Relationship Means Quotes & Sayings

Survivors often develop an exaggerated need for control in their adult relationships. It's the only way they feel safe. They also struggle with commitment - saying yes in a relationship means being trapped in yet another family situation where abuse might take place. So the survivor panics as her relationship gets closer, certain that something terrible is going to happen. She pulls away, rejects, or tests her partner all the time. — Laura Davis

The previous regime ... reduced man to a means of production and nature to a tool of production. Thus it attacked both their very essence and their mutual relationship. It reduced gifted and autonomous people to nuts and bolts in some monstrously huge, noisy, and stinking machine. — Vaclav Havel

Your longing for an intimate relationship with another person is something you were created to feel. It doesn't mean that you are unholy or that you haven't let Jesus fill your heart the way he should. It means you're human, created in the image of God, a God who loves, who connects, and who longs for relationship himself.
Jesus can never be your boyfriend or girlfriend because we was never intended to be. A significant part of your heart was designed specifically for just him, but there is a part of your heart that was designed specifically for others. — Debra Fileta

He stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality. Since the whole world was created through him and unto him (John 1.3; I Cor. 8.6; Heb. 1.2), he is the sole Mediator in the world. Since his coming man has no immediate relationship of his own any more to anything, neither to God nor to the world; Christ wants to be the mediator. Of course, there are plenty of gods who offer men direct access, and the world naturally uses every means in its power to retain its direct hold on men, but that is the very reason why it is so bitterly opposed to Christ, the Mediator. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Do you have the power to move mountains? Do you turn the other cheek, able to offer love and peace to those who strike you? Are you anxious in your relationship or lack thereof? Are you concerned about your means of income, or your career, or your status? Do you fear for your children? Are you worried about what you will wear, or how others will view you in any respect? Do you secretly suspect that you can never quite measure up to what you think God or the world expects of you? That you are doomed to be a failure, always? Are you quick to point out the failures of others? — Ted Dekker

By placing all our focus on receiving God's blessings and gifts, we behave just like the arrogant young man in the story [Parable of the Prodigal Son] - we value what God can do for us but not God himself. We seek a relationship with God as a utilitarian means to an end. And although we may praise him with our words, our hearts are set on what we hope to get from him. We become jerks cloaked in religiosity. — Skye Jethani

Being 'one flesh' in marriage means that the relationship is not the source of security, affirmation, control, or value. Those issues of identity need to be rooted in Christ. — Scott Perkins

We need to organize ourselves and protest against existing order - against war, against economic and sexual exploitation, against racism, etc. But to organize ourselves in such a way that means correspond to the ends, and to organize ourselves in such a way as to create kind of human relationship that should exist in future society. That would mean to organize ourselves without centralize authority, without charismatic leader, in a way that represents in miniature the ideal of the future egalitarian society. — Howard Zinn

The Warrior archetype is hard-wired into our brain structure. Socialization means repression, which only keeps aggressiveness in an all the more volatile, compressed, and explosive form. But aggression is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. In many ways legitimate aggression contributes vitally to our lives. In aggression we find our drives for life, career, social contact, self-definition, and service. Perseverance and fidelity are products of the Warriors determination. Though the Lover initiates a relationship, it is the Warrior who maintains it-without the Warrior the Lover is merely promiscuous. The answer then is not to banish any of the archetypes, but to work on achieving the maturity necessary to manage them. — Douglas Gillette

Being free means "being free for the other," because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Eve means "giver of life." I don't think this redemptive calling to be a life giver is only biological. The life of Christ in us enables women to be life givers, rather than life-takers, in every relationship, circumstance, and season of life. — Gloria Furman

It is wrong to turn a man (a subject) into a thing (an object). By means of spiritual dialogue, the I-It relationship becomes an I-Thou relationship. God comes and goes in man's soul. And men come and go in each other's souls. Sometimes they come and go in each other's beds, too. — Saul Bellow

