Top 135 Quotes & Sayings by Gary Chapman - Page 2

Conflicts are not a sign you've married the wrong person. They simply affirm you are human.

Every single day in a marriage, we influence each other. It is a matter of am I going to have a positive influence or a negative influence?

I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday.

Love is always freely given. Love cannot be demanded. We can request things of each other, but we must never demand anything. Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.

Togetherness has to do with focused attention. It is giving someone your undivided attention. As humans, we have a fundamental desire to connect with others. We may be in the presence of people all day long, but we do not always feel connected.

Nobody has the power to make you miserable . . . unless you choose to give them that power. Choose to enjoy every drop of today!

Love makes requests, not demands.

Real love" - "This kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth.

You cannot force someone to accept an expression of love. You can only offer it. If it is not accepted, you must respect the other person's decision.

Sex is the joining of two bodies; love is the joining of two souls.

Physician Albert Scheweitzer said. " We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness." Professor Leo Buscaglia notes, "There seems to be accumulating evidence that there is actually an inborn need for this togetherness, this human interaction, this love. It seems that without these close ties with other human beings, a new born infant, for example, can regress developmentally, lose consciousness, fall into idiocy and die.

We are trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve.

The person who is "in-love" has the ilusion that his beloved is perfect.

Each person has the potential of making a positive impact on the world. It all depends on what you do with what you have. Success is not to be measured by the amount of money you possess or the position you attain but rather in how you use both. Position and money can be squandered or abused, but they can also be used to help others.

We can certainly see contemporary examples of people who radically change. As long you believe your spouse will never change and you keep telling yourself that, then you live with no hope. But if you understand that that's a myth, then you open up the door to hope.

What we dislike in others is often a weakness in our own lives.

Lack of love from parents often motivates their children to go searching for love in other relationships. This search is often misguided and leads to further disappointment.

For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, deserts unbearable, and hardships our lot in life.

Before I discovered the concept of the 5 love languages, a bit of advice I was given was to become a student of my wife and to take time to learn what makes her feel loved. I soon learned that what makes her feel loved may not always be the thing I want to do because it may not come natural to me. But learning to love her in the way that makes her feel loved is a greater demonstration of my love for her, because I've chosen to do it with a goal of pleasing her.

Isolation is devastating to the human psyche.

Emotions are our spontaneous response to life. We have these emotions, but if the emotion is a negative emotion, then I have a choice to say, "I am feeling sad tonight because this happened, but I am not going to let my sadness keep me from engaging my wife in conversation. "

God has the potential of touching people's hearts and changing them.

True love cannot begin until the "in love" experience has run it's course.

We cannot erase the past, but we can accept it as history.

The one who chooses to love will find appropriate ways to express that decision everyday.

Inside every child is an 'emotional rani's waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty 'love tank

Love is the most powerful weapon in the world for good. I really believe that.

My attitude affects my actions. So, if I have a negative attitude about it, then it is going to show up in the way I respond, but if I have a positive attitude, then I start looking for the things I can do that will make my life better and make the lives of people around me better.

In a difficult marriage, both of us have failed each other. Even though one may be the major problem,you also have failed often in the way you have responded to them, the way you have treated them, in the way you have handled your hurt and your pain.

We fail to reckon with the reality of human nature. By nature,we are egocentric. Our world revolves around us. None of us is totally altruistic.

I wrote this book [ Desperate Marriages] because of my own marriage. My wife and I struggled greatly in the early years of marriage. In spite of the fact that we were Christians before we got married, we prayed about getting married, we believed it was God's will for us to get married, and we still had great struggles.

Many couples have never learned the tremendous power of verbally affirming each other.

I think another [myth] is that some marriages are just hopeless. This is a common thing I hear from people, "Well, I just think there are some marriages that are hopeless, Dr. Chapman, don't you agree with that?" I say I understand the feeling, but the fact is that there are no marriages that are hopeless.

The pattern often has been entrenched since childhood... [abusive people] don't think that there is anything wrong with them because that is the way they were brought up in their family.

We all desperately need love. If a spouse in a difficult marriage will learn the love language of that spouse, and they will, with the help of God, consistently speak their love language no matter how they are treated.

Ask yourself: Does the action I am considering have any potential for dealing with the wrong and helping the relationship? And is it best for the person at whom I am angry? The two most constructive options are either to confront the person in a helpful way, or to consciously decide to overlook the matter.

A soft answer turns away anger.

The reality is, if you go to the library and read biographies, thousands of people have changed, radically changed. St. Augustine was one of them. He lived a terrible a life for the first 33 years, and then he radically changed.

This is a huge thing if you are going to have a positive impact on your spouse. You have to not only realize this, but you have to practice this.

I would encourage you to make your own investigation of the one whom, as He died, prayed for those who killed Him: 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.' That is love's ultimate expression.

Gifts need not be expensive; after all, "it's the thuoght that counts." But I remind you, it is not the thought left in your head that counts; it is the gift that came out of the thought that communicates emotional love.

What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage.

The in-love experience does not focus on our own growth or on the growth and development of the other person. Rather, it gives us the sense that we have arrived and that we do not need further growth.

Good marriages are built upon a combination of emotional love and a common commitment to a core of beliefs about what is important in life and what we wish to do with our lives. Speaking each other's primary love language creates the emotional climate where these beliefs can be fleshed out in daily life.

On the other hand, if I walk in the house, I don't even bother to find her, I just walk in the den and flip on the TV, get myself something to drink, sit down, start unwinding, I have influenced my wife in a very negative way.

Recent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas.

I think the tingles are important. They are real, and I am in favor of their survival. But they are not the basis for a satisfactory marriage. I am not suggesting that on should marry without the tingles. Those warm, excited feelings, the chill bumps, that sense of acceptance, the excitement of the touch that make up the tingles serve as the cherry on top of the sundae. But you cannot have a sundae with only the cherry.

I am not minimizing emotions. Emotions are an important part of life.

If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, then there is really no hope for you to have a good relationship. That is another myth that we have to throw off, so that we can get into what I call Reality.

I hope the reader's sense that I am deeply empathetic with the pain of being in a desperate marriage, but I also believe that the person who is married to the abuser or the alcoholic or whomever has the greatest potential for helping them.

We can look at the pain in our lives. We can look at the way we have been mistreated, and we can have an attitude of, I will never amount to anything. I have been wrong about people all my life. I am going to pay somebody back for this.

Another reality about relationships is that they are never static. All of us experience changes in relationships but a few stop to analyse why a relationship gets better or worse.

I cannot change others, but I can influence others... we can't change people, but we can and we do influence people, and we do it every single day.

Something in our nature cries out to be loved by another. Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. That is why solitary confinement is considered the cruelest of punishments.

Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment.

One [reality] is that I am responsible for my attitude. I can be in prison, and I happen to get a chance to go outside. I can look at the mud, or I can look at the stars. I am the one who decides which way to look. That is true for every one of us.

We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language.

We are human, which means we have the potential to make things different.

Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty LOVE TANK.

We can choose the attitude that says, I have been wronged. People have hurt me, but with the help of God, I am going to learn how to return good for evil, and I am going to make a difference in this world.