50 Leo Buscaglia Quotes on Love

Leo Buscaglia quotes on love

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

2. As soon as the love relationship does not lead me to me, as soon as I in a love relationship do not lead another person to himself, this love, even if it seems to be the most secure and ecstatic attachment I have ever experienced, is not true love. For real love is dedicated to continual becoming.

4. One does not fall 'in' or 'out' of love. One grows in love.

5. This loving person is a person who abhors waste - waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.

8. 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.

9. Go around - listen to how many times a day you say, 'I love' instead of, 'I hate.' Isn't it interesting that children, as they learn the process of language, always learn the word 'no' years before they learn the word 'yes'? Ask linguists where they hear it. Maybe if they heard more of 'I love, I love, I love' they'd hear it sooner and more often.

10. DON'T MISS LOVE. It's an incredible gift. I love to think that the day you're born, you're given the world as your birthday present. It frightens me to think that so few people even bother to open up the ribbon! Rip it open! Tear off the top! It's just full of love and magic and joy and wonder and pain and tears. All of the things that are your gift for being human.

13. When I wrote my book, LOVE, it was really funny, because my publisher said, 'Oh, Leo, you're going to have to change the name because I'm sure that someone has used that name before.' I said, 'Why don't you send it in and see what happens?' So we sent it in and I got the 'copyright' for LOVE! No one had ever thought of a book called simply Love. L-O-V-E. Such a good word. Such a limitless word. Such a limitless concept.

14. Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.

18. I started my Love Class as a result of the suicide of one of my most talented students. She showed no sign of her despair. Then one day she took her life. I had to ask, 'What's the good of all our learning, knowing how to read and write and spell if no one ever teaches us the value of life, of our uniqueness, and personal dignity?' So I started my Love Class. I taught it free of salary and tuition just so students could have a forum to consider the truly essential things. I really didn't 'teach' the class. I facilitated it - helping the students to discover their own magic.

19. We take love for granted. We assume we are all perfect lovers and all we need do is wait and our love will grow and blossom as readily as a flower in spring. Not so. Love doesn't grow unless we do. It takes patience, knowledge, experience, determination, and every positive trait we possess. In addition, love is always changing and unless we stay aware and change with it, it eludes us.

21. 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.

22. I don't believe in unconditional love. In fact, I think it's unwise. My love has had a condition that if ever my love keeps you from you, from your growing, and realizing your personal potential, then I must step aside. No one has the right to stand in the way of another's joy, development, or unique perceptions.

23. 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.

24. The essence of love is getting out of oneself and into others. When we care less about our feelings, our rights, our happiness, our security, etc., and begin to concern ourselves with the feelings, rights, happiness, and security of others, we will have found the true power of love.

26. We are born for love, but it will die if not nurtured.

28. I have learned that love is the most powerful force available to us. When we have real love we have the strength to perform miracles.

30. It is when we ask for love less and begin giving it more that the basis of human love is revealed to us.

32. A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself - to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.

33. A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

35. A lot of people don't want to talk about love and feelings and I'm always going around saying, 'Hey, let's talk about love!' I don't care. And if you think I'm crazy, that's wonderful, because when you think I'm crazy, that gives me lots of leeway for behavior.

39. Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.

40. Don't brood. Get on with living and loving. You don't have forever.

41. Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.

45. Find the person who will love you because of your differences and not in spite of them and you have found a lover for life.

46. Happiness and love are just a choice away.

48. I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn.

51. I see people who are always saying, 'I'm a lover, I'm a lover, I'm a lover. I really believe in love. I act the part.' And then they will shout at the waitress, Where's the water?!' I will believe your love when you show it to me in action. When you can understand that everybody is teaching everybody to love at every moment.

52. I will leave you with this one thought. You know, I am really convinced that if you were to define love, the only word big enough to engulf it all would be 'life.' Love is life in all aspects. And if you miss love, you miss life. Please don't.

53. I will love you no matter what. 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.

56. 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.

58. Life is our greatest possession and love its greatest affirmation.

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

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

63. Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love.

64. Love is always changing and unless we stay aware and change with it, it eludes us.

65. Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love you will find that you are left holding only yourself.

66. Love is not some complex, mystical abstraction. It is something accessible and human that we learn through our everyday experience, as often at times of failure as in moments of ecstasy.

67. Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever.

68. Man has no choice but to love. For when he does not, he find his alternative lie in loneliness, destruction and despair.

69. Most of us are pawns in a game of love we don't understand.

72. Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.

74. Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.

75. Relish love in your old age! Aged love is like aged wine; it becomes more satisfying, more refreshing, more valuable, more appreciated and more intoxicating!

79. There is seemingly so little love shared in this world, it is not surprising that we ask, 'Where have all the lovers gone?' Since love is the most vital energy for good that is within our power to utilize, it is puzzling why we so seldom do so. Love is just a useless, abstract idea until we put it into action... Unless we are always actively living in love, we are not utilizing the greatest gift we have been given and which we, in turn, have to offer.

82. To live in love is life's greatest challenge.

83. To live in love is to live in life, and to live in life is to live in love.

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

89. What love we've given, we'll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.

91. 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.