From the moon, the Earth is so small and so fragile, and such a precious little spot in that Universe, that you can block it out with your thumb. Then you realize that on that spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you - all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it right there on that little spot that you can cover with your thumb. And you realize from that perspective that you've changed forever, that there is something new there, that the relationship is no longer what it was. — Rusty Schweickart

The formal relationship, enforced by the institution, is that one person's word means everything and the other's means almost nothing; one person can command the other to do just about anything, and refusal can result in total physical restraint. — Piper Kerman

Using the word much as it is used in atomic physics to characterize the relationship between experience obtained by different experimental arrangements and visualized only by mutually exclusive ideas, we may truly say that different human cultures are complimentary to each other ... each such culture represents a harmonious balance of traditional conventions by means of which latent potentialities of human life unfold themselves in a way which reveals to us new aspects of its unlimited richness and variety. — Niels Bohr

A close relationship, she thought. As far as they are concerned, all that means is a threat to which they don't want to expose themselves. — Henning Mankell

You aren't worried are you?"
"Why should I be worried? It's just another day in the neighborhood. You know - bombs, fires, people shooting at you. Why should I be worried? Especially since we could be clothes shopping or boarding a plane. I'm not in the least worried."
"Hmmm," he mused allowed. "I read about this in the relationship manual. It's called womanly sarcasm and usually means a man is in deep trouble. — Christine Feehan

By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings. — Arthur Miller

I've learned that I can only live for myself. I cannot be focused on the world's idea of who they think I am or who I'm supposed to be. I can only be the best me. And if that means that even though I seem eligible and should be in a relationship, maybe I shouldn't be right now, because I am not emotionally available. It's knowing yourself and being more in tune with who you are vs. who the world wants you to be. — Eva Marcille

To exist as an individual means not simply to be numerically distinct from other things but to be a self-pole in a dynamic relationship with alterity, with what is other, with the world. — Evan Thompson

You don't seem to have guts. There is no need to surrender to each other. Surrender to love means: enjoy in the happiness of the other, rejoice in the being of the other; be in tune with each other, dance in harmony. — Rajneesh

All Renaissance drama, especially the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare, is profoundly concerned with shifting power relations within society. The individual was a new force in relation to the state. The threat of rebellion, of the overturning of established order, was forcefully brought home to the Elizabethan public by the revolt of the Earl of Essex, once the Queen's favourite. The contemporary debate questioned the relationship between individual life, the power and authority of the state, and the establishing of moral absolutes. Where mediaeval drama was largely used as a means of showing God's designs, drama in Renaissance England focuses on man, and becomes a way of exploring his weaknesses, depravities, flaws - and qualities. — Ronald Carter

Once you clearly see the disturbed part, then ask, "Who is it that sees this? Who notices this inner disturbance?" Asking this is the solution to your every problem. The very fact that you can see the disturbance means that you are not it. The process of seeing something requires a subject-object relationship. The subject is called "The Witness" because it is the one who sees what's happening. — Michael A. Singer

Courage means to keep working a relationship, to continue seeking solutions to difficult problems, and to stay focused during stressful periods. — Denis Waitley

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

Apes have a wide variety of sexual arrangements. That means, by the way, that there is no such thing as an "ape legacy" that humans are doomed to live by. — Steven Pinker

It's safe to tell us stuff, okay?"
This means it's not safe to tell them anything. — A.S. King

The ideal of the rule of law, along with equality under the law, is one of the bases of tolerance. It means that, one way or another, governments themselves must act in accordance with the law- a responsibility they sometimes try to evade. The treatment of asylum seekers in Australia is an example, where successive Commonwealth governments have produced a series of changes to the law. In a liberal-democratic society the rule of law also means that there must be open discussion about those laws and how they are being upheld in the courts. It also means predictability- known rules about the relationship between people and governments, and in certain matters, between individuals. It is intended to mean fairness - no one should be condemned unheard, and hearings must be carried out openly by courts or tribunals as independent of governments as possible. (In their wars against asylum seekers, governments have shuffled procedures around as if they were fairground illusionists.) — Donald Horne

