A belief in Love
Let us call love the apprehension of something outside of oneself, some being or form that is other than our self, and yet that affirms the possibility of a greater unity of which we are each but parts, a unity that leaves us still ourselves, and yet also part of something inestimably greater.
This intense feeling of deep affection may be felt in the presence of another person, or a group of people, or a work of art, or another living creature, or some element of the natural world, or in the embrace of the entire world around us.
Quotations
“Our Reply to Violence”
This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.
“The cause which is blocking all progress”
The cause which is blocking all progress today is the subtle scepticism which whispers in a million ears that things are not good enough to be worth improving. If the world is good we are revolutionaries, if the world is evil we must be conservatives. These essays, futile as they are considered as serious literature, are yet ethically sincere, since they seek to remind men that things must be loved first and improved afterwards.
G. K. Chesterton, from The Defendant, 1902
“The difference between construction and creation”
The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists, as the mother can love the unborn child.
G. K. Chesterton, from Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens, 1911
“A diminishing sense of shared humanity”
In grounded theory, researchers try to understand what we call ‘the main concern’ of study participants. When it comes to belonging, I asked: What are people trying to achieve? What are they worried about?
The answer was surprisingly complex. They want to be a part of something – to experience real connection with others – but not at the cost of their authenticity, freedom, or power. Participants further reported feeling surrounded by ‘us versus them’ cultures that create feelings of spiritual disconnection. When I dug deeper into what they meant by ‘spiritually disconnected,’ the research participants described a diminishing sense of shared humanity. Over and over, participants talked about their concern that the only thing that binds us together now is shared fear and disdain, not common humanity, shared trust, respect or love.
Brené Brown, from the book Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, 2017, © Brené Brown
“The drive to love your partner is universal”
That feature — a key characteristic of our species — is the pair-bond between sexual partners, a special kind of attachment to one’s mate that we humans surely inherited from our primate ancestors, that is seen in cultures with all marriage types, and that people experience as love. The drive to love your partner is universal.
Nicholas Christakis, from the book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, 2019
“The Four-Fold Way”
The following four principles, each based on an archetype, comprise what I call the Four-Fold Way:
Show up, or choose to be present. Being present allows us to access the human resources of power, presence, and communication. This is the way of the Warrior.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaning. Paying attention opens us to the human resources of love, gratitude, acknowledgment, and validation. This is the way of the Healer.
Tell the truth without blame or judgment. Nonjudgmental truthfulness maintains our authenticity, and develops our inner vision and intuition. This is the way of the Visionary.
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome. Openness and nonattachment help us to recover the human resources of wisdom and objectivity. This is the way of the Teacher.
Angeles Arrien, from the book The Four-Fold Way, 1993, © Angeles Arrien
“The fundamental goodness of human nature”
The fundamental goodness of human nature, like the mystery of the Trinity, Grace, and the Incarnation, is an essential element of Christian faith. This basic core of goodness is capable of unlimited development; indeed, becoming transformed into Christ and deified.
Our basic core of goodness is our true Self. Its center of gravity is God. The acceptance of our basic goodness is a quantum leap in the spiritual journey.
God and our true Self are not separate. Though we are not God, God and our true Self are the same thing…
The disintegrating and dying of our false self is our participation in the passion and death of Jesus. The building of our new self, based on the transforming power of divine love, is our participation in His risen life.
Thomas Keating, from the book Founations for Centering Prayer and the Christian Contemplative Life, 2004
“A Hundred Species of Love”
She takes his shaking hand in the dark. It feels good, like a root must feel when it finds, after centuries, another root to pleach to underground. There are a hundred species of love, separately invented, each more ingenious than the last, and every one of them keeps making things.
Richard Powers, from the book The Overstory, 2018, © Richard Powers
“Integrity and Conviction”
The best jazz had always been the embodiment of integrity and conviction. Because the musicians’ skills and competence were so hard-earned, it was difficult to get them to compromise. Once jazzmen began making the decision to water down their artistry for notoriety, publicity, or money, our art began to face the same challenges that our government and many businesses face: dearth of leadership, lack of quality, loss of meaning, insensitivity to people–ultimately a wholesale loss of faith: ‘Well, what is jazz, anyway?’‘What difference does it make what I play?’
Wynton Marsalis, from the book Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life, 2008, © Wynton Marsalis Enterprises
“It's sports and it's all love”
At the end of the day, it’s sports, and it’s all love. I feel for both sides.
(Commenting on having stopped to console Devin Davis, a college basketball opponent who was sobbing on the court, despondent at the end of the game over missing two crucial free throws.)
Moritz Wagner, 2018-03-18
“Love is the ultimate and the highest goal”
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
Victor Frankl, from the book Man's Search for Meaning, 1946
“The Love of What We are Doing”
It’s a labor of love for all of us. It’s not contrived or fake and it’s not about money (it’s too much work to be about money). It’s about the love of what we are doing. That’s the center of what it is about, and that’s the center of what anything of great human value is always about. It’s about that love that you have for humanity in our commonality. And to experience all of the things that are in this music like heartbreak and joy and many other things – a certain type of striving and struggle – it’s a part of the life we all live together.
Wynton Marsalis, from the book Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life, 2008, © Wynton Marsalis Enterprises
“Making something with a great deal of care and love”
One of the ways that I believe people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity is to make something wonderful and put it out there.
And you never meet the people. You never shake their hands. You never hear their story or tell yours. But somehow, in the act of making something with a great deal of care and love, something’s transmitted there. And it’s a way of expressing to the rest of our species our deep appreciation. So we need to be true to who we are and remember what’s really important to us.
Steve Jobs, 2007
“The moment we cease to hold each other”
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
James Baldwin, from the book Nothing Personal, 1964
“Only Connect”
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.
E. M. Forster, from the book Howard”s End, 1910
“The original naiveté”
You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
Henri Matisse, from the article “Time Magazine”, Feb 18, 2017
“Practice kindness all day to everybody”
The world you see is just a movie in your mind.
Rocks don’t see it.
Bless and sit down.
Forgive and forget.
Practice kindness all day to everybody
and you will realize you’re already
in heaven now.
That’s the story.
That’s the message.
Nobody understands it,
nobody listens, they’re
all running around like chickens with heads cut
off. I will try to teach it but it will
be in vain, s’why I’ll
end up in a shack
praying and being
cool and singing
by my woodstove
making pancakes.
Jack Kerouac, from the letter “The Portable Jack Kerouac”, 1957
“The productive orientation is expressed in love”
In the realm of feeling, the productive orientation is expressed in love, which is the experience of union with another person, with all men, and with nature, under the condition of retaining one’s sense of integrity and independence. In the experience of love the paradox happens that two people become one, and remain two at the same time. Love in this sense is never restricted to one person. If I can love only one person, and nobody else, if my love for one person makes me more alienated and distant from my fellow man, I may be attached to this person in any number of ways, yet I do not love.
Erich Fromm, from the book The Sane Society, 1956
“Public morality”
Moral guidance about what is right or decent can be found both in religious teachings and in our contemporary understanding of what we owe one another as members of the same society. As I have suggested, they overlap. A public morality that protects our democratic institutions, cherishes the truth, accepts our differences, ensures equal rights and equal opportunity, and invites passionate enagement in our civic life gives our own lives deeper meaning. It enlarges our capacities for attachment and love. It informs our sense of honor and shame. It equips us to be virtuous citizens.
Robert B. Reich, from the book The Common Good, 2018, © Robert B. Reich
“The Rainbow Bridge”
Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the gray, sober against the fire.
E. M. Forster, from the book Howard”s End, 1910
“This dear fucked-up planet”
What are we here for if not to enjoy life eternal, solve what problems we can, give light, peace and joy to our fellow-man, and leave this dear fucked-up planet a little healthier than when we were born?
Henry Miller, from the remarks “Memo to Self”, 1918
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Jesus, from King James Bible
“tikkun olam”
In Jewish teachings, ‘tikkun olam’ refers to any activity that improves the world, bringing it closer to the harmonious state for which it was created. All people, regardless of religious affiliation, are encouraged to contribute to the common good.
As a company founded by Jews, this healing (tikkun) of the world (olam) is at the core of the mission of The Gottman Institute. Although we are not a religious organization, for more than 20 years, tikkun olam has propelled us forward with a passion for helping people. It’s more than just our ‘why.’
It’s a shared sense of responsibility. If we believe we have information that is helpful to others, which we do, then it is our obligation to use this knowledge for good.
I didn’t always feel this way. As a scientist at the University of Washington, I was making a good living watching couples deteriorate in my research lab. It was my wife, Dr. Julie Schwartz Gottman, a brilliant clinical psychologist, who encouraged me to use my research to help people. It was from a great love that the Gottman Method was born.
According to Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz, ‘At its most basic level, tikkun olam involves arranging our personal lives as well as our politics, culture, and economy on the basis of love.’
John Gottman, from the essay “Tikkun Olam and the Mission of the Gottman Institute”, 12 Dec 2018, © The Gottman Institute
“Unarmed Truth and Unconditional Love”
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Martin Luther King Jr., from the speech “Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28”, 1963
“The World is a Wonderfully Weird Place”
The world is a wonderfully weird place, consensual reality is significantly flawed, no institution can be trusted, certainty is a mirage, security a delusion, and the tyranny of the dull mind forever threatens – but our lives are not as limited as we think they are, all things are possible, laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it’s love and love alone that really matters.
Tom Robbins, from the interview “Gracie Goes to Schooner School”, 2007