Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 

We never live so intensely as when we love strongly. We never realize ourselves so vividly as when we are in the full glow of love for others.

~Walter Rauschenbusch

 

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing... I just helped him cry."

~author unknown

 

There are no guarantees. From the viewpoint of fear, none are strong enough. From the viewpoint of love, none are necessary.

~author unknown

 

Sooner or later we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines and romance in the movies. We begin to know that love is here and now, real and true, the most important thing in our lives. For love is the creator of our favourite memories and the foundation of our fondest dreams. Love is a promise that is always kept, a fortune that can never be spent, a seed that can flourish in even the most unlikely of places. And this radiance that never fades, this mysterious and magical joy, is the greatest treasure of all - one known only by those who love.

  ~ author unknown

 

Love is eternal - the aspect may change, but not the essence. There is the same difference in a person before and after he is in love as there is in an unlighted lamp and one that is burning.  The lamp was there and was a good lamp, but now it is shedding light too, and that is its real function. 

~Vincent Van Gogh

 

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery

 

The following story appeared in National Geographic several years ago.

After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno's damage. One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother's wings. The loving mother, keenly aware of impending disaster, had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise.

She could have flown to safety but had refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived and the heat had scorched her small body, the mother had remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings would live.

~author unknown

 

From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together, and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.

~author unknown

 

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. For that which is essential is invisible to the eye.

~from "The Little Prince", Antoine De Saint-Exupery

 

It is love that fashions us into the fullness of our being - not our looks, not our work, not our wants, not our achievements, not our parents, not our status, not our dreams. These are all the fodder and the filler, the navigating fuels of our lives, but it is love: who we love, how we love, why we love and that we love which ultimately shapes us.

~Daphne Rose Kingma

 

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

~Eric Fromm

 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

~1 Corinthians 13:4-7

 

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That's the time you must not do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It's not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.

~Mother Teresa