Freedom is the crux of self-respect. It is difficult to feel good about ourselves when we are unnaturally dependent on someone or something.

We can find reasons to dislike anyone. But it's what you focus on and appreciate in a person that cultivates a positive relationship.

If you know how much reality is getting in, then you know a great deal about what a person sees to be true.

At the root of fear is low self-esteem. This explains why angry people have low self-esteem, are argumentative, stubborn, and quick to flare up yet slow to forgive. Those behaviors are defenses against the underlying fear.

The guilty are uncomfortable with silence.

Consider, for example, lust versus love. When we lust after someone or something, we think in terms of what they (or it) can do for us. When we love, however, our thoughts are immersed in what we can give to someone else. Giving makes us feel good, so we do it happily. But when we lust, we only want to take. When someone we love is in pain, we feel pain. When someone whom we lust is in pain, we only think in terms of what that loss or inconvenience means to us.

When a person gives, he loves the object of his giving more -- and so love is planted and grows.