opportunities for pleasure.
There is nothing wrong with making mistakes and not having all the answers, so long as we are willing to admit this and strive for personal betterment. Those who think they know it all have no way of finding out that they don’t.
Joy is always an integral part of loving. There is joy in every act of life, no matter how menial or repetitive. To work in love is to work in joy. To live in love is to live in joy… Why not choose joy?… Why not live in joy?
It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.
If you want to learn to love, then you must start the process of finding out what it is, what qualities make up a loving person and how these are developed. Each person has the potential for love. But potential is never realized without work.
“You can’t imagine the joy I feel when I hear that something I’ve said or done or written has helped others to regain their sense of dignity, to motivate them to develop their unique

potential, to encourage them to reach out to others in love.”
Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, ‘Did you bring joy?’ The second was, ‘Did you find joy?
I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, ‘No, I won’t do it, I won’t behave his way anymore. I’m lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,’ and then you do it.
He must understand that if he is the world’s finest plum and someone he loves does not like plums, he has the choice of becoming a banana. But he must be warned that if he chooses to become a banana, he will be a second rate banana. But he can always be the best plum.
There are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our encouragement, who will need our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give.
In life and in love, there is only that moment, the NOW. The only reality we know is what we experience this very second. Reality is not what has passed or what has yet to come into being. Grabbing hold of this simple idea makes life magical because it brings love alive.
To the extent to which you know yourself, and we are all more alike than different, you can know others. When you love yourself, you will love others. And to the depth and extent to which you can love yourself, only to that depth and extent will you be able to love others.
We live in a small world. Not a leaf falls that doesn’t affect a myriad of things. When we reach out to someone in love and the effect is made – everyone, everything which comes in contact with the person we’ve effected is better for it. Of course, the converse is true, too.
We will only begin to forgive when we can look upon the wrongdoers as ourselves, neither better nor worse. We need to remember that we coexist as mortals in the world, together, the wronged and the wrongdoer, and that, in our common humanity, the situation could readily be reversed.
A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself — to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart
I would not want to form a partnership with an architect who has only a little knowledge of building or a broker who has a limited knowledge of the stock market. Still, we form what we hope to be permanent relationships in love with people who have hardly any knowledge of what love is.
As long as you are free, you are free to select and choose alternatives, provided that you are willing to accept the responsibility for being free. And after you’ve tried your alternatives, and they don’t work as you would wish, don’t blame me. Blame your choice. Try another alternative.
There are two big forces at work, external and internal. We have very little control over external forces such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, disasters, illness and pain. What really matters is the internal force. How do I respond to those disasters? Over that I have complete control.
I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.
Child development: Most damaging course of action is attempting to keep children from experience or protect them from pain, for it is this time that children learn that life is a magic thing, if “not a rose garden.” The parent’s role is primarily to stand by with a good supply of band-aids.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow or love. Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom. Only the person who risks is truly free.
The lover must often say, “I love because I must, because I will it. I love for myself, not for others. I love for the joy it gives me – and incedentally, only – for that joy it gives to others. If they reinforce me it will be good. If they do not, it also will be good, for I will to love.”
Strong emotions are present in all people. Without feeling, we would not be human. It’s unnatural for man to hide what he’s feeling, though if taught to do so, he can learn. Love teaches a man to show what he is feeling. Love never presupposes that it can be discerned or felt without expression.
As soon as the love relationship does not lead me to me, as soon as I in a love relationship do not lead another person to himself, this love, even if it seems to be the most secure and ecstatic attachment I have ever experienced, is not true love. For real love is dedicated to continual becoming.
It doesn’t matter who you have hurt, if you’ve learned not to hurt again. It doesn’t matter what mistakes you’ve made as long as you don’t make them again. As long as you learn, as long as you’re willing to take your life in your hands, and kiss it and go from there. Then there is growth. There there is life!
I get so sick and tired of hearing people gripe about what their parents did to them. You know what your parents did to you? The best thing they could do. The best thing they knew how, the only thing in many cases that they knew how. Nobody has set out maliciously to hurt their child, unless they were psychotic.
Loving yourself involves the discovery of the true wonder of you; not only the present you, but the many possibilities of you. It involves the continual realization that you are unique, like no other person in the world, that life is, or should be, the discovery, the development and the sharing of this uniqueness.
Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self – a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change – the willful act of making the change, doing something.
Love is trusting, accepting, and believing, without guarantee. Love is patient and waits, but it’s an active waiting, not a passive one. For it is continually offering itself in a mutual revealing, a mutual sharing. Love is spontaneous and craves expression through joy, through beauty, through truth, even through tears.
I exist, I am, I am here, I am becoming, I make my own life and no one else makes it for me. I must face my own shortcomings, mistakes, transgressions. No one can suffer my non-being as I do, but tomorrow is another day, and I must decide to leave my bed and live again. And if I fail, I don’t have the comfort of blaming you or life or God.
You have choice. You can select joy over despair. You can select happiness over tears. You can select action over apathy. You can select growth over stagnation. You can select you. And you can select life. And it’s time that people tell you you’re not at the mercy of forces greater than yourself. You are, indeed, the greatest force for you.
A wife says to her husband (or vice versa), “Do you love me?””Of course,” he replies. “I’ve been married to you for twenty years, haven’t I?”How satisfied would we be if we presented someone with a vintage wine and, upon asking his opinion of it, he replied, “I’m drinking it, aren’t I?”Love still needs expression between those who share it.
