Love is the Answer


Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. Dalai Lama
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/love-quotes
It is only with the heart that one sees rightly The Little Prince

The heart sees what is invisible to the eye. H Jackson Brown Jr.

We are born of Love; love is our mother. Rumi

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness. Oliver Wendell Holmes

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the size and sorrows of men. St Augustine

Rocks and waters are words of God. We all flow from one fountain Soul. All expressions of one love. John Muir
 
(More Love Quotes at the Bottom)

Wise Words - The fine quotes above point to a universal truth; love is our most important virtue, emotion, and experience. Love also contains many fine attributes such as kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. It is the best education we could ever have. “Education” comes from the Latin word "educare" meaning "to draw forth". No one can do it for you, but we hope to help you draw forth the spark of love within you that never goes out, and fan it into a fire or blaze to warm your heart and soul and radiate the warmth and light to your family and friends, and the rest of the world.

A Word From Our Sponsor – Why do I consider love my (and everyone else’s) main concern in life? It’s personal. Growing up in my family, culture, and situation left me feeling alone and without a deep feeling of being loved and cherished. My family was somewhat distant, each dealing with their own life and problems. My parents had very difficult childhoods and continued to struggle as adults. Dad’s parents moved around a lot, so he stayed with one parent or the other, his sister, or family friends. Mom’s parents divorced, remarried, then her father died, her mother had to parent alone again.

The difficulties, suffering, and dysfunction was like a cloud that followed them and hung over our family also. Dad changed jobs often, also trying get rich quick schemes that never worked out. I am very sad to say he also abused my three sisters. Somehow, we managed to get by and seem like an average middle class family, but the cloud was there darkening our days. None of us kids got a college degree, but did well in the workplace anyway.

I was neglected, and so deprived of the attention, affection, appreciation, and affirmation children need to really thrive and prosper in so many ways. I carried “the cloud” on to my wife, children, and others. Yet I knew deep down there was more to life, so I took all the psychology and business classes I could at local junior colleges. The real breakthrough was finding community, healing, and love in spiritual and Twelve Step meetings and teachings.

It’s a long story, much longer than this blog, but typical of the hero’s journey, gathering allies, delving into the darkness of my dysfunctional childhood and life, and returning to the world to share my hope, help, healing, and happiness. I am a man transformed. My life is so wonderful now I often weep at the fountain of love, peace, joy, gratitude, and beauty I have found and drink from daily. Love saved my life. It still saves lives every day, and there is nothing else that stands a chance of saving our world, so that is what I have dedicated my life to. I hope you will join me.

So now I begin each day with a gratitude practice, then I play with my dogs (and my inner child), and hug, and kiss, and tell them how much I love them all day. I make coffee for my partner and we share hugs, kisses, and cuddles (despite our awful upbringings). I write in this blog, do chores around the house and yard, ride bikes, tinker with my cars (models mostly), and serve at Twelve Step meetings, retreats, and events. I keep in touch with family and friends, work my program with my fellows. I also sing, dance, play, and spend a lot of time enjoying nature and talking with my Higher Power. It’s a wonderful life. Lars

The Miracle of Love – A Course In Miracles boils everything down to two things; love and fear. It is a simplification, but one that holds great truth, and helps us see how we have a simple choice to make. It is also said that “Perfect love cast out fear”, so making the choice for love can make a huge difference in how we experience life. Unfortunately, our familial, cultural, and societal upbringings give us a bias towards negativity and fear we must consciously and consistently overcome by choosing love. Our confirmation and other biases try to trick us into believing these wrongs are right. Add to this humanities appetite for greed, conquest, subjugation, and consumerism, and you realize living love is nothing less than heroic.

Your Hero's Journey - The hero's journey is a narrative structure found in many stories across many cultures and time periods. It describes a hero's adventure, where common people are drawn in to face great challenges, gather mentors and allies, battle with forces of darkness, achieve victory, and return transformed with treasures. Star Wars, the Hobbit, the Matrix, and many other stories follow this pattern.

So too, each of us is called to our own hero’s journey through-out our lives, great, and small. Whether it is simply working with difficult co-workers and customers, raising a family and paying bills, or dealing with health, relationships, or other problems, life often demands great courage and efforts. Courage is what this is all about as in the definition of courage, “cor” is Latin for heart, so we called to take heart with great love in the face of problems, challenges, and difficulties.

Inner Personas - We must also learn to understand, accept, and love all our "inner-net" of archetype persons good and bad to become our best selves. We can get in touch with our inner magician, artist, warrior, hero, king or queen, and so on. It is also wise to get in touch with our dark side through our inner demons, villains, and monsters. Facing them honestly and fully lessens their power over us.

"It is a frightening that man has a shadow side. The individual seldom knows anything of this, but if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, there emerges a raging monster. Knowing your own darkness is also the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people, and whatever is rejected from the self appears in the world as an event. I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole” Carl Jung. There is a dark side to love, through obsession, compulsive attachment, and so forth, so we need to love our shadow side as well.

A Full Life - Life is sunshine and roses, but also darkness, storms, and thorns. A full life embraces it all. It is very easy to be frightened, frustrated, angry, and depressed. But love goes further. We must face our life situations with complete focus and clarity and learn to accept, embrace, and love what is to find real and lasting understanding, wisdom, and transformation.

Relative Versus Absolute - The mind and thinking are the limited, relative physical world, the heart and love is another, the world of the spiritual, infinite, and absolute. I’m sure you are familiar with the relative side, and people who only care about what you can do for them. We have all had experiences of conditional love, as giver and receiver. Yet in the absolute realm we can live in infinite love, peace, joy, and beauty for ourselves and all others, as well as all life and creation. Bad behaviors and beliefs aren’t as easy, but if we can separate them from the individual, we stand a much better chance. How do we do that? Read on.

Out of Body Experience - One problem is we don't feel much anymore. A common cause for this is the neglect, abuse, abandonment, and other traumas suffered as child. It may have been mild for some, but extreme for many others. The stress was felt in our minds, but also very strongly in the body. Often the stress, tension, and trauma in our heart, gut, and body was too much to bear, so we moved out of our bodies and into our heads. Our bodies, hearts, feelings, emotions, and truth become more of an idea than a home and experience.

People often share that they haven't laughed or cried for years, perhaps decades. Unfortunately, mind can’t experience anything fully just through intellect, only with emotions, feelings, and the heart. A vivid example is chocolate or ripe, juicy, and delicious peach, as someone could tell you all about them in a thousand ways, but it’s all just ideas, and nothing compared to taking a bite and savoring it deeply with your eyes closed.

Sensational! - Our senses are a great opportunity to express a loving reality. In fact there is some evidence our senses aren’t just receiving information, but sending it out, and creating our world, so the opportunity is not just to see, taste, hear, and feel, but to look with love, taste with love, listen with love, and feel with love. For example, love can “color” our vision so that look for the loving aspect of things we see. Then, it is as if our eyes are projectors, sending out love to light our world in the living colors of love.

A good example here is body language, as how we feel is expressed in how we carry ourselves, and others pick up on it right away, whether it is crossed (closed) arms and legs with a stern look, or open arms and hands reaching out with a smile on our face and a twinkle in our eyes. This is how we can build a bodily, mentally, and spiritually experience of love through how we see, feel, listen, sniff, and taste. Can you smell the love in your world? Why not?! (some say cognition is a sense also – so get a mindset of love too!)  

Neuroplasticity - How important is it to make love, kindness, and compassion a priority in life. Consider the scientific fact that “Nerons that fire together, wire together” (Donald Hebb), so our “software” becomes our “hardware! Lao Tzu also wisely said; "Watch your thoughts, for they become words; watch your words, for they become actions; watch your actions, for they become habits; watch your habits, for they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny". What we think and do matters.

In your Hands - Speaking of the body… I like to draw a small heart, peace symbol, happy (actually joyful) face, and a star for beauty on my palm occasionally. I used to do it every day. This is to remind me that love, peace, joy, beauty, and many other (Higher Powered) “super powers” are always in the palm of our hands, but it’s up to us to remember. Love is a part (member) of us like an arm or leg, so “re-membering” love every day is all important.

Wellbeing and/or Sickness – Problems, fears, and stresses trigger fight, flight, freeze reactions in the body that flood us with adrenaline and cortisol to send our heart and blood racing, while slowing down non-essential processes like digestion. The problem is our busy, crowded, and anxious modern lives can put us into chronic stress that put us on track for depression, hypertension, and many other diseases. As fears overwhelm us it attacks our hearts so we are more prone to, guess what? Heart attacks!

Yet we can find our way back to our innate, original, and infinite kindness, compassion, and of course love, it releases the “love drugs” or “happy hormones” of dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, and oxytocin. This steers us away from sicknesses and diseases (and dis-ease!), and back to wellbeing. Hold someone’s hand, look deeply into their eyes, really listen, or give them a big hug and you will see what I mean. There are lots of ways to find and enjoy this reality. How? Read on!

Attitude of Gratitude – Another great way to get those loving and happy hormones is simply gratitude. There are all sorts of gratitude practices to use; a few minutes first thing in the morning for good start of the day and before bed for sweet dreams. Some folks make a list of new things to be grateful for each day and send it to a friend. Personally, I have a giant list with categories I wrote out that come to mind in my morning practice and through-out the day. I believe it has brought my love and happiness to a much higher level. Better to spend your time counting your blessings  than counting your curses. Give it a try!

Inner Child - “The most sophisticated people I’ve ever known had one thing in common. The were all in touch with their inner child” Jim Henson. Many people don’t believe they have an inner child, or they don’t think it’s important, yet the inner child is the home of creativity, passion, joy, fun, and lots of other fine qualities. The inner child is the part of us that loves to play, sing, and dance.

