Love Quotes
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” – Aristotle
“Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” – Franklin P. Jones
“What love we’ve given, we’ll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.” – Leo Buscaglia
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” – Khalil Gibran
“Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.’ – Oliver Wendell Holmes
“The first duty of love is to listen.” – Paul Tillich
“The salvation of man is through love and in love.” – Dr.Viktor Frankl
“True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.” — Erich Segal
“Fall in love and you can fall out of love.
Create love and it will last forever.” – Rabbi Tzvi Freeman“Love is a ladder; it allows us to climb out of ourselves”. – Noah benShea
“Do not seek the because – in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.” – Anais Nin
“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” – Robert Heinlein
“Any love that is dependent on something — when the thing ceases, the love also ceases. But a love that is not dependent on any thing never ceases…” – Ethics of the Fathers, 5:16
“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides” – David Viscott
“You don’t truly love someone until you can take what they need to give you.” – David Suissa
“I’ve learned…. That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them” – Andy Rooney
“The salvation of man is through love and in love” – Dr.Viktor Frankl
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” — Theodor Seuss Geisel
“We may give without loving, but we cannot love without giving.” – Bernard Meltzer
“Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” – Franklin P. Jones
“Who, being loved, is poor?” – Oscar Wilde
“Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them.” – Bill Russell
“What love we’ve given, we’ll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.” – Leo Buscaglia
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” – Khalil Gibran
“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you.” – Erich Fromm
“The first duty of love is to listen.” – Paul Tillich
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu
“If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.” – Michel de Montaigne
“Love is a game that two can play and both win.” – Eva Gabor
“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get – only with what you are expecting to give – which is everything.” – Katherine Hepburn
“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” – Sam Keen
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” – Morrie Schwartz
“Love has no age, no limit; and no death.” – John Galsworthy
“I can live without money, but I cannot live without love.” – Judy Garland
“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” – Jalal ad-Din Rumi
“I am to my beloved, and my beloved is to me” – Song of Songs 6:3
“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” – George Sand
“True love stories never have endings” – Richard Bach
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“To love another person is to see the face of G-d.” – Victor Hugo
“In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.” – Marc Chagall
“Do not seek the because – in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.” – Anais Nin
“Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.” – Duke Ellington
“If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing”*
“A man without a woman is like a ship without a sail. It’s like a boat without a rudder. It’s like a kite without a tail. A man without a woman is like a ship upon the sand. There’s only one thing worse in this universe, it’s a woman, without a man….” – unknown
Too often what we seek in another is what we want or need rather than what we can give or what we are needed for. When you have met that someone for whom all you wish to do is give, you will have found true and unconditional love.
Do not fear that it will be a one-sided relationship. If that person is the one, then all they will want to do is give to you. So by definition, both of you will be receiving without the expectation of a return for your giving. Giving in order to receive often sets us up for the disappointments that eat away.
“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you.” – Erich Fromm
“Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.” – Dalai Lama
“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” – Robert Heinlein
“You don’t truly love someone until you can take what they need to give you.” – David Suissa
In this giving, don’t fear losing yourself. You will be enhancing yourself. Your uniqueness, value, and purpose remain intact. You keep it by sharing it with the other and vice-versa.
“Love turns one person into two and two into one.” – Rabbi Don Yitchak Abarbanel
“Two people, two souls, synergize the best in both and overcome the least in each.” – Chassidic Adage
Sometimes the wants block finding love using the excuses of geographical distance, age difference, financial desires, he or she doesn’t do this or doesn’t like that…., etc., rather than letting go and letting the love flow
“Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them.” – Bill Russell
“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.” – Tom Robbins
“I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss from her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it.” – Nicolas Cage
Primary rule of a healthy and lasting partnership – communicate, communicate, and communicate
“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” – Henry Winkler
What Love does
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu
“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” – David Viscott
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” — Theodor Seuss Geisel
* Title of the Academy Award winning movie and song.
updated from the original post of 2/14/12
“Love, Love, Love – All You Need Is Love”, The Beatles
A thought on love as we approach Valentine’s Day, for those in the “I Haven’t Met You Yet”*(or have you?) category
A healthy relationship begins with a healthy relationship with one self. If you don’t love yourself, then how can you love another? If you don’t love yourself, then you won’t allow another to love you and why would they want to. If you can’t see your inner beauty/soul, then you won’t let someone else in, even if they do see it. If you can’t see yours, how can you see that of another?
