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
Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.
—Leo Buscaglia
We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: People, Honesty, Love, Courage, Individuality
I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, “No, I won’t do it, I won’t behave his way anymore. I’m lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving and then you do it.”
—Leo Buscaglia
It is when we ask for love less and begin giving it more that the basis of human love is revealed to us.
—Leo Buscaglia
Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self—a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change—the willful act of making the change, doing something.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Change, Learning
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
I don’t believe in unconditional love. In fact, I think it’s unwise. My love has had a condition that if ever my love keeps you from you, from your growing, and realizing your personal potential, then I must step aside. No one has the right to stand in the way of another’s joy, development, or unique perceptions.
—Leo Buscaglia
Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.
—Leo Buscaglia
What you are is God’s gift to you, what you do with yourself is your gift to God.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Gifts
Love is always bestowed as a gift—freely, willingly and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.
—Leo Buscaglia
Find the person who will love you because of your differences and not in spite of them and you have found a lover for life.
—Leo Buscaglia
Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love, you will find that you are left holding only yourself.
—Leo Buscaglia
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: Purpose, Vision
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
Go around—listen to how many times a day you say, “I love” instead of, “I hate”. Isn’t it interesting that children, as they learn the process of language, always learn the word “no” years before they learn the word “yes”? Ask linguists where they hear it. Maybe if they heard more of “I love, I love, I love” they’d hear it sooner and more often.
—Leo Buscaglia
Who is the loving person? The loving person is the person who loves him or herself. I say this so often, and people say, “Oh yes, you’re so right,” but they don’t do it! You will never be able to love anyone else until you love yourself. Even With your Fat Thighs!
—Leo Buscaglia
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
What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Choice
I’d like to be remembered for being a good, kind, loving, gentle man who attempted to live wisely, and who cared a lot.
—Leo Buscaglia
This loving person is a person who abhors waste—waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Learning, Action, Time Management
As soon as the love relationship does not lead me to me, as soon as I in a love relationship do not lead another person to himself, this love, even if it seems to be the most secure and ecstatic attachment I have ever experienced, is not true love. For real love is dedicated to continual becoming.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Kindness, Life, Goodness, Power, Motivation, Love
We live in a small world. Not a leaf falls that doesn’t affect a myriad of things. When we reach out to someone in love and the effect is made—everyone, everything which comes in contact with the person we’ve effected is better for it. Of course, the converse is true, too.
—Leo Buscaglia
A life of love is one of continual growth, where the doors and windows of experience are always open to the wonder and magic that life offers. To love is to risk living fully.
—Leo Buscaglia
The person, who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Risk, Danger, Feelings
Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Life, Love, Living
People are not here to meet your expectations.
—Leo Buscaglia
One does not fall “in” or “out” of love. One grows in love.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love
A total immersion in life offers the best classroom for learning to love.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Courage, Growth, Life
Your talent is God’s gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to God.
—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
We take love for granted. We assume we are all perfect lovers and all we need do is wait and our love will grow and blossom as readily as a flower in spring. Not so. Love doesn’t grow unless we do. It takes patience, knowledge, experience, determination, and every positive trait we possess. In addition, love is always changing and unless we stay aware and change with it, it eludes us.
—Leo Buscaglia
We can ask ourselves daily what we have done to make the world a better place, to make someone smile, to help someone to feel more secure, etc. It’s the simple things which have the greatest effect. We must never underestimate the strength of a smile or act of kindness.
—Leo Buscaglia
L-O-V-E. Such a good word. Such a limitless word. Such a limitless concept.
—Leo Buscaglia
There are two big forces at work, external and internal. We have very little control over external forces such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, disasters, illness, and pain. What really matters is the internal force. How do I respond to those disasters? Over that, I have complete control.
—Leo Buscaglia
Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love, Life
I have learned that love is the most powerful force available to us. When we have real love we have the strength to perform miracles.
—Leo Buscaglia
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, Smile
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
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