Gary Chapman

“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 makes requests, not demands.”

“Most of us have more potential than we will ever develop. What holds us back is often courage.”

“Lack of courage often hinders us from accomplishing the positive things that we would like to do.”

“The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.”

“True love cannot begin until the "in love" experience has run it's course.”

“People who are "in love" lose interest in other pursuits. That is why we call it "obsession.”

“Isolation is devastating to the human psyche.”

“At the heart of mankind's existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another. Marriage is designed to meet that need for intimacy and love.”

“Love is the most important word in the English language--and the most confusing.”

“Anger held inside becomes hate.”

“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.”

“Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself.”

“Recent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas.”

“We are trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve.”

“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.”

“As the instinctual nature of the bird dictates the building of a nest, so the instinctual nature of the in-love experience pushes us to do outlandish and unnatural things for each other.”

“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.”

“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.”

“When we express appreciation, it means that we recognize the value of the other person's contribution to our relationship/ Each of us expends our energy and abilities in ways that benefit our relationship.”

“Respect begins with this attitude: "I acknowledge that you are a creature of extreme worth. God has endowed you with certain abilities and emotions. Therefore I respect you as a person. I will not desecrate your worth by making critical remarks about your intellect, your judgment or your logic. I will seek to understand you and grant you the freedom to think differently from the way I think and to experience emotions that I may not experience." Respect means that you give the other person the freedom to be an individual.”

“What is emotional intimacy? It is that depp sense of being connected to one another. It is feeling loved, respected and appreciated, while at the same time seeking to reciprocate. To feel loved is to have the sense that the other person genuinely cares about your well-being. Respect has to do with feeling that your potential spouse has positive regard for your personhood, intellect, abilities and personality. Appreciation is that inner sense that your partner values your contribution to the relationship.”

“Good marriages are built upon a combination of emotional love and a common commitment to a core of beliefs about what is important in life and what we wish to do with our lives. Speaking each other's primary love language creates the emotional climate where these beliefs can be fleshed out in daily life.”

“Empathetic listening is an awesome medication for the hurting heart.”

“Discovering your own love language helps you understand why you feel more loved and appreciated by certain people than you do.”

“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.”

“Togetherness has to do with focused attention. It is giving someone your undivided attention. As humans, we have a fundamental desire to connect with others. We may be in the presence of people all day long, but we do not always feel connected.”

“All of us blossom when we feel loved and wither when we do not feel loved.”

“Love doesn't erase the past, but it makes the future different.”

“Quality conversation is quite different from the love language words of affirmation. Affirming words focus on what we are saying, whereas quality conversation focuses fully as much on what we are hearing. If I am sharing my love for you by means of quality time and we are going to spend that time in conversation, it will be with a genuine desire to understand your thoughts, feelings and desires.”

“Quality time does not mean we must spend our moments gazing into each other's eyes. It may mean doing something together that we both enjoy. The particular activity is secondary, only a means to creating the sense of togetherness. The important thing is not the activity itself but the emotions that are created between both.”

“Professor Leo Buscaglia notes, "There seems to be accumulating evidence that there is actually an inborn need for this togetherness, this is 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 idocy and die.”

“If acts of service do not come naturally for you, it is still a love language worth acquiring. It is a way of expressing a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others. Albert Schweitzer said repeatedly " As long as there is a man in the world who is hungry, sick, lonely or living in fear, he is my responsibility." Helping others is universally accepted as an expression of love.”

“Life is filled with opportunities to express love by acts of service.”

“Slavery is at the heart of dysfunctional families. When people serve others because they are forced to do so, freedom to truly serve is lost. Slavery hardens the heart, creates anger, bitterness and resentment. On the other hand, true love often finds its expression in acts of serve. It is service freely given, not out of fear but out of choice. It comes out of personal discovery that "it is more blessed to give than to receive”

“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.”

“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.”

“Each of us has an individualized perception of the purposes of money, and we have various emotions associated with spendint it.”

“You cannot force someone to accept an expression of love. You can only offer it. If it is not accepted, you must respect the other person's decision.”

“Covenant love is conscious love. It is intentional love. It is commitment to love no matter what. It requires thought and action. It does not wait for the encouragement of warm emotions but chooses to look out for the interest of the other party because you are committed to the other's well-being. Covenant love requires two factors: knowledge of the nature of love and the will to love. Understanding the 5 love languages will give you the information you need to have a successful long term covenant love relationship. Hopefully, as you see the benefits of covenant love, you will also find the will to love.”

“It takes time and the conscious choice to listen.”

“The choice to do or say something for the other person's benefit, that would help make them a better person, something that would enrich their lives and make their lives more meaningful for them.”

“Expressing love in the right language. We tend to speak our own love language, to express love to others in a language that would make us feel loved. But if it is not his/her primary love language, it will not mean to them what it would mean to us.”

“Covenant love requires two factors: knowledge of the nature of love and the will to love. Understanding the 5 love languages will give you the information you need to have a successful love term covenant love relationship. Hopefully, as you see the benefits of covenant love, you will also find the will to love.”

“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.”

“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.”

“We are relational creatures. All humans live in community and most people seek social interaction. In western culture, isolation is seen as one of the most stringent of punishments. Even criminals do not aspire to solitary confinement.”

“Positive, affirming relationships bring great pleasure while poor relationship brings great pain. Greatest happiness found in good relationships, greatest pain found in bad relationships”

“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.”

“Love doesn't keep a score of wrongs. Love doesn't bring up past failures. None of us is perfect. In marriage we do not always do the right thing. We have sometimes done and said hurtful things to our spouses. We cannot erase the past. We can only confess it and agree that it was wrong. We can ask for forgiveness and try to act differently in the future. Having confessed my failure and asked forgiveness, I can do nothing more to mitigate the hurt it may have caused my spouse. When I have been wronged by my spouse and she has painfully confessed it and requested forgiveness, I have the option of justice or forgiveness. If I choose justice and seek to pay her back or make her pay for her wrongdoing, I am making myself the judge and her the felon. Intimacy becomes impossible. If, however, I choose to forgive, intimacy can be restored. Forgiveness is the way of love.”