Begin by recognizing and constantly remembering that you have value and you matter. You are here, for a specific purpose and mission that only you can fulfill. Never forget that. When you truly internalize and believe that, you will love yourself and be sunshine.
Try this exercise
Take an honest personal inventory and ask yourself why someone would want to be with you. When you have made that list, ask yourself if you would want to be with you. What character traits and qualities of another are attractive to you? You possess those, but do you exhibit those?
“If I am not for myself, who will be for me. And if I am only for myself, of what good am I.” Hillel – Ethics of Fathers 1:14
Sing along
“Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you, in time it’s easy. All you need is love, all you need is love, …” – The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney
*song by Michael Buble
updated from the original post of 2/13/12
Life Coach Or Life Is Your Coach
If you were an athlete, let’s say a boxer, then you know that your coach will train you to be prepared for many different opponents. He will begin by training you in all the basics and continue to reinforce them. Then the coach will prepare you for each opponent. Each opponent that you face has a different style and therefore you must be prepared for them. So the training that the coach gives you will be different for each opponent. The more a boxer trains for different opponents, the better a boxer he becomes, and the better prepared for the next opponent. No matter how well prepared he is for the opponent, he knows there will be surprises. That is where having a solid foundation in the basics and experience comes in. Even if you lose the match, you win something if you learn from it.
Try this for an exercise….Think of life as your coach preparing you for each challenge being sent your way. Train yourself to think of every challenge as just an opponent trying to defeat you and block you from realizing your dreams and goals. When you see life’s challenges this way, you will see them as necessary steps and lessons along the way, preparing you to realizing your dreams and goals, rather than seeing them as walls. When you view each opponent as a necessary opportunity to get stronger, healthier,and better (Heart and Soul), you won’t be fearful and you might even look forward to them. So remember…Who/whatever enters the ring with you…You are RWA = ready, willing, and able
With this attitude, make a list of the types of opponents/struggles that you have fought so far. Review the tapes (in your head) of those fights. Focus on
1. How you got through to the end of the fight
2. What you could improve on
3. What you learned about yourself
So now, sing along with me, “It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rival”, Survivor – from Rocky 3
“In life, it doesn’t matter how hard you hit, it’s how hard you can get hit and still keep moving forward.” – Rocky Balboa from Rocky 6
“Experience is the best teacher, and the worst experiences teach the best lessons.” — Unknown
“The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them.” — Unknown
“Take One Step Forward”
Here is another very powerful message for all, found in the Torah reading of last week (Beshalach – Exodus 13:17-17:16).
The Jewish people have been freed by Pharaoh and just a few days after marching in the desert, they find that Pharaoh has changed his mind and his soldiers are chasing after them. As they look ahead they see the Red Sea. They are now stuck with the Red Sea before them and the soldiers behind them. They are asking themselves, “Is this what we were freed for, to die here in the desert?” Anxious and distraught they break up into four different camps of thought. One says,” Let’s dive into to the sea and drown ourselves rather than be killed by the soldiers. One says, “Let’s just surrender and go back.” One says, “I’d rather die fighting than go back.” One says, “Let’s pray.” They approach Moses and ask him which approach to take and he tells them he will ask G-d. G-d’s answer is simply “Tell them to just take one step forward.” We all know what happened next.
As we move towards realizing our dreams, goals, and purpose, there will be those times when we reach our Red Sea. When we are confronted with fear or doubt by obstacles placed in front of us, or placed there by us. It is at those moments when we must remind ourselves “Just take one step forward.” When we know of others in that situation, we can also remind them.
“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.” – Edward Teller
updated from the original post of 2/8/12
Lance Not-So-Strong
Lance has been a bad, bad boy (see “You Cheated, You Lied….”). That’s the summary and the bottom line. The time spent on analyzing and discussing the entire soap opera could be better used to see what we can learn from it.
