Top 263 Quotes & Sayings by Leo Buscaglia - Page 3

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 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.

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.

Things omitted are often more deadly than errors committed.

Life is our greatest possession and love its greatest affirmation.

The only lasting trauma is the one we suffer without positive change.

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.

God made mud, God made dirt, God made boys so girls could flirt.

A total immersion in life offers the best classroom for learning to love.

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.

In the end you have only you.

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 — I will love you no matter.

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.

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.

We are so ruled by what people tell us we must be that we have forgotten who we are.

The hardest battle you're ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.

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.

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.

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.

You are the only you ... You are the best you. You will always be the second best anyone else.

Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance

When it comes to giving love, the opportunities are unlimited, and we are all gifted.

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.

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.

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."

Listening is love in action.

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.

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.

A life lived in love will never be dull.

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.

If one wishes to know love, one must live love, in action.

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.'

In order to learn, you have to be free. You have to be free to experiment, free to try, free to make mistakes.

It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.

Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt, but it is the only way to live life completely.

Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lie's man's only promise.

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.

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.

Like any other living, growing thing, love requires effort to keep it healthy.

Happiness is intrinsic, it's an internal thing. When you build it into yourself, no external circumstances can take it away.

We all fear what we don't know - it's natural.

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.

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.

Every moment spent in unhappiness is a moment of happiness lost.

A life without passion is not living, it's merely existing

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.

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.

We are not evil, inadequate or incompetent when our relationships fail.

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!

Man is happiest when he is creating. In fact, the highest state of which man is capable lies in the creative act.

A loving relationship is a wanting to celebrate, communicate, and know another's heart and soul.

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.

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.

The most unfortunate thing that happens to a person who fears failure is that he limits himself by becoming afraid to try anything new.

Success often lies just the other side of failure.

To love others you must first love yourself.

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 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 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 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.