Love Nurture Quotes & Sayings

Relationships are at the heart of your wellbeing and happiness. Nurture them and they will nurture you. — Mensah Oteh

I'm not the kind of person who needs to be a mother no matter what. Life brings you people. Maybe I'll nurture someone who's not my child, like a friend, or an actor I'm working with who needs some love. — Heather Graham

When couples start a family, they give up their personal love to achieve a greater responsibility - to nurture their children into good human beings. Nothing should deter them from that goal until the kids are up on their own feet — Siddharth Katragadda

He'll put a real smile on your face, the one that lights up your eyes. He'll make you laugh everyday, tell you some stupid jokes, so then you will have no time to nurture the sad feeling hidden inside you. He will always be there for you until someday, you wake up, feel the sun upon your face, and realize; that the sadness is not there anymore.' - Sinar to Nina — Nilam Suri

Say no when you want to say no, and yes when you want to say yes. You have the right to be you. You can only be you when you do your best. When you don't do your best you are denying yourself the right to be you. That's a seed that you should really nurture in your mind. You don't need knowledge or great philosophical concepts. You don't need the acceptance of others. You express your own divinity by being alive and by loving yourself and others. It is an expression of God to say, Hey, I love you. — Miguel Ruiz

You are more capable of being loved than you understand. And - Celeste, this is important - you nurture and love and protect more than anyone I have known. Or could know. Don't take that away from me. From us. — Jessica Park

You can't prescribe decently for something you hate. It will always come out wrong. You can't prescribe decently for something you despair in. If you despair of humankind, you're not going to have good policies for nurturing human beings. I think people ought to give prescriptions who have ideas for improving things, ought to concentrate on the things that they love and that they want to nurture. — Jane Jacobs

you're so afraid of everyone pitying you that you'd rather nurture their contempt than accept their forgiveness"

- Stacey Michaels — Nicola Sinclair

You gotta chill and relax, and release, meditate, and breathe and walk, and ski and surf, and bask and sunbathe and relax and sing and love and laugh and nurture yourself, and eat good stuff. And find better and better feeling thoughts and practice them until they become the norm. And then everything that life has caused you to become must manifest into your experience. — Esther Hicks

Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them. — Marvin J. Ashton

The widespread assumption that ethical behavior takes the fun out of life is false. In actuality, living ethically ensures that relationships in our lives, including encounters with strangers, nurture our spiritual growth. — Bell Hooks

Food is a gift of God given to all creatures for the purposes of life's nurture, sharing, and celebration. When it is done in the name of God, eating is the earthly realization of God's eternal communion-building love. — Norman Wirzba

How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles. — Nathaniel Branden

Love is a fire that can nurture or destroy, but you can't tell which until you surrender to the flames. — Clara Bayard

There is no power from God that is separated from love. If you want to have influence, you have to join yourself to his love nature. This is more than a feeling or an emotion. It is an attitude of acceptance toward everyone and everything that is God's, even if you can't control it, manage it, or even nurture it. You are called to love. — Shawn Bolz

Machinations are divined. Response is by nature, nurture, experience and if sought peer pressure. You are the owner of free will. Choose. — Truth Devour

The soul is soft, beautiful, delicate, fun-loving, and always blooming. To nurture the soul, it needs sunshine and unconditional self-love. — Debasish Mridha

The fool says 'I never intended to kill. I meant only to wound.' But I tell you that if you prick a finger with a poisoned thorn you may not claim innocence when the heart dies. Do not plant a weed and pretend surprise when it grows to strangle your garden. For, I tell you that hate is to kill, for from hatred grows death as surely as life grows from love. Therefore do not nurture hatred, but love, even for those who hate you in return. Hatred wins many battles, and yet love will triumph. — Michael Grant

Today when you nurture, love and meet the needs of your beloveds with beauty, it will make a difference in how they face their whole day. — Sally Clarkson

More fundamental than religion is our basic human spirituality. We have a basic human disposition towards love, kindness and affection, irrespective of whether we have a religious framework or not. When we nurture this most basic human resource - when we set about cultivating those basic inner values which we all appreciate in others, then we start to live spiritually. — Dalai Lama

We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving "village." And to pursue a life of purpose.
We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.
We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm or neglect these, our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful Earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come. — Raffi Cavoukian

