Buscaglia Quotes & Sayings

The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt. — Leo Buscaglia

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

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. — Leo Buscaglia

The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret — Leo Buscaglia

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

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. — Leo Buscaglia

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

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. — Leo Buscaglia

To that there is an answer. — Leo Buscaglia

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

To place your ideas and your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naive. — Leo Buscaglia

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 ... — Leo Buscaglia

Say "yes" to life! "Yes" to wonder, to joy, to despair. "Yes" to pain, "yes" to what you don't understand. Try "yes." Try "always." Try "possible." Try "hopeful." Try "I will." And try "I can." — Leo Buscaglia

It is the foregiver who is freed in foregiving. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

We don't love to be loved in return; we love to love. — Leo Buscaglia

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

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? — Leo Buscaglia

Loving yourself involves the discovery of the true wonder of you; not only the present you, but the many possibilities of you. It involves the continual realization that you are unique, like no other person in the world, that life is, or should be, the discovery, the development and the sharing of this uniqueness. — Leo Buscaglia

If you don't like the scene you're in, if you're unhappy, if you're lonely, if you don't feel that things are happening, change your scene. Paint a new backdrop. — Leo Buscaglia

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

Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

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

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. — Leo Buscaglia

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

Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. — Leo Buscaglia

God made mud, God made dirt, God made boys so girls could flirt. — Leo Buscaglia

Man must never be satisfied with his ability to love. No matter where he is, it is always just the beginning. — Leo Buscaglia

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

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

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

Choose the way of life. Choose the way of love. Choose the way of caring. Choose the way of goodness. It's up to you. It's your choice. — Leo Buscaglia

It is when we ask for love less and begin giving it more that the basis of human love is revealed to us. — Leo Buscaglia

Live now. When you are eating, eat. When you are loving, love. when you are talking with someone, talk. When you are looking at a flower, look. Catch the beauty of the moment! — Leo Buscaglia

Man seldom questions the fact that ugliness and evil are to be found in the world. But he's never as ready to accept that life also offers unlimited beauty and potential for joy as well as endless opportunities for pleasure. — Leo Buscaglia

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

Fantastic things happen - to the way we feel, to the way we make other people feel. All this simply by using positive words. — Leo Buscaglia

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

The lover must often say, "I love because I must, because I will it. I love for myself, not for others. I love for the joy it gives me - and incedentally, only - for that joy it gives to others. If they reinforce me it will be good. If they do not, it also will be good, for I will to love." — Leo Buscaglia

You can only give away what you have ... If you have love, you can give it. If you don't have it, you don't have it to give. — Leo Buscaglia

Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt,
but it is the only way to live life completely. — Leo Buscaglia

I get so sick and tired of hearing people gripe about what their parents did to them. You know what your parents did to you? The best thing they could do. The best thing they knew how, the only thing in many cases that they knew how. Nobody has set out maliciously to hurt their child, unless they were psychotic. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

To love oneself is to struggle to rediscover and maintain your uniqueness — Leo Buscaglia

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot
learn, feel, change, grow or love.
Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom.
Only the person who risks is truly free. — Leo Buscaglia

Listening is love in action. — Leo Buscaglia

Because you are human, you do have magic. Get in touch with it. When you feel the insanity rising, don't push it down. Let it come out. Just once-and then let me know what happens! — Leo Buscaglia

Learn to bend. It's better than breaking. — Leo Buscaglia

You are the only you ... You are the best you. You will always be the second best anyone else. — Leo Buscaglia

A single rose can be my garden; a single friend, my world. — Leo Buscaglia

Booker T. Washington, Buddha, John Dewey, Leo Buscaglia, Moses and Jesus. — Jack Canfield

I got the copyright for love! — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

What we need to know about loving is no great mystery. We all know what constitutes loving behavior; we need but act upon it, not continually question it. Over-analysis often confuses the issue and in the end brings us no closer to insight. We sometimes become too busy classifying, separating, and examining, to remember that love is easy. It's we who make it complicated. — Leo Buscaglia

The only people who become wealthy by being concerned with the future are insurance companies. — Leo Buscaglia

One must never be satisfied with his ability to love. No matter where he is, it is always just a beginning. — Leo Buscaglia

One cannot give what he does not possess. To give love you must possess love. To love others you must love yourself. — Leo Buscaglia

Things omitted are often more deadly than errors committed. — Leo Buscaglia

Live,love and learn — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

It is difficult for some people to accept that love is a choice. This seems to run counter to the generally accepted theory of romantic love which expounds that love is inborn and as such requires no more than to accept it. — Leo Buscaglia

We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn't. Success often lies just the other side of failure. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

I am often accused of being childish. I prefer to interpret that as child-like. I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things. I tend to exaggerate and fantasize and embellish. I still listen to instinctual urges. I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind. I never water my garden without soaking myself. It has been after such times of joy that I have achieved my greatest creativity and produced my best work. — Leo Buscaglia

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

We find we have little to guide us in our search and must put trust in the only power we have, that natural instinct that propels us toward creation, choice, liberation and change. We must yield to the challenge of becoming fully human and trust in our human processes in the hope that they will lead us there. Out challenge then is clear, to make as much of the illusion as possible a reality. After all, our reality is not more than what was once our illusion. — Leo Buscaglia

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

In the end you have only you. — Leo Buscaglia

To love is to risk, not being loved in return. to hope is to risk pain. to try is to risk failure. but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in my life is to risk nothing. — Leo Buscaglia

Love always creates, it never destroys. In this lies man's only promise. — Leo Buscaglia

One does not fall "in" or "out" of love. One grows in love. — Leo Buscaglia

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

Hugs make you feel psychologically more secure and together. — Leo Buscaglia

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.' — Leo Buscaglia

Change is the end result of all true learning. — Leo Buscaglia

Life is our greatest possession and love its greatest affirmation. — Leo Buscaglia

Forgive others, forgive yourself, forgive yourself for not being perfect, and accept responsibility for your own life. — Leo Buscaglia

Love is a dynamic interaction, lived every second of our lives, all of our lives. — Leo Buscaglia

Love creates an "us" without destroying the "me". — Leo Buscaglia

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

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

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

I've learned that you learn best by modeling. If you want people to learn, do it! — Leo Buscaglia

Our talents are the gift that God gives to us ... What we make of our talents is our gift back to God — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

When man has love he is no longer at the mercy of forces greater than himself, for he, himself, becomes the powerful force — Leo Buscaglia

A life of love is one of continualgrowth, where the doors and windows of experience are always open to thewonder and magic that life offers. To love is to risk living fully. — Leo Buscaglia

The life and love we create is the life and love we live. — Leo Buscaglia

Definition of a relationship - an enduring, mutually-agreed upon connection or union, which fulfills certain needs of the individuals involved and the society in which they live. — Leo Buscaglia

Don't hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love. — Leo Buscaglia

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

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. — Leo Buscaglia

Love is life...and if you miss love, you miss life. — Leo Buscaglia

We will only begin to forgive when we can look upon the wrongdoers as ourselves, neither better nor worse. We need to remember that we coexist as mortals in the world, together, the wronged and the wrongdoer, and that, in our common humanity, the situation could readily be reversed. — Leo Buscaglia

The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia

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. — Leo Buscaglia