Real Love Quotes

When we don’t tell those we love about what’s really going on or listen carefully to what they have to say, we tend to fill in the blanks with stories.

~ Sharon Salzberg

With our close friends, family members, and lovers, we hope to create a special world, one in which we can expect to be treated fairly, with care, tenderness, and compassion.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Be open to the possibility that there are other paths available to you in relating to yourself and to another.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Without equanimity, we might give love to others only in an effort to bridge the inevitable and healthy space that always exists between two people.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Whether we fear the existence of boundaries with others or crave more of them, there’s no denying that individuation and separation are inevitable parts of loving relationships that become the site of tension.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We have to know ourselves to know where we end and another person begins, and we have to develop the skills to navigate the space between us. Or else we will seek wholeness through false means that honor neither us nor those we love.

~ Sharon Salzberg

How we traverse the space between us when conflict arises has a profound effect on the health and longevity of our relationships.

~ Sharon Salzberg

A particularly difficult line to navigate is the one between fear and love, especially for parents, who want more than anything to protect their children from suffering.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Letting go of the belief that we’re powerless to help relieve our own suffering enhances our ability not only to heal but also to genuinely love and receive the love of others.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness won’t ensure you’ll win an argument with your sister. Mindfulness won’t enable you to bypass your feelings of anger or hurt either. But it may help you see the conflict in a new way, one that allows you to break through old patterns.

~ Sharon Salzberg

We learn from conflicts only when we are willing to do so.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Love is a living capacity within us that is always present, even when we don’t sense it.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Sanskrit has different words to describe love for a brother or sister, love for a teacher, love for a partner, love for one’s friends, love of nature, and so on. English has only one word, which leads to never-ending confusion.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When our focus is on seeking, perfecting, or clinging to romance, the charge is often generated by instability, rather than by an authentic connection with another person.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Real Love may run on a lower voltage, but it’s also more grounded & sustainable.

~ Sharon Salzberg

From our first breath to our last, we’re presented again and again with the opportunity to experience deep, lasting, and trans-formative connection with other beings: to love them and be loved by them; to show them our true natures and to recognize theirs.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Buddhist teachings discourage us from clinging and grasping to those we hold dear, and from trying to control the people or the relationship. What’s more, we’re encouraged to accept the impermanence of all things: the flower that blooms today will be gone tomorrow, the objects we possess will break or fade or lose their utility, our relationships will change, life will end.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Whatever language we use use to describe healthy relationships, when we’re in them, we feel nourished by them, in body as well as mind.

~ Sharon Salzberg

If we were all looking for something 'easy come and easy go', then all of our lives would be easy. The problem is that we look for something real, don't we? And it is this longing for what is real, that makes finding the right person to be the most difficult task in the world. You can marry someone and promise the rest of your life to the person, only to find out later that this person makes you feel lonely. If we had no innate longing for true love and for true partnership, then none of us would have any problems! Therefore, the most frightening question to ponder upon, is, 'what if true love does not exist; what if the real stuff isn't real at all?' In such a case, life would be meaningless. I suppose I would rather believe in love relentlessly, than live in this world meaninglessly.

~ C. Joybell C.

What is chemistry in a relationship, Really? Chemistry can be spontaneous combustion that excites, incites, often harms. But not understood. Chemistry can also be that which is studied, intentional, and knows how to be repeated and improved upon. Do you have the right chemistry?

~ Lucille Anderson

Science tells us that love not only diminishes the experience of physical pain but can make us—and our beloveds—healthier.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When we pay attention to sensations in our bodies, we can feel that love is the energetic opposite of fear.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves.

~ Sharon Salzberg

There is a sentiment common among most of us when it comes to love—letting go can feel scary.

~ Sharon Salzberg

There are an incalculable—even infinite—number of situations in which we can practice forgiveness. Expecting it to be a singular action—motivated by the sheer imperative to move on and forget—can be more damaging than the original feelings of anger. Accepting forgiveness as pluralistic and as an ongoing, individualized process opens us up to realize the role that our own needs play in conflict resolution.

~ Sharon Salzberg

I know love is real because her love is visible.

~ Hafiz

Forgiveness is a personal process that doesn’t depend on us having direct contact with the people who have hurt us.

~ Sharon Salzberg

When we forgive someone, we don’t pretend that the harm didn’t happen or cause us pain. We see it clearly for what it was, but we also come to see that fixating on the memory of harm generates anger and sadness.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Healing comes in many ways, and no one formula fits all.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Letting go is an inside job, something only we can do for ourselves.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Taking responsibility for oneself is by definition an act of kindness.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Equanimity can be hard to talk about.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Our can-do culture has made many of us believe that we should always be self-sufficient. Somewhere along the way, we also got the message that asking for help is a sign of weakness. We often forget that we’re interdependent creatures whose very existence depends on the kindness of others, including—with a bow to Tennessee Williams—strangers.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Letting go is actually a healthy foundation upon which we can open up to real love—to giving, receiving, and experiencing it authentically and organically.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness may help you gain insight into your role in conflicts with others, it won’t single-highhandedly help you resolve them.

~ Sharon Salzberg

The heart is a generous muscle.

~ Sharon Salzberg

These are times when sympathetic joy comes naturally, but in a complex relationship the heart may not leap up so easily.

~ Sharon Salzberg

Laughing at your pettiness probably works better than scolding yourself for it.

~ Sharon Salzberg

By experimenting with sympathetic joy, we break from the constricted world of individual struggle and see that joy exists in more places than we have yet imagined.

~ Sharon Salzberg

To celebrate someone else’s life, we need to find a way to look at it straight on, not from above with judgment or from below with envy.

~ Sharon Salzberg