The disobedience of our children should never take us by surprise as parents, EVER. That is our high calling as parents, to direct, train, nurture, love and shepherd our chil dren. It is important we move from irritation with our children and move toward op portunity for training. — Kara Tippetts

Make time daily to nurture your physical, mental and emotional health. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We think of English as a fortress to be defended, but a better analogy is to think of English as a child. We love and nurture it into being, and once it gains gross motor skills, it starts going exactly where we don't want it to go: it heads right for the goddamned electrical sockets. We dress it in fancy clothes and tell it to behave, and it comes home with its underwear on its head and wearing someone else's socks. As English grows, it lives its own live, and this is right and healthy. — Kory Stamper

Nurture your felt love for nature. Never deny it. That love is the eons, the purifying intelligence, beauty and diversity of nature sustaining us in its perfection. Our disconnection from this love and its advice produces our hurt, greed and destructiveness. We must reconnect and restore its peaceful voice in our thoughts, soul and surroundings. — Michael J. Cohen

Picture yourself when you were five. in fact, dig out a photo of little you at that time and tape it to your mirror. How would you treat her, love her, feed her? How would you nurture her if you were the mother of little you? I bet you would protect her fiercely while giving her space to spread her itty-bitty wings. she'd get naps, healthy food, imagination time, and adventures into the wild. If playground bullies hurt her feelings, you'd hug her tears away and give her perspective. When tantrums or meltdowns turned her into a poltergeist, you'd demand a loving time-out in the naughty chair. From this day forward I want you to extend that same compassion to your adult self. — Kris Carr

When we feel deeply drawn to someone, we cathect them; that is, we invest feelings or emotion in them. That process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us is called "cathexis". I his book Peck rightly emphasizes that most of us "confuse cathecting with loving." We all know how often individuals of cathecting insist that they love the other person even if they are hurting of neglecting them. Since their feiling is that of cathexis, they insist that what they feel is love.
When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. — Bell Hooks

The members of the family were like pillars in a Renaissance cloister, he thought, individually contributing to the whole design. Together they formed something stronger and more beautiful than anything they could achieve on their own. Then, at the end of their lives, the least they might be able to say was that they had understood what it was to take part in something greater than themselves. They had known love. They would defend it against anything that came after it; taking risks in order to care for each other in the face of an indifferent world, working as hard as they could to nurture, preserve and protect what they had found and made. Such a love was too precious to put in jeopardy. It was life itself. — James Runcie

Every man must nurture is spiritual soul daily. — Lailah Gifty Akita

On the quality of life: #1. Realize that each human being has a built-in capacity for recuperation and repair. #2. Recognize that the quality of life is all-important. #3. Assume responsibility for the quality of your own life. #4. Nurture the regenerative and restorative forces within you. #5. Utilize laughter to create a mood in which the other positive emotions can be put to work for yourself and those around you. #6. Develop confidence and ability to feel love, hope and faith, and acquire a strong will to live. — Norman Cousins

When we understand love as the will to nurture our own and another's spiritual growth, it becomes clear that we cannot claim to love if we are hurtful and abusive. Love and abusive cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care. — Bell Hooks

Every small things grows when you nurture it, Rosie. Love is just the same. But it that is making you miserable then leave and find something else that brings you the happiness you deserve to feel.
Just listen to what your heart is saying and go with your gut instinct and it will lead you the right way.
Other people don't have all the answers to the questions. Sometimes, we're all just as confused as you are. — Cecelia Ahern

Ive been waiting for this moment,
The one where looking back doesn't seem fascinating anymore & looking forward doesn't seem to be the greatest seek, I am so darn content with creating and living right now that there honestly isn't any room left for the ordinary. — Nikki Rowe

We nurture our sense of connection with the larger whole, noticing that the whole is only as healthy as its smallest part. — Sharon Salzberg

I am a monster. Not because I'm a product of my environment, or because I like to hurt women. I am a monster because I choose to embrace my darkness - I revel in it and nurture it like it's a newborn. I feed it regularly from the suffering of others, because that's what I do: I make those I love suffer. I betray everyone who ever wrongly put their trust in me. And at the end of the day, this girl will be no different. Because that's my special power; that's the one thing I'm truly good at - betrayal. — Anonymous

