Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

Felice Leonardo “Leo” Buscaglia (1924–98) was an American self-help author and motivational speaker. He championed the philosophy that love heals all and gained a reputation as an “apostle of love” for concluding his speeches by hugging every audience member.

Buscaglia got his start as a speech therapist and a supervisor of special education in Pasadena, California. When working as an education professor at the University of Southern California, the suicide of one of his students distressed him. He was inspired to teach a course titled “Love 101,” combining sociology and psychology. Six hundred students attended the first lecture, prompting Buscaglia to launch his career as a motivational writer and speaker. His first book, Love (1972,) examined the phenomenon of human love as the one unifying force in life.

Buscaglia authored over a dozen books and sold more than 11 million copies in 20 languages. His other notable books were Living, Loving and Learning (1982) and Loving Each Other (1984.) Once, five of his books appeared on the New York Times best-seller list simultaneously.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by 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
Topics: Inner-child

L-O-V-E. Such a good word. Such a limitless word. Such a limitless concept.
—Leo Buscaglia

Why do some people always see beautiful skies and grass and lovely flowers and incredible human beings, while others are hard-pressed to find anything or any place that is beautiful?
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Blessings, Gratitude

DON’T MISS LOVE. It’s an incredible gift. I love to think that the day you’re born, you’re given the world as your birthday present. It frightens me to think that so few people even bother to open up the ribbon! Rip it open! Tear off the top! It’s just full of love and magic and joy and wonder and pain and tears. All of the things that are your gift for being human.
—Leo Buscaglia

Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Live-now

Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Letting Go

Don’t hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Energy, Anger, Love

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 on the other side of failure.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Wisdom, Failure

It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Vision, Purpose, Joy

If I don’t have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Wisdom

Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love, Life

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
Topics: Faith, Spirituality, Smile

The most painful thing to experience is not defeat but regret.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Regret

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
Topics: Dreams

A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself—to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.
—Leo Buscaglia

The essence of love is getting out of oneself and into others. When we care less about our feelings, our rights, our happiness, our security, etc., and begin to concern ourselves with the feelings, rights, happiness, and security of others, we will have found the true power of love.
—Leo Buscaglia

A total immersion in life offers the best classroom for learning to love.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Life, Courage, Growth

Relish love in our old age! Aged love is like aged wine; it becomes more satisfying, more refreshing, more valuable, more appreciated and more intoxicating!
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love

Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love, you will find that you are left holding only yourself.
—Leo Buscaglia

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Freedom

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

What love we’ve given, we’ll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.
—Leo Buscaglia

Child development: Most damaging course of action is attempting to keep children from experience or protect them from pain, for it is this time that children learn that life is a magic thing, if “not a rose garden”. The parent’s role is primarily to stand by with a good supply of band-aids.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Life, Rent, Pain, Learn, Good, Experience, Act, Action

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

What’s the good of all our learning, knowing how to read and write and spell if no one ever teaches us the value of life, of our uniqueness, and personal dignity?
—Leo Buscaglia

If he desired to know about automobiles, he would, without question, study diligently about automobiles. If his wife desired to be a gourmet cook, she’d certainly study the art of cooking, perhaps even attending a cooking class. Yet, it never seems as obvious to him that if he wants to live in love, he must spend at least as much time as the auto mechanic or the gourmet in studying love.
—Leo Buscaglia

To be is to do, says the existentialist. “One only becomes real (human) at the point of action”.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Action, Love, Act

We are all born with God-given, unique traits and skills. But, as with all possibilities they will remain unrealized unless they are developed, nurtured, and put into practice. You may have the “capacity” to love, but if left undeveloped, you will never gain the “ability”.
—Leo Buscaglia

Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Romance

Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love, Life, Living

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