Quotes to inspire and reflect

It isn’t tying himself to one woman that a man dreads when he thinks of marrying; it’s separating himself from all the others.

All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, appreciated a little.

To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.

Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.

When one loves somebody, everything is clear—where to go, what to do—it all takes care of itself and one doesn’t have to ask anybody about anything.

Seek not every quality in one individual.

Never close your lips to those to whom you have opened your heart.

It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused.

If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.

The worst prison would be a closed heart.

Him that I love, I wish to be free—even from me.

The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: “What are you going through?”

No disguise can long conceal love where it is, nor feign it where it is not.

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

Let there be spaces in your togetherness / And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish.

So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open, and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.

This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him and to let him know that you trust him.

To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.

Never hesitate to hold out your hand; never hesitate to accept the outstretched hand of another.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.

Sometimes the best helping hand you can get is a good, firm push.

What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

No man can be called friendless when he has God and the companionship of good books.

It pays to know the enemy—not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for our ability to amuse them.

My friends are my estate. Forgive me then the avarice to hoard them!

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn’t seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.

Friends are relatives you make for yourself.

The most called-upon prerequisite of a friend is an accessible ear.

It takes a long time to grow an old friend.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

Getting people to like you is only the other side of liking them.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out.

The true tomb of the dead is the heart of the living.

Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.

You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.