There are perhaps many millions of Lances. Each and everyone of us in some way has Lanced ourselves to a victory. He is just the most visible, on a grander scale, and on a bigger stage. If everything happens for a reason, and it does, then perhaps a reason for Lance’s inevitable downfall is an opportunity for us to look at ourselves and the world around us. Do we cheat and deceive to get the results we want? If we cheat, we are cheating ourselves and we are cheating others. We all cut corners in some ways to get the desired result. We then find ways to rationalize our behavior. One of our rationalizations, is the “well everybody does it”. Remember the parental answer is…. “If everybody jumped off the bridge……”
“We call ourselves ‘products of environment’ forgetting that we are also its producers.” — Rabbi Shraga Silverstein
If you acknowledge that we live in an “everybody does it” culture, a culture that values that which isn’t ultimately valuable, then be a part of changing it.
In the movie “Rocky Vl”, the reigning heavyweight champion has all the houses, Bentleys, bling, and entourage and yet his life feels unfulfilled. He visits the first boxing coach he had when he was a boy. Sitting in the old and run down inner-city gym he explained his feelings of emptiness. The coach responded by saying
“You have everything money can buy, except what it can’t.” – From Rocky VI
The world we all want can begin here, and now, and…..It begins with you.
A true champion has the strength and courage to do what’s right and good in all circumstances. Granted, that is a significant challenge for all of us. That challenge is the goal we strive for, and strive for and strive for.
“Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut, that held its ground.” – David Icke
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one’s own way”. – Dr. Viktor Frankl from “Man’s Search for Meaning”
If a great athlete can persevere all the mental and physical rigors of training, then certainly he/she can resist the temptation to do what is wrong. That begins with looking at the real underlying desire for being #1. If it’s primarily for the acclaim and fortune, then with the wrong goal will come some wrong choices. Like the athlete, when we climb our mountain and experience the struggles, we can get stronger and are better able to resist the temptations to do wrong.
“The beginning is embedded in the end, and the end is embedded in the beginning”. – Sefer Yetzirah 1:7
“The entire purpose of our existence is to overcome our negative habits.” – Vilna Gaon
Let’s look at another great athlete and juxtapose his goal versus Lance and/or ourselves
In 1991, Jason Wenning at age 16, set the first of his six world records in disabled swimming. He was born with multiple birth defects and doctors amputated his feet in childhood leaving him with stumps just below the knees. He also had some deformities in his hands.
When asked why he does it, he said,
“For the simple pleasure of forcing the body and mind I was given to the absolute edge of my capabilities. And when I do, I get for just a moment a vision of the limitless potential of the human race.”
To find and express your purpose in life, you have to be you all the way through and in all that you do. You can’t be true to yourself if you cheat. If you have to cheat to win/succeed, then you have entered the wrong race, or for the wrong reason. If you cheat, you haven’t really won. If you cheat, we all lose. Life is a team sport where each of us plays our position to the utmost of our abilities. Challenge and test your “limitless potential”.
“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” – Vince Lombardi
“I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.” – Mikhail Baryshnikov
Even if that means not coming in first.
“Lose with truth and right rather than gain with falsehood and wrong.” — Maimonides
“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.’ – Elvis Presley
We can no longer look to Lance as a hero or role model. The good news is, if we pay attention, we will see that there are many, many heroes and role models all around us. People who do the good and right thing because it’s the right and good thing, in all that they do. We don’t necessarily see them or recognize them. We may not see them because we don’t place the proper value on the good they do. We may not see them because the nature of a hero is to do things quietly and humbly. A true hero doesn’t even realize that he is doing anything extraordinary. It comes naturally. The best news is, it’s in all of our natures.
“Nothing leads to good that is not natural.’ – Friedrich Shiller
Choose your path
“In life there are two paths; the shorter longer way or the longer shorter way.” – Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, The Alter Rebbe (1745-1812)
The Spinning Rabbi - Heart & Soul 