I think one of the biggest political failures, and the biggest social failures, over the past few years has been the failure of empathy; not being able to look at the other person down the street.
And I think if you look at any relationship, for the relationship to be productive and to move forward and to grow, sometimes things have to be said that one person or the other person is not going to like to hear.
Fear is born from ignorance. We think that the other person is trying to take away something from us. But if we look deeply, we see that the desire of the other person is exactly our own desire - to have peace, to be able to have a chance to live.
I do think that it's important to understand what each person has coming into the relationship, and what each person expects from the relationship. I find it so interesting that so many people rush into the commitment of marriage, which is a legal contract, without knowing anything about what the expectations of the other person are, and they've not explained or articulated their expectations of the other person.
When you speak to any, especially of quality, look them full in the face; other gestures betraying want of breeding, confidence, or honesty; dejected eyes confessing, to most judgments, guilt or folly.
I like being the biggest on the pitch, I don't want to look at the other guys and think his arms are bigger than mine.
If there is no honesty, there is no relationship. The only degree to which there is a relationship is the degree to which you are honest. Expressing your clear desires does not make you a dictator and you telling what you think, feel, and what you want or don’t want, is just called being honest. It doesn't control him at all. You’re trying to control others by withholding information by not getting involved and by not being honest. Withholding information is a form of manipulation. It is dishonest and it’s destructive to a relationship.
Once you lose the honesty in a relationship, I mean, I think you don't have a relationship at all.
I think country music is about honesty. Any art has to have honesty to start with, as the core of it. I mean, they're just going to manipulate you in one way or the other, but there has to honesty at the core of it.
A big part of being in a relationship or marriage or whatever is you have to eventually compromise. Your life doesn't end up exactly the way you think it's going to, and if it's the right relationship, you might have to compromise what you're doing professionally.
It's kind of cliche, but communication is the biggest thing in a relationship. You have to talk; you have to express yourselves. You don't want to look back and resent not being heard.
Honesty is the foundation of a sound character and the keystone of all other virtues. It is the cement without which all other redeeming features are fractured and without anchor. A dishonest person may be kind, witty, and very capable, but the strength of character simply isn't there. Honesty does not come by degrees. A person is either all honest or he is dishonest. You can be true or you can be false, but you can't be both at the same time.
The problem of unmet expectations in marriage is primarily a problem of stereotyping. Each and every human being on this planet is a unique person. Since marriage is inevitably a relationship between two unique people, no one marriage is going to be exactly like any other. Yet we tend to wed with explicit visions of what a “good” marriage ought to be like. Then we suffer enormously from trying to force the relationship to fit the stereotype and from the neurotic guilt and anger we experience when we fail to pull it off.
As humans, we are not so rationalist as we think we are. I think our biggest quality is indeed that we are human, truly human: if our biggest quality would be rationality, we would lose our soul.
Sometimes you do what you like, and other times you do... what the other person likes. That is part of being in a healthy relationship.
Typically, people allow differences and mistakes to lower their respect and value for other people. But you know the pillar of honor is strong in a relationship when you can look at the other person and say, “You are really different from me. It makes me sad when I see you making that choice. But I love you. I value you, I believe in you, and I am here for you in this relationship.