Quotes by Leo Buscaglia

We all need each other.

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

Success often lies just the other side of failure.

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

God made mud, God made dirt, God made boys so girls could flirt.

Change. It has the power to uplift, to heal, to stimulate, surprise, open new doors, bring fresh experience and create excitement in life. Certainly it is worth the risk.

Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.

A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world.

Loving memories last forever, I am at a loss for words during this sorrowful time. Please know that I am thinking of you and praying for peace and comfort.

Things omitted are often more deadly than errors committed.

If there is any immortality to be had among us human beings, it is certainly only in the love that we leave behind. Father's like mine don't ever die.

Don't waste your energy trying to change opinions.

Food is celebratory. People who don't cook don't know how much fun they're missing.

I was lucky to have such a loving, crazy family. I learned to give and share.

We treat our encounters with them with carefree casualness. We are certain that our relationships will naturally take care of themselves.

We are not for everyone and everyone is not for us. The question is, 'If we cannot be with another, can we at least not hurt them? Can we, at least, find a way to coexist?'

There are many miracles in the world to be celebrated and, for me, garlic is the most deserving.

Don't walk in my head with your dirty feet.

Live nutty. Just occasionally. Just once in a while. And see what happens. It brightens up the day.

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.

He who remains calm while those around him panic probably doesn't know what's going on.

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

Joy is always an integral part of loving. There is joy in every act of life, no matter how menial or repetitive. To work in love is to work in joy. To live in love is to live in joy... Why not choose joy?... Why not live in joy?

Tact is rubbing out another's mistake instead of rubbing it in.

In a crazy world, it's only your insanity that will keep you sane.

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool, to weep is to risk appearing too sentimental, to reach out for another is to risk involvement, and to expose feelings is to risk exposing one's true self.

When we feel joyful, euphoric, happy, we are more open to life, more capable of seeing things clearly and handling daily tensions.

We want to gently remind people that we don't have forever. In my work, I hear parents complain all the time that their children grow up so fast. But they don't take the time to sit down and talk to each other. The last bastion of getting together is around the table.

Knowing that one is always capable of change, the second step lies in making the decision to change. Change does not occur by merely willing it anymore than behavior changes simply through insight.

As long as you are free, you are free to select and choose alternatives, provided that you are willing to accept the responsibility for being free. And after you've tried your alternatives, and they don't work as you would wish, don't blame me. Blame your choice. Try another alternative.

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

Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness, to teach him how to develop that uniqueness, and then to show him how to share it because that's the only reason for having anything.

The hardest battle you're ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.

Those who think they know it all have no way of finding out they don't.

Every day we are offered new means for learning and growing in love.

I would not want to form a partnership with an architect who has only a little knowledge of building or a broker who has a limited knowledge of the stock market. Still, we form what we hope to be permanent relationships in love with people who have hardly any knowledge of what love is.

If one wishes to know love, one must live love, in action.

A life without love, no matter how many other things we have, is an empty, meaningless one.

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.

The most important thing in the world is that you make yourself a loving person, because this is what you will be giving away.

To live in love is life's greatest challenge. It requires more sublety, flexibility, sensitivity, understanding, acceptance, tolerance, knowledge and strength than any other human endeavor.

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!

A life without passion is not living, it's merely existing.

Don't look over people's shoulders. Look in their eyes. Don't talk at your children. Take their faces in your hands and talk to them. Don't make love to a body, make love to a person.

Hold on to your dreams for they are, in a sense, the stuff of which reality is made. It is through our dreams that we maintain the possibility of a better, more meaningful life.

Every moment spent in unhappiness is a moment of happiness lost.

To this day I cannot see a bright daffodil, a proud gladiola, or a smooth eggplant without thinking of Papa. Like his plants and trees, I grew up as a part of his garden.

Child development: Most damaging course of action is attempting to keep children from experience or protect them from pain, for it is this time that children learn that life is a magic thing, if not a rose garden. The parent's role is primarily to stand by with a good supply of band-aids.

Love is not a thing, it is not lost when given. You can offer your love completely to hundreds of people and still retain the same love you had originally.

If one wishes to be a lover he must start by saying 'YES' to love.

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.

There are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our encouragement, who will need our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give.

Value yourself. The only people who appreciate a doormat are people with dirty shoes.

The most unfortunate thing that happens to a person who fears failure is that he limits himself by becoming afraid to try anything new.

We all need to be recognized for what we're doing, for our work. Every once in a while we need someone to come up to us and say, 'You're beautiful. That was well done. That's nice.'

I've spoken in every state in the union, meeting and hugging the people who later bought my books. I spoke to anybody who wanted to hear me, including 1,000 nuns who could pay me only with homemade bread.

I was one of those fortunate individuals who grew up in a large, passionate, demonstrative Italian family where we were taught to love as naturally as we breathed and ate giant bowls of pasta!

The human need to play is a powerful one. When we ignore it, we feel there is something missing in our lives.

The only lasting trauma is the one we suffer without positive change.

Don't over analyze your relationships.

A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.

To be is to do, says the existentialist. One only becomes real (human) at the point of action.

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.

He must understand that if he is the world's finest plum and someone he loves does not like plums, he has the choice of becoming a banana. But he must be warned that if he chooses to become a banana, he will be a second rate banana. But he can always be the best plum.

You have the choice. You can choose joy over despair, happiness over tears, action over apathy, growth over stagnation.

When we sit at the table, there is more going on than satisfying hunger. It is sad to think of those who eat simply to satisfy their hunger and who do not permit themselves to linger under the many spells offered by a good meal -- the satisfaction of our hearts, our minds and our spirits.

Don't spend your precious time asking Why isn't the world a better place? It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is How can I make it better? To that there is an answer.

Based on a string of bad breakups, I was forced to examine my choice of partners. Surely, that must have abolished me from any wrongdoing.

The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret.

The purpose of life is to help others, and if you can't help them, won't you at least not hurt them? I know that is a platitude, that that is sentimental and can easily be attacked. But loving, caring is simple, and we make it complex. Our own neuroses make it complex.

Life is a great and wondrous mystery, and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now. Don't miss it.

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

To love oneself is to struggle to rediscover and maintain your uniqueness.

Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.

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.

Life is meant to be a celebration! It shouldn't be necessary to set aside special times to remind us of this fact. Wise is the person who finds a reason to make every day a special one.

Time has no meaning in itself unless we choose to give it significance.

I am a teacher. And I think I am a serious one who happens to be enjoying life.

Your talent is God's gift to you.

Love yourself-accept yourself-forgive yourself-and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.

Love can never grow old. Looks may lose their brown and gold. Cheeks may fade and hollow grow. But the hearts that love will know, never winter's frost and chill, summer's warmth is in them still.

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.

I've always thought that people need to feel good about themselves and I see my role as offering support to them, to provide some light along the way.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

Ancient Egyptians believed that upon death they would be asked two questions and their answers would determine whether they could continue their journey in the afterlife. The first question was, 'Did you bring joy?' The second was, 'Did you find joy?

We need to learn to let go as easily as we grasp and we will find our hands full and our minds empty.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch.

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.

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

Life is a paradise for those who love many things with a passion.

To know and not to do, is not to know.

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

We are no longer puppets being manipulated by outside powerful forces: we become the powerful force ourselves.

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.

I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.

The minute we stop learning, we begin death, the process of dying. We learn from each other with every action we perform. We are teaching goodness or evil every time we step out of the house and into the street.

The way to anybody's heart is through a thoughtfully-prepared, beautifully-executed, lovingly-presented meal.

Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.

Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

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

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.