“My heart cannot be educated by myself. It can only come out of a relationship with others. And if we accept being educated by others, to let them explain to us what happens to them, and to let yourself be immersed in their world so that they can get into our world, then you begin to share something very deep.”
Xavier Le Pichon, via Becoming Wise (Page 143)
“I come to understand that for most of my life, when I was looking for love, I was looking to be loved. In this, I am a prism of my world. I am a novice at love in all its fullness, a beginner.”
Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise (Page 108)
“Love is the superstar virtue of virtues, and the most watered down word in the English language.”
Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise (Page 104)
“Love is something we only master in moments.”
Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise (Page 68)
“People who have turned the world on its axis across history have called humanity to love. It’s time to dare this more bravely in our midst, and dare learning together how love can be practical, creative, and sustained as a social good, not merely a private good.”
Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise (Page 10)
“Our power to override their destructive intensity lies in our ability to love with as much conviction as they show in hate. Hating with conviction, they draw forth more hatred; when we love with greater conviction, we will draw forth more love.”
Marianne Williamson, The Shadow Effect (Page 160)
“Let us not underestimate the power of the shadow. It’s not enough to just meditate sometimes; we should meditate daily. It’s not enough, if you’re a recovering addict, to attend a meeting every once in a while; you should attend a meeting every day. It’s not enough that we forgive a few people; we must try our best to forgive everyone, for only love is real. If I withhold it from anyone, then I withhold it from myself. And it’s not enough to love only when it’s easy; we must try to expand our capacity to love even when it’s hard.”
Marianne Williamson, The Shadow Effect (Page 157)
“Life is short and it hurts. Love is the only drug that works.”
John Coit, via Sunbeams (Page 98)
“The pain of love is the pain of being alive. It’s a perpetual wound.”
Maureen Duffy, via Sunbeams (Page 97)
“Love is when I am concerned with your relationship with your own life, rather than with your relationship to mine… There must be a commitment to each other’s well-being. Most people who say they have a commitment don’t; they have an attachment. Commitment means, ‘I am going to stick with you and support your experience of well-being.’ Attachment means, ‘I am stuck without you.'”
Stewart Emery, via Sunbeams (Page 86)
“While I generally find that great myths are great precisely because they represent and embody great universal truths, the myth of romantic love is a dreadful lie. Perhaps it is a necessary lie in that it ensures the survival of the falling-in-love experience that traps us into marriage. But as a psychiatrist I weep in my heart almost daily for the ghastly confusion and suffering that this myth fosters. Millions of people waste vast amounts of energy desperately and futilely attempting to make the reality of their lives conform to the unreality of the myth.”
M. Scott Peck, via Sunbeams (Page 72)
“It’s not the length but the quality of life that matters to me. It has always been important to me to write one sentence at a time, to live every day as if it were my last and judge it in those terms, often badly, not because it lacked grand gesture or grand passion but because it failed in the daily virtues of self-discipline, kindness, and laughter. It is love, very ordinary, human love, and not fear, which is the good teacher and the wisest judge.”
Jane Rule, via Sunbeams (Page 67)
“You want to be loved because you do not love; but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring whether or not somebody loves you.”
J. Krishnamurit, via Sunbeams (Page 60)