I am convinced that the way forward for the human race is to recognize and protect the fundamental right of sovereignty over consciousness, to throw off the chains of our divisive religious heritage, to seek out forms of spirituality (or no spirituality at all if we so prefer) that are truly supportive of liberty and tolerance, to help the human spirit to grow rather than to wither, and to nurture our innate capacity for love and mutual respect. The old ways are broken and bankrupt and new ways are struggling to be born. Each one of us with our own talents, and by our own choices, has a part to play in that process. — Graham Hancock

The seriousness of emotional deprivation:
It is not difficult to understand how children who have suffered from malnutrition or starvation need food and plenty of care in their bodies are to recover so they can go on to lead normal lives. If, however, the starvation is severe enough, the damage will be permanent and they will suffer physical impairments for the rest of their lives. Likewise, children who are deprived of emotional nurturing require care and love if their sense of security and self-confidence is to be restored. However, if love is minimal and abuse high, the damage will be permanent and the children will suffer emotional impairments for the rest of their lives. — Mark Z. Danielewski

Sex and Intimacy Intimacy is the fiber that binds us to the people we love, and is built on time, investment, and honest communication. In a healthy long-term relationship, intimacy increases with time and many men and women are fortunate to have a lover who is also their best friend. Sex and romance are crucial for long-term intimacy. The stronger the sexual connection, the stronger the emotional intimacy will be. It is important to nurture and feed your relationship both emotionally and sexually. — Laura Berman

True biblical love is sacrificing, purifying, nurturing, and enduring. — Elizabeth George

Women who love women, who choose women to nurture and support and to create a living environment in which to work creatively and independently, are lesbians. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

My dearest Elle, I vow to love you as you deserve, protect you from those who seek to harm, and nurture you for all my days on this earth, as long as air fills my lungs. I vow, not just as your husband, but as your Dom, to worship you with every fiber of my being, my sweet sub, to free you from your emotional cage and help you discover the woman you are destined to become. I vow to be everything you need, friend, lover, mentor, keeper of your mind, body, and soul. I vow my life and everything I am to you, my world. — Lena Black

Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. — Mitch Albom

Strive to engage in activities that require constant self-development. Nurture and develop the physical body, but also our spiritual nature. We exist for a purpose: to honor our spirituality. When we do, we cannot help but love others. Hurting others is easily recognized as a crime against ourselves. It's no coincidence that all religions teach this at their core. — Janet M. Tavakoli

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection. Love is not something we give or get, it's something we nurture and grow - a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them. We can only love others as much as we love ourselves. Shame, blame, disrespect, and betrayal damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed, and rare. — Summer Innanen

For boys, the family was the place from which one sprang and to which one returned for comfort and support, but the field of action was the larger world of wilderness, adventure, industry, labor, and politics. For girls, the family was to be the world, their field of action the domestic circle. He was to express himself in his work and, through it and social action, was to help transform his environment; her individual growth and choices were restricted to lead her to express herself through love, wifehood, and motherhood
through the support and nurture of others, who would act for her. — Gerda Lerner

Water your dreams with the essence of love so it may nurture and grow beyond your vision and desires. — Truth Devour

In a sane world, love and sex would not divide by gender. We could love like and unlike beings, love them for a variety of reasons. The battered adjectives for homosexuality
queer, lesbian, gay
would disappear and we would only have people making love in different ways, with different body parts. We are too far gone with overpopulation to insist that procreation be an immutable part of desire. Desire needs only itself, not the proof of a baby. We would do well to baby each other instead of making all these unwanted babies that no one has time to nurture or to love.
At this point in my life, I am blessed by my friendships with women. I make no distinction between my gay and straight women friends. I hat the very terms, feeling that any of us could be anything
if we were to unlock the full range of possibilities within. — Erica Jong

As comfortable as I was with my adoption, the nature-versus-nurture question has been a big one for me. I adore my parents, but I always wondered if I would feel a different kind of love-not more or less, just different-for someone who was biologically related. — Emily Procter

We had one thing in common - we were in love. But love is just a gift, and it doesn't answer everything and it's like a precious plant that you have to nurture and look after and all that. — John Lennon

