No road is long with good company.
—Turkish Proverb
Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo
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
If we are a metaphor of the universe, the human couple is the metaphor par excellence, the point of intersection of all forces and the seed of all forms. The couple is time recaptured, the return to the time before time.
—Octavio Paz (1914–98) Mexican Poet, Diplomat
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
It takes two men to make a brother.
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) English Playwright, Novelist, Zionist Activist
Each relationship nurtures a strength or weakness within you.
—Mike Murdock
You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.
—Frederick Buechner (b.1926) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Theologian
You will always move toward anyone who increases you and away from anyone who makes you less.
—Mike Murdock
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
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
I think that when you invite people to your home, you invite them to yourself.
—Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) American TV Personality
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
Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.
—Tony Robbins (b.1960) American Self-Help Author, Entrepreneur
The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people, the hardest is with one.
—Joan Baez (b.1941) American Singer, Songwriter, Musician
It takes a lot of experience of life to see why some relationships last and others do not. But we do not have to wait for a crisis to get an idea of the future of a particular relationship. Our behavior in little every incidents tells us a great deal.
—Eknath Easwaran (1910–99) Indian Meditation Teacher, Spiritual Author
We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
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
Lust is easy. Love is hard. Like is most important.
—Carl Reiner (1922–2020) American Actor, Comedian, Film Director
Today we are faced with the preeminent fact that, if civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships… the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world, at peace.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
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
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
A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
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
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
The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.
—Walter Benjamin
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
I like her because she smiles at me and means it.
—Anonymous
A long walk and calm conversation are an incredible combination if you want to build a bridge.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur