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
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
Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Being Ourselves
Choose the way of life. Choose the way of love. Choose the way of caring. Choose the way of goodness. It’s up to you. It’s your choice.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Choices
Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love, you will find that you are left holding only yourself.
—Leo Buscaglia
The hardest battle you’re ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Battle
Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Purpose, One liners
Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. Not to whom I want you to be, but to who you are.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love
The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. 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 a potential to turn a life around. It’s overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Kindness
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
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
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
Perfect love is rare indeed – for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the The Artist understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love
We are no longer puppets being manipulated by outside powerful forces: we become the powerful force ourselves.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Chance, Circumstance
What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Choices, Choice
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
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
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
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: Joy, Purpose, Vision
Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Life and Living
Love is trusting, accepting, and believing, without guarantee. Love is patient and waits, but it’s an active waiting, not a passive one. For it is continually offering itself in a mutual revealing, a mutual sharing. Love is spontaneous and craves expression through joy, through beauty, through truth, even through tears.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Truth, Act, Joy, Love, Trust, Beauty
One does not fall “in” or “out” of love. One grows in love.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Love
Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time… it tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.
—Leo Buscaglia
Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Live-now
People are not here to meet your expectations.
—Leo Buscaglia
If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Freedom
It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.
—Leo Buscaglia
Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Life, Love
Your talent is God’s gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to God.
—Leo Buscaglia
Like any other living, growing thing, love requires effort to keep it healthy.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Effort
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate—it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn.
—Leo Buscaglia
Topics: Apathy
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