I just saw an ad the other day that I couldn’t believe. There was this woman-and I think it’s degrading to womankind-she was going out of her mind over a new product called “A Thousand Flushes.” Here she was in her toilet, saying, “Oh, I love this product!” and, “My life is complete!” Good God-if your joy depends on “A Thousand Flushes,” you’re sick!
What we need to know about loving is no great mystery. We all know what constitutes loving behavior; we need but act upon it, not continually question it. Over-analysis often confuses the issue and in the end brings us no closer to insight. We sometimes become too busy classifying, separating, and examining, to remember that love is easy. It’s we who make it complicated.
If he desired to know about automobiles, he would, without question, study diligently about automobiles. If his wife desired to be a gourmet cook, she’d certainly study the art of cooking, perhaps even attending a cooking class. Yet, it never seems as obvious to him that if he wants to live in love, he must spend at least as much time as the auto mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.
There is a good deal of excellent research on child’s play. It has shown conclusively that through play, with the freedom of action it allows and the stressless environment in which it occurs, children discover, relate to and define themselves and their world. …It is, therefore, paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play.
When love is accompanied with deep intimacy, it raises us to the highest level of human experience. In this exalted space, we can surrender our egos, become vulnerable and know levels of joy and well-being unique among life experiences. We attain a glimpse of the rapture that can be ours. Boundaries are blurred, there are no limitations and we rejoice in union. We become one and, at the same time, both.
We have to get children to understand that not only do they have this incredible uniqueness, but they also have something that sometimes we forget about. They are also potentiality. They are much more undiscovered than they are discovered. And there’s the wonder of it. It doesn’t matter where they are, they’re only just beginning and the big magical trip of life is digging it all out and discovering the wonderful you.
Each of us is responsible for creating an environment of warmth and consideration for those we love. I have always tried to define a good day not in terms of one in which all things were made right and comfortable for me but rather, as a day in which I have been able to make another’s day more loving and special for them. We must treat each other with dignity. Not because we merit it but because we grow best in thoughtfulness.
I think we need to teach children the importance of others, and that they cannot grow in this world without taking in others. The more worlds they take in, these unique worlds, the more they can become. We need to teach them to trust others again, because we’re all frightened to death of each other. We’re building higher and higher walls, stronger and stronger locks. Tear down the walls! Every day I see how we’re distrusting and it hurts.
I am often accused of being childish. I prefer to interpret that as child-like. I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things. I tend to exaggerate and fantasize and embellish. I still listen to instinctual urges. I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. I never water my garden without soaking myself. It has been after such times of joy that I have achieved my greatest creativity and produced my best work.
There is seemingly so little love shared in this world, it is not surprising that we ask, “Where have all the lovers gone?” Since love is the most vital energy for good that is within our power to utilize, it is puzzling why we so seldom do so. Love is just a useless, abstract idea until we put it into action…unless we are always actively living in love, we are not utilizing the greatest gift we have been given and which we, in turn, have to offer.
But man has other needs as well: emotional needs. These, too, are few, but every bit as important as his physical requirements, yet not so simple. If they aren’t met, they can be as devastating as physical hunger, as uncomfortable as a lack of shelter, as incapacitating as thirst. The frustration, isolation and anxiety brought about by unmet emotional needs can, like physical privation, produce death or a degree of living death – neurosis and psychosis.
Why do we protect children from life? It’s no wonder that we become afraid to live. We’re not told what life really is. We’re not told that life is joy and wonder and magic and even rapture, if you can get involved enough. We’re not told that life is also pain, misery, despair, unhappiness, and tears. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to miss any of it. I want to embrace life, and I want to find out what it’s all about. I wouldn’t want to go through life without knowing what it is to cry.
It is difficult for some people to accept that love is a choice. This seems to run counter to the generally accepted theory of romantic love which expounds that love is inborn and as such requires no more than to accept it. This theory believes that love is a magical force which frees us from all suffering and solves every problem, that it is an end unto itself. To a limited extent, there may be some truths to each of these beliefs, but having the capacity to love is not the same as having the ability to love.
He must also know evil, hate and bigotry as real phenomena, but he must see love as the greater force. He must not doubt this even for a moment or he is lost. His only salvation is to dedicate himself to love, in the same fashion as Gandhi did to militant nonviolence, as Socrates to truth, as Jesus did to love and as More did to integrity. Only then will he have the strength to combat the forces of doubt, confusion and contradiction. He can depend upon no on or no thing for reinforcement and assurance but himself.
When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom
Don’t ever believe that you are going to be peaceful-life is not like that. When you are changing all the time, you’ve got to continue to keep adjusting to change, which means that you are going to be constantly facing new obstacles. That’s the joy of living. And once you are involved in the process of becoming, there is no stopping. You’re doomed! You’re gone! But what a fantastic journey! Every day is new. Every flower is new. Every face is new. Everything in the world is new, every morning of your life. Stop seeing it as a drag!
A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world. There is nothing that is an accident. You are a special combination for a purpose — and don’t let them tell you otherwise, even if they tell you that purpose is an illusion. (Live an illusion if you have to). You are that combination so that you can do what is essential for you to do. Don’t ever believe that you have nothing to contribute. The world is an incredibly unfulfilled tapestry. And only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel that it’s my vehicle that is essential. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel that it’s my education that is essential. I don’t think what is essential about me is my house or my car or my clothes. What is essential about me? Well, I think what is essential is that I live and embrace life right now, wherever I am. I grab it in my arms! Don’t spend time crying about yesterday-yesterday is over with! I forgive my past. I forgive the people who’ve hurt me. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life blaming and pointing a finger.

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About Leo Buscaglia

Quotes by Leo Buscaglia

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