Leo Buscaglia Quotes

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

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.

I don't know about you, but I don't feel that it's my vehicle that is essential. I don't know about you, but I don't feel that it's my education that is essential. I don't think what is essential about me is my house or my car or my clothes. What is essential about me? Well, I think what is essential is that I live and embrace life right now, wherever I am. I grab it in my arms! Don't spend time crying about yesterday-yesterday is over with! I forgive my past. I forgive the people who've hurt me. I don't want to spend the rest of my life blaming and pointing a finger.

Assume that people are good until you actually and specifically learn differently. And even then, know that they have potential for change and that you can help them out.

Happiness and love are just a choice away.

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 live in love is to live in life, and to live in life is to live in love

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!

Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness." -Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998)

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

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

We began this process, and fantastic things happened — to the way we felt, to the way we made other people feel, and the interaction among us. All this simply by using positive words!

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

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.

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

When we cling to pain, we end up punishing ourselves.

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

Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self - a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change - the willful act of making the change, doing something.

To the extent to which you know yourself, and we are all more alike than different, you can know others. When you love yourself, you will love others. And to the depth and extent to which you can love yourself, only to that depth and extent will you be able to love others.

The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret

The oppposite of Love is not Hate - it's apathy.

Strong emotions are present in all people. Without feeling, we would not be human. It's unnatural for man to hide what he's feeling, though if taught to do so, he can learn. Love teaches a man to show what he is feeling. Love never presupposes that it can be discerned or felt without expression.

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

He must also know evil, hate and bigotry as real phenomena, but he must see love as the greater force. He must not doubt this even for a moment or he is lost. His only salvation is to dedicate himself to love, in the same fashion as Gandhi did to militant nonviolence, as Socrates to truth, as Jesus did to love and as More did to integrity. Only then will he have the strength to combat the forces of doubt, confusion and contradiction. He can depend upon no on or no thing for reinforcement and assurance but himself.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

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

We created time, and now we have become the slave of time.

Love is like a mirror. When you love another you become his mirror and he becomes yours .... And reflecting each other's love you see infinity.

It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.

There is a good deal of excellent research on child's play. It has shown conclusively that through play, with the freedom of action it allows and the stressless environment in which it occurs, children discover, relate to and define themselves and their world. ...It is, therefore, paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play.

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

That's love. That's all it means. It means sharing joy with people.

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

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

Each man lives love in his limited fashion and does not seem to relate the resultant confusion and loneliness to his lack of knowledge about love.

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.

Change is the end result of all true learning.

A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.

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.

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.

In the end you have only you.

Love requires that we overcome the traditional and self-defeating fears that place distance between ourselves and others.

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

I'd like to be remembered for being a good, kind, loving, gentle man who attempted to live wisely, and who cared a lot.

The only thing of value we can give kids is what we are, not what we have.

I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.

Things omitted are often more deadly than errors committed.

Everybody needs a hug. It changes your metabolism.