When maintaining a relationship means diminishing your self, it's time to walk. — Dov Davidoff

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt. (p. 21) — Rollo May

The idea that relationships are not a strategy is potent; and the sad commentary proceeds to say that often relationships are seen as a strategy, a means to accomplish great things - except love and relationship are not what is really wanted. We want to appear relational so people will like what we have to offer. It's the difference between wanting a good marriage and loving the person you married. — Scot McKnight

I'm well aware that it's life I need, and it's life I'm looking for. But the offer has gotten "interpreted" by well-meaning people to say, "Oh, well. Yes, of course ... God intends life for you. But that is eternal life, meaning, because of the death of Jesus Christ you can go to heaven when you die." And that's true ... in a way. But it's like saying getting married means, "Because I've given you this ring, you will be taken care of in your retirement." And in the meantime? Isn't there a whole lot more to the relationship in the meantime? (It's in the meantime that we're living out our days, by the way.) Are we just lost at sea? What did Jesus mean when he promised us life? I go back to the source, and what I find is just astounding. — John Eldredge

Those dreaming of the perfect match are outnumbered by those who don't really want it at all, though perhaps they can't admit it. After all, our culture makes individual freedom, autonomy and fulfillment the very highest values, and thoughtful people know deep down that any love relationship at all means the loss of all three. You can say, 'I want someone who will accept me just as I am,' but in your heart of hearts you know that you are not perfect, that there are plenty of things about you that need to be changed, and that anyone who gets to know you up close and personal will want to change them. — Timothy Keller

Because of the oil-and-water relationship governments have cultivated between ethics and political economy, speaking in plain terms - spelling it out as it is - as become foreign to the public. So here goes: When government sports a surplus, this implies that the political pickpockets have stolen more funds than they can possibly dream of spending. The property is not theirs to keep! Conversely, when deficits are reported, this means that the kleptomaniacs have not been able to steal sufficient funds to cover their profligacy. — Ilana Mercer

A person with money who chooses to spend it on you, takes little effort and is meaningless. However, a person with no time who manages to spend what little they have on you ... this means everything and should appreciated. — Mark W. Boyer

To listen also means to stay in relationship, the central challenge of our time, and this requires us to constantly minimize whatever stands between us and life. — Mark Nepo

For a relationship to deepen, at some point the spiritual dimension needs to come in. You don't even need to be fully awakened for this to happen, but if it does happen it certainly means you are awakening. — Eckhart Tolle

Ending a relationship doesn't end the love that was shared. Love doesn't ever die, it just morphs. Love is eternal. Allowing love to move freely rather than try to force it to be something it's not is the only way to find peace. Gratitude is the first step to happiness and peace. Accepting someone is not what you wanted them to be doesn't make anyone "bad" or "wrong." That's love. Accepting the whole. Letting go out of love takes courage. Staying safe is of the ego. Entrapment is of the ego. And fear. And letting go simply means allowing everyone to be who they are and to live the life they came here to live. — Camille Lucy

I think of art as a glue, a cultural and social glue. It's one of the means that has served to show us the things we believe in and the things we celebrate; it has served to reinforce our relationship to each other. — Eric Fischl

Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world ... That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God's new world, which he has thrown open before us. — N. T. Wright

Outer relationships with a man or a woman are a mirror of the relationship between our own inner man and woman. Embracing our own inner man and woman means to understand the inner drama that happens between our male and female aspects, which manifests on the outside as relationships. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Love is when I am concerned with your relationship with your own life, rather than with your relationship to mine ... there must be a commitment to each other's well-being. Most people who say they have a commitment don't; they have an attachment. Commitment means, "I am going to stick with you and support your experience of well-being." Attachment means, "I am stuck without you." — Stewart Emery

In preparing for this ceremony," Kai said, setting the bouquet on the mantel behind him, "I did some research and learned that the word Alpha has held many meanings across history. Alpha can refer to the first of something," said Kai, "or the beginning of everything. It can be attributed to a particularly powerful or charismatic person, or it can signify the dominant leader in a pack of animals, most notably, of course, wolves." His serious expression tweaked briefly into a teasing smile. "It has meanings in chemistry, physics, and even astronomy, where it describes the brightest star in a constellation. But it seems clear that Ze'ev and Scarlet have created their own definition for the word, and their relationship has given this word a new meaning for all of us. Being an Alpha means that you'll stand against all adversity to be with your mate. It means accepting each other, both for your strengths and your flaws. It means forging your own path to happiness and to love. — Marissa Meyer

To serve means to work alongside the neediest, first of all to establish a close human relationship with them, based on solidarity. Solidarity - this word elicits fear in the developed world. They try not to say it. It is almost a dirty word for them. But it's our word! — Pope Francis

Kids want to be grown ups, adults want to be young and careless again.
Single people desperately want a relationship, but those who are in one still complain almost all the time and wish for freedom.
The poor want money, the rich want more of it.
This means that changing your situation doesn't prevent you from suffering, doesn't make your desires go away.
So you need to change something on the inside. — Lidiya K.

He's sort of a Svengali... It means someone who's manipulative. More than that: somebody who makes you think that you need him in order to accomplish anything. — Anne Beattie

We live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. We shouldn't be able to choose and say, 'You get to live free and you don't.' That means people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. Like Joe (Lieberman), I'm also wrestling with the extent to which there ought to be legal sanction of those relationships. I think we ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into. — Dick Cheney

The phrase, "I love you" has become a part of a relationship's everyday vocabulary. It is said so much, nobody ever really means it. That's why, when I say "I love you," I mean it from the bottom of my heart. — Troy Bisson

Man, made in the image of God, has a purpose - to be in relationship to God, who is there. Man forgets his purpose and thus he forgets who he is and what life means. — Francis Schaeffer

Friendship is just a made up word that we think means: I know you and trust you more than the average person I know. It really means: somewhere in the creation of our destinies we were meant to be the missing piece of each other with a bind unequaled to anything else in the world. We were meant to stay together no matter the physical distance. As long as we can both look up at the night sky and see the same moon we'll always have each other in sight. — Stephenie C. Walker

If you have to ask someone to change, to tell you they love you, to bring wine to dinner, to call you when they land, you can't afford to be with them. It's not worth the price, even though, just like the Tiffany catalog, no one tells you what the price is. You set it yourself, and if you're lucky it's reasonable. You have a sense of when you're about to go bankrupt. Your own sense of self-worth takes the wheel and says, Enough of this shit. Stop making excuses. No one's that busy at work. No one's allergic to whipped cream. There are too cell phones in Sweden. But most people don't get lucky. They get human. They get crushes. This means you irrationally mortgage what little logic you own to pay for this one thing. This relationship is an impulse buy, and you'll figure out if it's worth it later. — Sloane Crosley

Having girlfriends is ... I can't do it. It doesn't mean I don't hang out with girls. It just means that I don't like being in a relationship, because it makes things very complicated. The one piece of advice that I listen to adults on - because I don't listen to adults when it comes to most things - is that I'm too young to have a girlfriend. — Jaden Smith

Space really means the level of awareness or presence, not thinking. So, can you look at your partner and not think? Two conscious beings realize that the essence of the relationship is the space in it. Even when there is an egoic overlay, it is not too dense or heavy for you to sense the essence underneath it. You don't need to react to the egoic overlay. When you don't react to it you don't strengthen it. — Eckhart Tolle

The bad news: your love problems are bigger than you think because love problems are God problems. The good news: the solution is bigger than you think because God cares and is involved. Having more love in your marriage means having more of God in your marriage. Having trouble loving is evidence either that you don't know God or that something is interfering in your relationship with God.1 — Winston T. Smith

