I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
The thing that’s between us is fascination, and the fascination resides in our being alike. Whether you’re a man or a woman, the fascination resides in finding out that we’re alike.
—Marguerite Duras (1914–96) French Novelist, Playwright
The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people, the hardest is with one.
—Joan Baez (b.1941) American Singer, Songwriter, Musician
I felt it shelter to speak to you.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.
—Margaret Mead (1901–78) American Anthropologist, Social Psychologist
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
People change and forget to tell each other.
—Lillian Hellman (1905–84) American Playwright, Dramatist, Memoirist
The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
—Walter Benjamin
You must go to bed with friends or whores, where money makes up the difference in beauty or desire.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
My attachment has neither the blindness of the beginning, nor the microscopic accuracy of the close of such liaisons.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. And if our words and our actions come from superficial human relations techniques (the Personality Ethic) rather than from our own inner core (the Character Ethic), others will sense that duplicity. We simply won’t be able to create and sustain the foundation necessary for effective interdependence.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
Relationships based on obligation lack dignity.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
I want relations which are not purely personal, based on purely personal qualities; but relations based upon some unanimous accord in truth or belief, and a harmony of purpose, rather than of personality. I am weary of personality. Let us be easy and impersonal, not forever fingering over our own souls, and the souls of our acquaintances, but trying to create a new life, a new common life, a new complete tree of life from the roots that are within us.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
Kindness and intelligence don’t always deliver us from the pitfalls and traps: there are always failures of love, of will, of imagination. There is no way to take the danger out of human relationships.
—Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1934–2002) American Journalist, Essayist, Memoirist, Travel Writer
One can find women who have never had one love affair, but it is rare indeed to find any who have had only one.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
All things need watching, working at, caring for and marriage is no exception. Marriage is not something to be treated indifferently, or abused or something that simply takes care of itself. Nothing neglected will remain as it was or is, or will fail to deteriorate. All things need attention care and concern and especially so in this most sensitive of all relationships of life.
—Richard L. Evans (1906–71) American Mormon Religions Leader
If fame were based on kindness instead of popularity, on understanding and not on worldwide attention, you would be the biggest celebrity on earth. And to my heart, you already are.
—Anonymous
A long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west –
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American Poet, Journalist
When people are like each other they tend to like each other.
—Tony Robbins (b.1960) American Self-Help Author, Entrepreneur
The “Inside-Out” approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self—with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves recedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.
—Betty Friedan (1921–2006) American Feminist Author, Lecturer
Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom.
Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.
They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, nd we are never ever the same.
—Flavia Weedn
Relationships are the hallmark of the mature person.
—Brian Tracy (b.1944) American Author, Motivational Speaker
Soul-mates are people who bring out the best in you. They are not perfect but are always perfect for you.
—Unknown
We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions—love, antipathy, charity, or malice—and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals.
—Milan Kundera (b.1929) Czech Novelist
Present your family and friends with their eulogies now – they won’t be able to hear how much you love them and appreciate them from inside the coffin.
—Anonymous
Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.
—Emily Kimbrough (1899–1989) American Author, Journalist
You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future—and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
Good company upon the road is the shortest cut.
—Unknown
Basically, the only thing we need is a hand that rests on our own, that wishes it well, that sometimes guides us.
—Hector Bianciotti (1930–2012) French Novelist
The bonds that unite another person to our self exist only in our mind.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
You will always move toward anyone who increases you and away from anyone who makes you less.
—Mike Murdock
In the mythic schema of all relations between men and women, man proposes, and woman is disposed of.
—Angela Carter (1940–92) English Novelist
Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
Aimed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything
But silence breaks the heart.
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–78) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Writer of Children’s Books
Sometimes you have to get to know someone really well to realize you’re really strangers.
—Mary Tyler Moore (b.1936) American Actor, TV Personality
You can be right or you can have empathy. You can’t do both.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Surely there must be some way to find a husband or, for that matter, merely an escort, without sacrificing one’s privacy, self-respect, and interior decorating scheme. For example, men could be imported from the developing countries, many parts of which are suffering from a man excess, at least in relation to local food supply.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
There is no difference between robbing a Jew or robbing a Gentile; if any, to rob a Gentile is a greater sin than to rob a Jew.
—The Talmud Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith
My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
Each relationship nurtures a strength or weakness within you.
—Mike Murdock
In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
People who are having a love-sex relationship are continuously lying to each other because the very nature of the relationship demands that they do, because you have to make a love object of this person, which means that you editorialize about them. You cut out what you don’t want to see, you add this if it isn’t there. And so therefore you’re building a lie.
—Truman Capote (1924–84) American Novelist