Leo Buscaglia's Quotes

Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.

Leo Buscaglia

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

Leo Buscaglia

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.

Leo Buscaglia

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.

Leo Buscaglia

Change is the end result of all true learning.

Leo Buscaglia

The best students come from homes where education is revered: where there are books, and children see their parents reading them.

Leo Buscaglia

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

Leo Buscaglia

I have too much respect for people to try to control them. But they are estranged from love, afraid to reach out and touch one another. We're afraid to appear sentimental or speak in platitudes because people will say, 'What a jerk!' It takes courage in our culture to be a lover.

Leo Buscaglia

Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love.

Leo Buscaglia

Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.

Leo Buscaglia

We all need each other.

Leo Buscaglia

Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.

Leo Buscaglia

When we sit at the table, there is more going on than satisfying hunger. It is sad to think of those who eat simply to satisfy their hunger and who do not permit themselves to linger under the many spells offered by a good meal - the satisfaction of our hearts, our minds and our spirits.

Leo Buscaglia

Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.

Leo Buscaglia

The minute we stop learning, we begin death, the process of dying. We learn from each other with every action we perform. We are teaching goodness or evil every time we step out of the house and into the street.

Leo Buscaglia

I believe that you control your destiny, that you can be what you want to be. You can also stop and say, 'No, I won't do it, I won't behave his way anymore. I'm lonely and I need people around me, maybe I have to change my methods of behaving,' and then you do it.

Leo Buscaglia

Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.

Leo Buscaglia

I have been a teacher myself all my life. I have an intense passion to share with people. Our only salvation is in knowledge, in learning.

Leo Buscaglia

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

Leo Buscaglia

I am a teacher. And I think I am a serious one who happens to be enjoying life.

Leo Buscaglia

I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things... I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.

Leo Buscaglia

What love we've given, we'll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.

Leo Buscaglia

Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.

Leo Buscaglia

It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.

Leo Buscaglia

The purpose of life is to help others, and if you can't help them, won't you at least not hurt them? I know that is a platitude, that that is sentimental and can easily be attacked. But loving, caring is simple, and we make it complex. Our own neuroses make it complex.

Leo Buscaglia

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Leo Buscaglia

Food is celebratory. People who don't cook don't know how much fun they're missing.

Leo Buscaglia