That's why you never hear politicians talking about 'citizens,' it's all 'taxpayers,' as though the salient fact of your relationship to the state is how much you pay. Like the state was a business and citizenship was a loyalty program that rewarded you for your custom with roads and health care. Zottas cooked the process so they get all the money and own the political process, pay as much or as little tax as they want. Sure, they pay most of the tax, because they've built a set of rules that gives them most of the money. Talking about 'taxpayers' means that the state's debt is to rich dudes, and anything it gives to kids or old people or sick people or disabled people is charity we should be grateful for, since none of those people are paying tax that justifies their rewards from Government Inc. — Cory Doctorow

Which means, therefore, that our Bible reading is never just for seeing, never just for learning and doctrine. It is not even just for savoring, if that savoring is thought of in a private way that leaves us unchanged in our relationship with others. No. We read the Bible - we always read the Bible - for the kind of seeing and savoring Christ that transforms us into his likeness. — John Piper

More than in any other human relationship, overwhelmingly more, motherhood means being instantly interruptible, responsive, and responsible — Tillie Olsen

Being nonreactive to destructive or hostile behaviour does not imply passive acceptance of it. Rather, it means we need to deal with it, take off our blinders and see the unacceptable. To redirect the destructive enery, we must dance with the shadow, not kill it. When we can achieve this stance, we learn to confront maladaptive or nonproductive behaviour matter-of-factly, without becoming embroiled in the heat of our own emotions. This nonreflexive style of being in the world is potent. — Adele Von Rust McCormick

You don't need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn't mean you're incapable of real love or that you'll never love anyone else again. It doesn't mean you're morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That's all. Be brave enough to break your own heart. — Cheryl Strayed

But as you are surely aware, forgiveness doesn't mean you let the forgiven stomp all over you once again. Forgiveness means you've found a way forward that acknowledges harm done and hurt caused without letting either your anger or your pain rule your life or define your relationship with the one who did you wrong. — Cheryl Strayed

I hope my desire to travel so much isn't forever because it's not the most conducive lifestyle for a relationship or a family by any means. — Lisa Ling

Apologizing does not always mean you're wrong and the other person is right. It just means you value your relationship more than your ego. — Mark Matthews

What does a life of total dedication to truth mean? It means, first of all, a life of continuous and never-ending stringent self-examination. We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner. — M. Scott Peck

For me, the good death includes being prepared to die, with my affairs in order, the good and bad messages delivered that need delivering. The good death means dying while I still have my mind sharp and aware; it also means dying without having to endure large amounts of suffering and pain. The good death means accepting death as inevitable, and not fighting it when the time comes. This is my good death, but as legendary psychotherapist Carl Jung said, "It won't help to hear what I think about death." Your relationship to mortality is your own. — Caitlin Doughty

Simon said, "So have we DTRed now?" Isabelle shrugged. "I have no idea what that means." Simon hid the fact that he was inordinately pleased by this. "Are we officially boyfriend and girlfriend? Is there a Shadowhunter ritual? Should I change my Facebook status from 'it's complicated' to 'in a relationship'?" Isabelle screwed up her nose adorably. "You have a book that's also a face?" Simon — Cassandra Clare

Compassion is the basis of all truthful relationship: it means being present with love-for ourselves and for all life, including animals, fish, birds, and trees. Compassion is bringing our deepest truth into our actions, no matter how much the world seems to resist, because that is ultimately what we have to give this world and one another. — Ram Dass

Truth is, no two people are completely compatible. We have to learn to become one. That means we may have to make sacrifices; we may have to overlook some things. We must be willing to compromise for the good of the relationship. — Joel Osteen

As far as I am concerned, the greatest suffering is to feel alone, unwanted, unloved. The greatest suffering is also having no one, forgetting what an intimate, truly human relationship is, not knowing what it means to be loved, not having a family or friends. — Mother Teresa

Relationship. R-E-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-H-I-P means this: Really exciting love affair turns into overwhelming nightmare. Sobriety hangs in peril. — Gary Busey

When people say 'marriage' to me ... It's always a means to an end. Everyone's so in a rush to define the relationship. — Lady Gaga

I'm spiritual! You know what spiritual means! Me and God has a good relationship. I'm in tune with the universe, the sun, moon, and stars. I'm in tune with the jinns that are all around us. — Ghostface Killah

The question of surrender is political, it is not a question of love. And relationship is not love at all; it means love has ended and relationship has begun. It begins very soon after the honeymoon - mostly in the middle of the honeymoon. It is not easy to live with another person whose life-style is different, whose likings are different, whose education and culture is different, and above all the other happens to be a woman - even their biology is different. — Rajneesh

All of us have a natural drift toward a performance-based relationship with God. We know we're saved by grace through faith - not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9), but we somehow get the idea that we earn blessings by our works. After throwing overboard our works as a means to salvation, we want to drag them back on board as a means of maintaining favor with God. Instead of seeing our own righteousness as table scraps to be dumped, we see it as leftovers to be used later to earn answers to prayer.
We need to remind ourselves every day that God's blessings and answers to prayer come to us not on the basis of our works, but on the basis of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ. — Jerry Bridges

If love means that one person absorbs the other, then no real relationship exists any more. Love evaporates; there is nothing left to love. The integrity of self is gone. — Ann Oakley

I'm not a divorce monger by any means, but if you're not happy in a relationship, and you've grown apart, it's not healthy for a couple to stay together. It's better for kids to see two happy parents than two miserable parents. — Laura Wasser

True repentance isn't just saying, "I'm sorry". It's. saying "I'm sorry, I'll never, ever do that again because my relationship with you means more to me than anything". — Serita Ann Jakes

The narrative for girls is that you just hang around and wait to be "chosen" and then you belong to somebody and you live happily ever after. There isn't room for more nuanced concerns about the creepy proprietary nature of that relationship model, or the breadth of what fulfillment really means for women. — Lindy West

To be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner nonresistance with what happens. It means not to label it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be. — Eckhart Tolle

Empathy provides more than just information about relationships. It is an expression of being in relationship. It is not just a means to better healing relationship, but because it recenters relationship as a central organizing feature of psychic life, empathy itself is healing. The experience of being known and accepted deeply by another, being aware of another being aware of you, what Jordan calls "mutual empathy". — Maureen O'Hara

Perfect health means no weakness anywhere, that is no weakness should remain in the body, or in the mind, or in the relationship between the body and the mind. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Lasting peace is only found through a lifesaving relationship wit Jesus Christ ... knowing Christ means that all the world might be falling apart just outside your front door, maybe just inside it - yet that inner peace, that inner knowing, remains unshaken. — Karen Kingsbury

If I were surrounded by people who always approved of me, I wouldn't need such a deep relationship with my own sense of right and wrong. And you know what that means? It means that other people's approval is actually a hindrance, more than a helper, when it comes to self-discovery. — Vironika Tugaleva

I have a lifetime project which consists of boxes and boxes filled with envelopes on which people have written my name. I've always thought of it as a kind of double portrait, and a portrait of our relationship, which in some cases means nothing. But it makes me feel connected. — Micah Lexier

And harmony means that the relationship between all the elements used in a composition is balanced, is good. — Karlheinz Stockhausen

My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature.
She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves - in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. — Nick Cave

Then what is the relationship between something that you do and the state of joy? You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end. It isn't the action you perform that you really enjoy, but the deep sense of aliveness that flows into — Eckhart Tolle

For obvious reasons, the relationship between novelists, the reviewing establishment and critics in general is chronically, and often acutely, edgy. A kind of low-intensity warfare prevails, with outbreaks of savagery. It is partly an ownership issue. Who, other than its creator, is to say what a work of fiction means or is worth? It can take years to write a novel and only a few hours for a critic, or a reviewer rushing for a tight deadline, to trash it. — John Sutherland

