Quotes from Gary Chapman

Love is always freely given. Love cannot be demanded. We can request things of each other, but we must never demand anything. Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.

I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in so doing, they pollute a potentially wonderful day.

Camp out in the living room. Spread your blankets and pillows on the floor. Get your Pepsi and popcorn. Pretend the TV is broken and talk like you used to when you were dating. Talk till the sun comes up or something else happens. If the floor gets too hard, go back upstairs and go to bed. You won't forget this evening!

If we are to develop an intimate relationship, we need to know each other's desires. If we wish to love each other, we need to know what the other person wants.

Love can be expressed and received in all five languages. However, if you don't speak a person's primary love language, that person will not feel loved, even though you may be speaking the other four. Once you are speaking his or her primary love language fluently, then you can sprinkle in the other four and they will be like icing on the cake.

We fail to reckon with the reality of human nature. By nature,we are egocentric. Our world revolves around us. None of us is totally altruistic.

Third, one who is in love is not genuinely interested in fostering the personal growth of the other person. If we have any purpose in mind when we fall in love it is to terminate our own loneliness and perhaps ensure this result through marriage.

Verbal compliments, or words of appreciation, are powerful communicators of love.

Lack of love from parents often motivates their children to go searching for love in other relationships. This search is often misguided and leads to further disappointment.

Gifts need not be expensive; after all, it's the thuoght that counts. But I remind you, it is not the thought left in your head that counts; it is the gift that came out of the thought that communicates emotional love.

When I sit with my wife and give her twenty minutes of my undivided attention and she does the same for me, we are giving each other twenty minutes of life. We will never have those twenty minutes again; we are giving our lives to each other. It is a powerful emotional communicator of love.

We speak and understand best our native language. We feel most comfortable speaking that language. The more we use a secondary language, the more comfortable we become conversing in it. If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting out our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward.

Physician Albert Scheweitzer said. We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness. Professor Leo Buscaglia notes, There seems to be accumulating evidence that there is actually an inborn need for this togetherness, this human interaction, this love. It seems that without these close ties with other human beings, a new born infant, for example, can regress developmentally, lose consciousness, fall into idiocy and die.

Love makes requests, not demands.

Often we fail to consider the fact that our social, spiritual, and intellectual interests are miles apart. Our value systems and goals are contradictory, but we are in love.

It takes time and the conscious choice to listen.

there is hope. That's the marvelous thing about being human. We can change our future. We need not be enslaved by the experiences of the past. We can learn to love even when we have not received love.

love is always a choice.

Each person has the potential of making a positive impact on the world. It all depends on what you do with what you have. Success is not to be measured by the amount of money you possess or the position you attain but rather in how you use both. Position and money can be squandered or abused, but they can also be used to help others.

Dr. Dorothy Tennov, a psychologist, has done long-range studies on the in-love phenomenon. After studying scores of couples, she concluded that the average life span of a romantic obsession is two years.

Love is the fundamental building block of all human relationships. It will greatly impact our values and morals. Love is the important ingredient in one's search for meaning.

Another reality about relationships is that they are never static. All of us experience changes in relationships but a few stop to analyse why a relationship gets better or worse.

We are influenced by our personality but not controlled by it.

Mark Twain once said, "I can live for two months on a good compliment.