Love is the true nature our our being
♦♦♦
The whole purpose of living is loving. As soon as we make up our minds to love we are climbing up in life. – Sonja Baumung
∞
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
– Kahlil Gibran.
∞
True love is respect and admiration, compassion and kindness, freely given by a healthy, unafraid human being.
– Dan Barker.
∞
You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are…your simple presence can make others happy.
– Jane Roberts.
∞
As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind,
so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
–Helen Keller.
∞
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.
– Rainer Maria Rilke.
∞
Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you.
– Wayne Dyer.
∞
Love is a force that connects us to every strand of the universe,
an unconditional state that characterizes human nature,
always there for us if only we can open ourselves to it.
– Emily Hilburn Sell.
∞
Happiness and love are just a choice away.
– Leo Buscaglia.
∞
Love in its highest form is the most powerful force in the universe. We can learn to express our love – at home and at work, with friends and with strangers.
– Maggie Hamilton
∞
To paraphrase something the anthropologist Ashley Montagu once said, the way I change my life is to act as if I’m the person I want to be. This is, to me, the simplest, wisest advice you can give anyone. When you wake up and act like a loving person, you realize not only that you are altered, but that the people around you are also transformed, because everybody is changed by the reception of this love.
– Bernie Siegel.
∞
To love is not a passive thing. To love is active voice. When I love I do something, I function, I give. I do not love in order that I may be loved back again, but for the creative joy of loving. And every time I do so love I am freed, at least a little, by the outgoing of love, from enslavement to that most intolerable of master, myself.
– Bernard Iddings Bell.
∞
Once you have learned to love, you will have learned to live.
– Unknown.
∞
Love is the doorway through which the human soul passes from selfishness to service. – Unknown
∞
Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.
– Vincent Van Gogh.
∞
Love is always bestowed as a gift — freely, willingly, and without expectation…. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.
– Leo Buscaglia.
∞
As a mother would risk her life
to protect her child, her only child,
even so should one cultivate a limitless heart
with regard to all beings.
With good will for the entire cosmos,
cultivate a limitless heart.
– Buddha.
∞
Happiness is a skill, emotional balance is a skill, compassion and altruism are skills, and like any skill they need to be developed. –– Matthieu Ricard
∞
The person of benevolence never worries. –– Confucius
∞
Love is all we have; the only way that each can help the other.
–– Euripides
∞
We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.
–– Benjamin Disraeli
∞
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
–– Mother Teresa
∞
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.
–– Mother Teresa
∞
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
–– Kahlil Gibran
∞
As I walked out the door towards my freedom, I knew that if I did not leave all the anger, hatred and bitterness behind that I would still be in prison.
–– Nelson Mandela
∞
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
–– Martin Luther King, Jr.
∞
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
–– Martin Luther King, Jr.
∞
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.
–– Martin Luther King, Jr.
∞
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
–– Martin Luther King, Jr.
∞
Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anyone we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister. No matter how different the dress and behaviour, there is no significant division between us and others … our basic natures are the same.
– H.H. the Dalai Lama
∞
“If you remain sincere in your interactions with others, you will naturally come to find yourself surrounded by good friends.”
– The 14th Dalai Lama.
∞
“There is no true joy in a life lived closed up in the little shell of the self. When you take one step to reach out to people, when you meet with others and share their thoughts and sufferings, infinite compassion and wisdom well up within your heart. Your life is transformed.
– Daisaku Ikeda
∞
If you create the space and the desire to have love in your heart as your top priority, you’ll start to see that you have the capacity to make loving decisions, and to have loving reactions, and to become non defensive, and to become a better listener…and pretty soon a little annoyance will come your way or someone will do something wrong…and you’ll just find yourself forgiving them. You’ll find yourself not wanting to be thrown off-centre simply to follow some negative train of thought that’s going to bring you somewhere you don’t want to go. You’ll find yourself able to stay in that feeling of love –and when you do, almost everything else magically takes care of itself…love is the most important answer in life.
– Richard Carlson.
∞
Love has to spring spontaneously from within
And it is no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force.
Love and coercion can never go together;
But though love cannot be forced on anyone,
It can be awakened in him through love itself.
True love is unconquerable and irresistible,
And it goes on gathering power and spreading itself,
Until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.
– Meher Baba.
∞
Love one another, but make no bond of love; let it rather be
a moving sea between the shores of your soul. Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone.
– Kahlil Gibran.
∞
Love suffers long
And is kind.
Love envies not.
Seeks not her own.
Thinks no evil.
Bears all things.
Believes all things.
Hopes all things.
Love never fails.
– I Corinthians 13:4-6.
∞
Let your love flow outward through the universe,
To its height, its depth, its broad extent,
A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
Then as you stand or walk,
Sit or lie down,
As long as you are awake,
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
– Buddha
∞
Love changes everything. – Unknown
∞
♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦
For suggestions for Practical Activities and Resources
related to LOVE go to Developing Love and Goodwill
♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦
Ω