The only leverage the manufacturer can apply to the retailer is his relationship with the consumer. And the main element in profit growth is going to have to lie in making his brand more valuable to the retailer, through its being more valuable to the consumer. And that means his brand must be unique, it must have no adequate direct substitutes - because it is in this, after all, that value lies. — Stephen King

Every time we open one door, we close another. It's lovely to spend Sunday morning with our new love, cooking breakfast and taking a walk together. But in the midst of our happiness, we may feel nostalgia for our former Sunday morning ritual of uninterrupted time alone at a favorite restaurant reading the newspaper. We need to acknowledge the presence of both excitement and loss, to feel their rhythm as they ebb and flow through a new relationship. If we try to deny our losses, they lead to resentments, a gnawing discomfort, and a desire to withdraw.

Yet we also need to remind our ego that love means letting go of our entrenched rituals, of comparing, of wanting life to stay the same...Entering a relationship and living in the heart of the Beloved means our life will change, our shells will crack open and we will never be the same again. — Charlotte Kasl

God's love means that our Creator desires to have a relationship with us. God's holiness prevents him from having fellowship with us and, instead, demands the outpouring of his anger against us. — Robert Jeffress

Blaise Pascal used to mark with charcoal the walls of his playroom, seeking a means of making a circle perfectly round and a triangle whose sides and angle were all equal. He discovered these things for himself and then began to seek the relationship which existed between them. He did not know any mathematical terms and so he made up his own. Using these names he made axioms and finally developed perfect demonstrations, until he had come to the thirty-second proposition of Euclid. — Catharine Cox Miles

We need to explore the relationship between means and ends. Purposes grow out of situations. One may find the pursuit first and then this brings the purpose. — David Hawkins

Natural polytheism embraces the science of ecology as a basic metaphor for theological inquiry. In other words, natural polytheism seeks to understand our relationship with the gods as an aspect of interrelated systems of being, consciousness and meaning. Its focus is, first and foremost, on the wildernesses that defy our carefully mapped boundary lines, that penetrate even the most civilized cultural centers and underlie our most cherished notions of what it means to be human." - Alison Leigh Lilly, "Natural Theology: Polytheism Beyond the Pale — John Halstead

I highly recommend Marci Alboher's One Person/ Multiple Careers. It includes lots of practical strategies for living the slash. Malcom Gladwell is also a constant source of inspiration for me. In his book Outliers, Gladwell proposes that there are three criteria for meaningful work - complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward - and that these can often be found in creative work.2 These criteria absolutely fit with what cultivating meaningful work means in the context of the Wholehearted journey. Last, I think everyone should read Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist3 - I try to read it at least once a year. It's a powerful way of seeing the connections between our gifts, our spirituality, and our work (slashed or not) and how they come together to create meaning in our lives. — Brene Brown

Economy without ecology means managing the human nature relationship without knowing the delicate balance between humankind and the natural world — Satish Kumar

Faithfulness to your husband means sticking up for him, always building him up and never tearing him down. — Myles Munroe

Sometimes the one who is running from the Life/Death/Life nature insists on thinking of love as a boon only. Yet love in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. We let go of one phase, one aspect of love, and enter another. Passion dies and is brought back. Pain is chased away and surfaces another time. To love means to embrace and at the same time to withstand many endings, and many many beginnings- all in the same relationship. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

You could be the most perfect woman on the Lord's green earth - you're capable of interesting conversation, you cook a mean breakfast, you hand out backrubs like sandwiches, you're independent (which means, to him, that you're not going to be in his pockets) - but if he's not ready for a serious relationship, he's going to treat you like a sports fish. — Steve Harvey

If, in the final stage of disintegration, antisemitic slogans proved the most effective means of inspiring and organizing great masses of people for imperialist expansion and destruction of the old forms of government, then the previous history of the relationship between Jews and the state must contain elementary clues to the growing hostility between certain groups of society and the Jews. We — Hannah Arendt

Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe