Leo Tolstoy

Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand. (Anna Karenina)

He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

He’s out his head, I’m out my mind. We got that love, the crazy kind.

Love is not liking somebody. Anyone can do that. Love is loving things that sometimes you don’t like.

Trust. Above all, I ask for trust. You won’t know every thought that crosses my mind, but just know that they’re all for us.

I’m only ever in two places – with you or on the way.

What’s the difference?’ I asked him, ‘Between the love of your life and your soulmate?’ ‘One is a choice, and one is not.’

I never thought love could be so deep, so wide, so open, so full, so elevating! Such a teacher! Thank you for teaching me, growing me, deepening me!!

I have never had trouble to love others, but loving myself was difficult. For years I didn’t like myself, so how could I love myself. It has taken time, and still there is a way to go, but I can say, not only do I like myself, but also care about myself enough to start loving myself too.

We don’t fall in love with people because they’re good people. We fall in love with people whose darkness we recognize. You can fall in love with a person for all of the right reasons, but that kind of love can still fall apart. But when you fall in love with a person because your monsters have found a home in them – that’s the kind of love that owns your skin and bones. Love, I am convinced, is found in the darkness. It is the candle in the night.

Real love is freedom, and this is what you’ve been given by the Creator – the freedom to love and to choose your own path.

We may tell ourselves that love is not really available. But the deeper truth is that we don’t entirely trust it, and therefore have a hard time fully opening to it or letting it all the way into us. This disconnects us from our own heart, exacerbating our sense of love’s scarcity.

I have simply found a way of loving through whatever absences or dejections have fallen like tree branches in my path.

When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.

I’m not something to butter up and taste when you get bored.

Provided that he only broke you into pieces, you still have it all, like a pizza in slices, every. bite, delicious. You may not feel whole, but you are no less because of a feeling.