Love is not a feeling. Love is an action, an activity... Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom... love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... true love is an act of will that often transcends ephemeral feelings of love or cathexis, it is correct to say, 'Love is as love does'.
Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled (Arrow New-Age)
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Love as nurturing spiritual growth
Saturday, 10 November 2007
I know that somewhere in the Universe exists my perfect soulmate
I know that somewhere in the Universe exists my perfect soulmate but looking for her is much more difficult than just staying at home and ordering another pizza.
Alf Whit
When love beckons to you, follow him
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions
May wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
As the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you
So shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth
So is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses
Your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and
Shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me
At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Each man kills the thing he loves
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
from all let this be heard.
Some does it with a bitter look,
some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss
the brave man with the sword
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
Oscar Wilde, Ballad of Reading Gaol
Saturday, 27 October 2007
Unconditional love
I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame that heals our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
They must be felt with the heart
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller
Where love rules, there is no will to power
Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
C. G. Jung
Time will come that all that we love
Time will come that all that we love, we will eventually loose, and all that we hate we will eventually face.
F. Sionil José, Mass (a Filipino novel)
Love is everything it's cracked up to be
Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. . . . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more.
Erica Jong, How to Save Your Own Life (1977)
When the evening of this life comes, we shall be judged on Love
When the evening of this life comes, we shall be judged on Love.
St. John of the Cross
To die for lack of love is horrible
To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Love is the salutation of the angel to the stars
Love is the salutation of the angel to the stars.
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves.
Victor Hugo
The love we give away is the only love we keep
The love we give away is the only love we keep.
Elbert Hubbard
May you love as long as you live and live as long as you love
May you love as long as you live and live as long as you love.
Robert Heinlein
Real love is always fated
Real love is always fated. It has been arranged before time. It is the most meticulously prepared of coincidences. And fate, of course, is simply a secular term for the will of God, and coincidence for His grace.
Joshua Harris
Love is giving someone the power to hurt you
Love is giving someone the power to hurt you but trusting him/her not to.
John Albert Halili
We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry
We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
Ellen Goodman
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life
Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State and Church-begotten weed, marriage?
Free love? As if love is anything but free! Man has bought brains, but all the millions in the world have failed to buy love. Man has subdued bodies, but all the power on earth has been unable to subdue love. Man has conquered whole nations, but all his armies could not conquer love. Man has chained and fettered the spirit, but he has been utterly helpless before love. High on a throne, with all the splendor and pomp his gold can command, man is yet poor and desolate, if love passes him by. And if it stays, the poorest hovel is radiant with warmth, with life and color. Thus love has the magic power to make of a beggar a king. Yes, love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere.
Emma Goldman, "Marriage and Love" in Anarchism and Other Essays (1911)
And think not you can direct the course of love
And think not you can direct the course of love; for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Khalil Gibran
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Have you ever been in love
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
Neil Gaiman
If a person loves only one other person
If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.
Erich Fromm, Art of Loving (1957)
I've made the most important discovery of my life
I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found.
John Forbes Nash, A Beautiful Mind
I love love
I love love
I love being in love
I don't care what it does to me
The Format, Inches and Falling
Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled
Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.
Harlan Ellison, Title of book (1968)
Love does not fail for you when you are rejected or betrayed
Love does not fail for you when you are rejected or betrayed or apparently not loved. Love fails for you when you reject, betray, and do not love.
Adi Da
Friday, 26 October 2007
If you have the courage to love then you should have the courage to suffer too
If you have the courage to love then you should have the courage to suffer too.
E.H. Majaw
Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do.
Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door
Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together
Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit.
Alexandre Dumas
Love does not consist in gazing at each other
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
To be in love is to love an ideal within yourself
To be in love is to love an ideal within yourself. To love is to love no ideal but love within itself.
James Stephen Cathcart
You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love
You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.
Jonathan Carroll, Outside the Dog Museum
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
Albert Camus
Love cannot accept what it is
Love cannot accept what it is. Everywhere on earth it cries out against kindness, compassion, intelligence, everything that leads to compromise. Love demands the impossible, the absolute, the sky on fire, inexhaustible springtime, life after death, and death itself transfigured into eternal life.
Albert Camus
Real love is a pilgrimage
Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.
Anita Brookner
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage
Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by the removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
There is no fear in love
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
The Bible, 1 John 4:18
If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language
If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break up and infidelity.
Jean Baudrillard
Love is the answer, but while you're waiting
Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions.
Woody Allen
Love doesn't make the world go round
Love doesn't make the world go round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
Franklin P. Jones
To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved
To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.
George MacDonald
Love is only half the illusion
Love is only half the illusion; the lover, but not his love, is deceived.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905-1906
Two solitudes come nearer
Love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other.
Han Suyin [Elizabeth Comber]
The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love
The sage said, "The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love. That is the only way out of it. As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
Your body needs to be held and to hold
Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity.
Henri Nouwen
Love your suffering
You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation...and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.
Hermann Hesse
A kiss is a lovely trick
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.
Ingrid Bergman
Love is a promise, love is a souvenir
Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.
John Lennon
Love cures people
Love cures people -- both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
Karl Menninger
Men and women suit each other?
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.
Katharine Hepburn
Tuesday, 23 October 2007
If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?
If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?
Lily Tomlin
The distinction between oneself and the other is always maintained and preserved
Although the act of nurturing another's spiritual growth has the effect of nurturing one's own, a major characteristic of genuine love is that the distinction between oneself and the other is always maintained and preserved.
Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled (Arrow New-Age)
In real love you want the other person's good
In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person.
Margaret Anderson
Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Martin Luther King, jr.
Love is like a campfire
Love is like a campfire: It may be sparked quickly, and at first the kindling throws out a lot of heat, but it burns out quickly. For long lasting, steady warmth (with delightful bursts of intense heat from time to time), you must carefully tend the fire.
Molleen Matsumura
To bring harmony and order out of chaos
But one of the attributes of love, like art, is to bring harmony and order out of chaos, to introduce meaning and affect where before there was none, to give rhythmic variations, highs and lows to a landscape that was previously flat.
Molly Haskell
The best love affairs are those we never had
The best love affairs are those we never had.
Norman Lindsay
For one human being to love another
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Rainer Maria Rilke
It takes a minute to find a special person
It takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them and a lifetime to forget them.
Unknown
Monday, 22 October 2007
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."
Victor Frankl
We look forward to the time when the Power of Love
We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
William E. Gladstone
My bounty is as boundless as the sea
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth
The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.
William Sloane Coffin
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved
George Sand
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.
And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
Elie Wiesel
For everything there is a season
For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Why love if losing hurts so much?
Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.
C.S. Lewis
Him that I love, I wish to be free - even from me
Him that I love, I wish to be free - even from me.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
We have just enough religion to make us hate
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift
When the power of love overcomes the love of power
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
Jimi Hendrix
When we feel love and kindness towards others
Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.
When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities, and so on. When we feel love and kindness towards others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. And there are ways in which we can consciously work to develop feelings of love and kindness. For some of us, the most effective way to do so is through religious practice. For others it may be non-religious practices. What is important is that we each make a sincere effort to take our responsibility for each other and for the natural environment we live in seriously.
HH the Dalai Lama, The Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1989
I love thee, I love but thee
I love thee, I love but thee
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars grow old...
Bayard Taylor
Love does not consist of gazing at each other
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Love never dies a natural death
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.
Anais Nin
Tis better to have loved and lost
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Alfred Tennyson
Because I could not stop for Death
[Couple found hugging after 5000 years]
Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.
Emily Dickinson
Speak low if you speak love
Speak low if you speak love.
William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, ACT II Scene 1
For love has two faces
For love … has two faces; one white, the other black; two bodies; one smooth, the other hairy. It has two hands, two feet, two tails, two, indeed, of every member and each one is the exact opposite of the other. Yet, so strictly are they joined together that you cannot separate them.
Virginia Woolf
However it is debased or misinterpreted, love is a redemptive feature
However it is debased or misinterpreted, love is a redemptive feature. To focus on one individual so that their desires become superior to yours is a very cleansing experience.
Jeanette Winterson
We all want to fall in love. Why?
We all want to fall in love. Why?
Because that experience makes us feel completely alive,
where every sense is heightened,
and every emotion is magnified.
Our everyday reality is shattered
and we are flying into the heavens.
It may only last a moment, an hour, or an afternoon,
but that doesn't diminish its value,
because we are left with memories
that we treasure for the rest of our lives.
From the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (starring Barbara Streisand)
I come here with no expectations
I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now I am at the liberty to do so, that my heart is and will always be yours.
Sense and Sensibility
There are only four questions of value in life
There are only four questions of value in life. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made of? What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.
Don Juan DeMarco
If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime
If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day.
Wuthering Heights
I guarantee there'll be tough times.
Look. I guarantee there'll be tough times. I guarantee that at some point, one or both of us is gonna want to get out of this thing. But, I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life, because I know, in my heart, you're the only one for me.
Runaway Bride
The rest of your life with somebody
I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
When Harry Met Sally
There are too many mediocre things in life. Love shouldn't be one of them.
Unless it's mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it's a waste of your time. There are too many mediocre things in life. Love shouldn't be one of them.
Movie: Dream for an Insomniac
Love that moves the sun and the other stars
L'amor chi move il sole e l'altre stelle.
[Love that moves the sun and the other stars].
Dante
There is a comfort in the strength of love
There is a comfort in the strength of love
'Twill make a thing endurable
Which else would overset the brain
Or break the human heart.
William Wordsworth, Michael, lines 456-460
Sunday, 21 October 2007
In love with the anticipation of the emotions one is addicted to
So how can anyone really say they're in love with a specific person, for example?
They're only in love with the anticipation of the emotions they're addicted to.
Links
Saturday, 20 October 2007
Man is torn away from his primary union with nature
Man is torn away from his primary union with nature, which characterizes animal existence. Having at the same time reason and imagination, he is aware of his aloneness and separateness; of his powerlessness and ignorance; of the accidentalness of his birth and death. He could not face this state of being for a second if he could not find new ties with his fellow man which replace the old ones regulated by instincts. Even if all his physiological needs were satisfied, he would experience his state of aloneness and individuation as a prison from which he had to break in order to preserve his sanity. (...) the necessity to unite with other living beings, to be related to them, is an imperative need on the fulfillment of which man's sanity depends. This need is behind all phenomena which constitute the whole gamut of intimate human relations, of all passions which are called love in the broadest sense of the word.
Erich Fromm, The Sane Society
Friday, 19 October 2007
One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.
One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love.
Sophocles
Love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth
Love is not a feeling. Love is an action, an activity... Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom... love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... true love is an act of will that often transcends ephemeral feelings of love or cathexis, it is correct to say, 'Love is as love does'.
Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled (Arrow New-Age)
But he who kisses the Joy as it flies lives in Eternity's sunrise
He who bends to himself a Joy
Doth the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.
Blake, William, Gnomic Verses
Love is patient, love is kind
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
Bible, Corinthians 13:4-8
The wretched happiness of staying alive
Whom shall I call on? Who will share with me
The wretched happiness of staying alive?
Sergei Yesenin
You got to love like you'll never get hurt
There's such a thing as trying too hard
You got to sing like you don't need the money
Love like you'll never get hurt
You got to dance, dance, dance like nobody's watching
It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work
Susana Clark & Richard Leigh, Come from the heart, (words and music)
Not less of love, but expanding of love beyond desire
Not less of love, but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the Future as well as the past.
T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding
When we are together I stay awake all night
When we are together I stay awake all night
When I'm on my own I cannot sleep
Blessed be God for these two insomnias
And the difference between them.
Rumi
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