Children can scarcely be fashioned to meet with our likes and our purpose. Just as God did us give them, so must we hold them and love them, nurture and teach them to fullness and leave them to be what they are. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

My main interest is in the promotion of human values. From birth we have a sense of affection and some sense of concern for others. We need to nurture it. Scientists have found that to ensure even physical health peace of mind is essential. People often think that love and compassion are only matters of religious concern, but in fact such values are necessary in all human relations — Dalai Lama

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them - we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. — Brene Brown

Only one thing is necessary: we should all have a pure heart, with no anger, hatred, irritation, or hostility in it. If you feel hostility toward another person, think about their inner state. Do not think about yourself, or that you want to prove yourself right. In your quiet, inner thoughts, try to find the good in others. Do not say anything bad about others, even in your own thoughts. When you interact with a person, try to find as much common ground as possible, the more the better, and try to nurture this feeling. To cease being angry with a person and instead to seek peace, forgiveness and love toward him, remind yourself of any sins you may have in common and compare them. — Leo Tolstoy

A song for you
A song for me
Is how we relate our life to be — Patty Smith

I guarantee that the seed you plant in love, not matter how small, will grow into a mighty tree of refuge. We all want a future for ourselves and we must now care enough to create, nurture and secure a future for our children. — Afeni Shakur

Now in the thriving season of love
when the bud relents into flower,
your love turned absence has turned once more,
and if my comforts fall soft as rain
on her flutters, it is because
love grows by what it remembers of love — Lisel Mueller

Take the pain and grow beauty...You know I've always loved volcanoes. I love how they spew searing, deadly lava that goes on to nurture the most beautiful landscapes on earth. It's from searing pain that the deepest beauty can sprout — Carrie Firestone

Embrace, nurture, love and celebrate the child in self and others; because being child is being a future. — Vishwas Chavan

Prepare for joy - speak your truth, care for yourself, expand your knowledge, nurture your friendships, let people love you, take on new adventures, go where your heart leads you. — Charlotte Sophia Kasl

I love to nurture, I love to help people. I love to brainstorm. I like to mentor. — Debbi Fields

I would be consumed by you,' she said, and blinked her eyes furiously when she felt them fill with tears. 'You would sap all the energy and all the joy from me. You would put out all the fire of my vitality.'
'Give me a chance to fan the flames of that fire,' he said, 'and to nurture your joy. — Mary Balogh

All the best and worse things in us are bound up in the legacy of our family. As children we ardently trust in the stability or, in some cases, the instability we were born into. No matter which...we embraced what was decent while simultaneously suppressing what was deficient yet both traits weaved roots of faithfulness and consternation into the very fabric of who we've become. This now plays significantly into how we nurture our own families and how we relate to others. Our love, our fears, our insecurities, and our loyalties all draw from how we were raised as well as our inherent desire to shift its paradigm to optimistically better the life of not just our children...but our children's children. That's the gift and or the curse of a legacy. Which will you leave behind? — Jason Versey

Nurturing words show that you believe in the other party's capacity to learn, change and grow. One's mind is like a computer. Every message you send goes into one of two files: discounting or nurturing. The file with the most data will direct how one sees and feels about himself or herself. Messages that nurture are based on unconditional love which must be worked at, especially if you come from a discounting family. You will need to rely on Jesus to fill the void in your life with His presence and help you learn how to love unconditionall like He loves us. — H. Norman Wright

I think if something's good and you believe in it, and you care about it, and you give it love and nurture it, it's going to happen. — Jerry Weintraub

It was in her nature to love and to nurture; she would not leave those feelings within herself to fester and sour, but instead she chose someone who would receive her gifts gladly. She did not hold herself to be so special that only one special person could she find satisfactory. — Sena Jeter Naslund

My purpose is to teach and demonstrate what is possible. To demonstrate love of God and good. Remember what my role is as a woman: to be ... good. My role as a mother: to teach, support and nurture my offspring. My role as a grandmother: to remind everybody - right where you are, God is. — Iyanla Vanzant

Love is a flower of life - sometimes half open, one has to receive it with both hands. Nurture it, so it may open to its full bloom - you will be rewarded with its blessful frangrance. You may be intoxicated for life. If you let it drop on the ground, you have missed the most valuable gift of life. — Avtarjeet Singh Dhanjal

In the classic children's story The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed animal becomes "real" because of a child's love. Tamagotchis do not wait passively but demand attention and claim that without it they will not survive. With this aggressive demand for care, the question of biological aliveness almost falls away. We love what we nurture; if a Tamagotchi makes you love it, and you feel it loves you in return, it is alive enough to be a creature. — Sherry Turkle

Never give up the freeness of your soul. Live your duty to mankind, nurture creatures of this world as a true mother of the earth, but never shut your imagination off from those desires that distinguish you from the ordinary. Never allow yourself to be sapped of that extraordinary energy that is the necessary ingredient for creating something new and progressive. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

It's good to be young and full of dreams. Dreams of one day doing something 'insanely great.' Dreams of love, beauty, achievement, and contribution. But understand they have a life of their own, and they're not very good at following instructions. Love them, revere them, nurture them, respect them, but don't ever become a slave to them. Otherwise you'll kill them off prematurely, before they get the chance to come true. — Hugh MacLeod

You want to know about a good man? Man is the one who can carry the home and the family and have the strength to keep that weight going; woman is that which can nurture and nurse and be herself and can keep her radiance and have the strength of that. — Harbhajan Singh Yogi

If a parent does not know how to love and nurture a child while he is young, especially black boys, that child will grow up out of balance mentally, therefore feeling inferior. — Daniel Whyte III

Lost love is still love, Eddie. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it. "Life has to end," she said. "Love doesn't. — Mitch Albom

I'd love to be an artist always, but if no one wants me, I'd love to write songs for other people, be a manager, nurture new talent. — Adele

Every small thing grows when you nurture it, Rosie. Love is just the same. But if that is making you miserable then, leave and find something else that brings you happiness you deserve to feel. — Cecelia Ahern

All the romantic lore of our culture has told us when we find true love with a partner it will continue. Yet this partnership lasts only if both parties remain committed to being loving. Not everyone can bear the weight of true love. Wounded hearts turn away from love because they do not want to do the work of healing necessary to sustain and nurture love. Many men, especially, often turn away from true love and choose relationships in which they can be emotionally withholding when they feel like it but still receive love from someone else. Ultimately, they choose power over love. To know and keep true love we have to be willing to surrender the will to power. — Bell Hooks

Testimony in new age writing affirms the way in which embracing a love ethic transforms life for the good. Yet a lot of this information only reaches those of us who have class privilege. And often, individuals whose lives are rich in spiritual and material well-being, who have diverse friends from all walks of life who nurture their personal integrity, tell the rest of the world these things are impossible to come by. I am talking here about the many prophets of doom who tell us that racism will never end, sexism is here to stay the rich will never share their resources. We would all be surprised if we could enter their lives for a day. Much of what they are telling us cannot be had, they have. But in keeping with a capitalist-based notion of well-being, they really believe there is not enough to go around, that the good life can only be had by a few. — Bell Hooks

Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is: "Love. They must do it for love." Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presence of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide. I have an idea that a lot of farmers have gone to a lot of trouble merely to be self-employed to live at least a part of their lives without a boss. — Wendell Berry

Dreams are flowers of our desires. To let them bloom, nurture them with water, love, and care. — Debasish Mridha

I hope that you mothers will realize that when all is said and done, you have no more compelling responsibility, nor any laden with greater rewards, than the nurture you give your children in an environment of security, peace, companionship, love, and motivation to grow and do well. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human
society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the
preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so
that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent
testimony of God's love. — Pope John Paul II

As a Father, I willingly nurture & protect the Soul's of all those - I love. — Eleesha

I believe that it should be the blessing of every child to be born into a home where that child is welcomed, nurtured, loved, and blessed with parents, a father and a mother, who live with loyalty to one another and to their children. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it. — John Lennon

Fear grid-irons your broken, suffering heart with strength, encasing it with a protective, tough shell. One that soon becomes a prison that will emaciate the unused, enclosed heart inside if left to its own accord. But renewed hope gently unwraps the hard cast, and replaces it with a more resilient, pliable layer, protective, strong, but permeable so as to let love soak in and nurture the malnourished, dying heart inside. — Connie Kerbs

She held herself until the sobs of the child inside subsided entirely. I love you, she told herself. It will all be okay. — H. Raven Rose

The Buddha said, 'Nothing can survive without food.' This is a very simple and very deep truth. Love and hate are both living phenomena. If we do not nourish our love, it will die and may turn into hate. If we want love to last, we have to nurture it and give it food every day. Hate is the same; if we don't feed it, it cannot survive. — Nhat Hanh

Take time for yourself. If you feel guilty eating lunch away from your
desk or lingering in a bath, let the deprogramming begin. — Gina Greenlee

THE ART OF PEACE does not rely on weapons or brute force to succeed; instead, we put ourselves in tune with the universe, maintain peace in our own realms, nurture life, and prevent death and destruction. The true meaning of the term samurai is one who serves and adheres to the power of love. — Morihei Ueshiba

A woman's love, like lichens upon a rock, will still grow where even charity can find no soil to nurture itself. — Christian Nestell Bovee

Our culture encourages women to nurture men, making it predictable that many experience a seductive empathy for abusive men, as well as the misguided hope that love can obliterate an ugly past. — Leslie Morgan Steiner

All human life on the planet is born of woman. The one unifying, incontrovertible experience shared by all women and men is that months-long period we spent unfolding inside a woman's body. Because young humans remain dependent upon nurture for a much longer period than other mammals, and because of the division of labor long established in human groups, where women not only bear and suckle but are assigned almost total responsibility for children, most of us first know both love and disappointment, power and tenderness, in the person of a woman. — Adrienne Rich

Being a good father to our children requires a few goals:
1. Be an example of personal responsibility
2. Display self-respect
3. Be an example of personal growth, passion, and perseverance
4. Recognize and accept your child's particular gifts and nurture them, not wish they had others
5. Love and respect your wife — Charles F. Glassman

God uses people not only to nurture us, but also to open our eyes to sins, selfishness, and denial in us. Love also means saying, "I hold this against you," as Jesus did when he confronted the churches (Rev. 2:4, 14, 20). Being confronted on character issues isn't pleasant. It hurts our self-image. It humbles us. But it doesn't harm us. Loving confrontations protect us from our blindness and self-destructiveness. — Henry Cloud

Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. We all know individuals who did not fulfill the promise they showed in childhood. Many of them became haunted by the image of what they might have become. Instead of blaming fate, I think we should accept ourselves as we are and try to fulfill whatever dreams are within our capability.
Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it. As individuals, we can make a difference, whether it is to probe the secrets of Nature, to clean up the environment and work for peace and social justice, or to nurture the inquisitive, vibrant spirit of the young by being a mentor and a guide. — Michio Kaku

While not every person is called to be a mother in the biological sense, we're all called to be life-givers and love-bearers. And isn't that really what a mother is - a person who is willing to nurture life and love? Isn't that what the world really needs? In what ways can I emulate Mary as a life-giver and life-nurturer? How can I model my life on that of Mary? — Woodeene Koenig-Bricker

When fear overwhelms truth and love, we call it pain. Our spirit as women has all the knowledge and power we need to give birth and to nurture our babies. It is in our genetic coding. It has been there since the beginning of time. You can trust its wisdom. — Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa

It was an instant-fix afternoon quickie, and the Architect was a master of the kind. After I locked my front door after him, still radiant from recent orgasmic thrill, I had it all figured out: love yourself. Take care of yourself. Nurture yourself. Have your needs met; and everything will fit in its space. Eventually, if not earlier.
Yet, there was one thing I was unable to grasp:
How come men can do the nasty with their shoes on (how do they take their pants off?), yet they never fail to take off their handwatches? — Gina Wings

A healthy relationship is when two individuated adults decide to have a relationship and that becomes a third entity. They nurture the relationship and the relationship nurtures them. But they're not overly dependent or independent: They are interdependent, which means that they take care of the majority of their needs and wants on their own, but when they can't, they're not afraid to ask their partner for help." She pauses to let it all sink in, then concludes, "Only when our love for someone exceeds our need for them do we have a shot at a genuine relationship together. — Neil Strauss

We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But First we must find a way to survive against the things that prevent us from doing so. — Terry Brooks