Realizing this, you might say, “bring it on!” (I did!). The inner child is also the home of the deep, heart-felt experience of love. They naturally care about others, and want to help when they see someone suffering. Childhood also goes back to a preverbal, even precognitive time when we were one with our mother and our maker. (Much more in the Inner Child Sanity File)

Hope, Help, Healing, and Happiness - Cowboy Dharma is firmly grounded in the (12 Step) Children of Dysfunctional Families tradition which seems to include most everybody. Look at Dysfunctional Families in Wikipedia and you may be stunned to see all of the manifestations, perhaps many you grew up with. It lists six basic dysfunctional roles, six dysfunctional family dynamics, sixteen common dysfunctional traits, thirty-two dysfunctional styles, and thirty-five dysfunctional aspects. It’s worth reviewing to see where you may have been stunted and have room to learn, grow, and practice self-love in order to thrive. (see Sanity File)

Life Happened - Childhood, home and family life, school, adolescence, teen age years, young adulthood, work, dating, marriage, children, mortgages and so on, living the dream or the nightmare and train wreck, or something in between (usually both). Perhaps we hit bottom sometimes (or many). Some, perhaps most of us struggled to survive when we should have been thriving. And so it goes for years, decades, or a lifetime unless and until we wake up from the dynamic and cycle, get help, and recover the kindness, forgiveness, and love we all needed, and still do.

These factors were a harsh daily reality for those who grew up in dysfunctional families and environments, as we often lost touch with our heart, intuition, ground of being, and very soul. The mind, brain, and thinking became all powerful and important. Rationality and reasoning became God as we became addicted to thinking like an alcoholic is to drinking, so for us "think is our drink". Yet the love and passion in our hearts, fire in our belly, and lightening in our veins never went out completely.

Higher Power - “You may call God love, goodness, and compassion” Meister Eckhart. If you are thinking oh no, they are going to talk about God, hold on a minute. Yes, but not an angry old man in the sky, rather the infinite power, presence, wisdom, and LOVE of the universe, however you understand it. This is the power of gravity, electricity, and all other fundamental forces of nature, and most of all LOVE. On our own we are nearly powerless, but we all have access to this infinite and eternal power of life and love if we can let go, and let God.

Loving submission to higher truth, good, law, and love allows us to get out of a self-referencing, self-absorbed, and self-centered ego. This takes the weight of the world off our shoulders and gives it to the infinite and eternal goodness of creation however you perceive it. Hopefully it is an up close and personal power you can feel loving you in all physical, mental, and spiritual ways. We were born from the “The Eternal One” but got lost in a separate and singular “me” for a while. It is time to return to the higher, greater, and wiser “we” of all life and love.

Divine Love – Another benefit of an up close and personal relationship with a Higher Power of your own understanding is coming to feel and believe that all the world and creation is holy ground, and we are all welcome to a full share of divine grace and holiness in our lives and world. We can realize that each of us is outrageously blessed with natures bounty such as in the seasons changing, life giving rains, and perhaps most precious of all, the gift of life for ourselves, across the world and time, and likely the universe. (Much more in Higher Power Sanity File)

Ego as Amigo? – It is important to realize that a selfish ego has much valuable information for us. It is an integral part of us like any other, so not something to be destroyed or discarded. It is when it takes over and becomes unloving by ignoring the needs and value of others it becomes a problem. In fact, “To know yourself, is to lose yourself” Dogen. Similarly, Jim Carey said that after playing so many parts over the years he realized “Jim Carey” was just another part he was playing (from a script from his parents, society, and culture). So, find your personal passions and follow your love and bliss, but don’t let ego get in the way.

Higher Parent - There is another aspect of Higher Power few people know or understand. Our parent’s style of loving, as well as temperament, attitude, world view, and many others is overlaid onto our experience of a Higher Power (and life). They were our authority figures, and since God is the ultimate “author” and authority of all creation, we naturally see and experience God in the same way, be that kind, caring, and loving, or distant, angry, and cruel. This is an “aha” (or oh shit!) realization for many, and good reason to nurture a kind, caring, and loving inner parent and Higher Power.

Adult States - Now consider our adult manifestations of love as parents, teachers, caregivers, mentors and so on. Some are even willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for others as police, firemen, soldiers, and others. Sure, it’s easy to think of selfish businessmen, politicians, and others, but there are also plenty of good and loving examples of these as well. The point is, as children, teens, and adults, to listen with love, look with love, speak with love, and act with love.

The ”I” of the Storm - The heart is the deep part of us much like the ocean, particularly when storm clouds gather and the “worldly winds” of loss and gain, praise and blame, fame and shame, pleasure and pain rage through our lives.  The wind and waves are the drama and dysfunction of life that rise and fall and come and go. Also like the winds and debris spinning around in a hurricane, destroying everything in their path, and yet the eye of the storm is calm and quiet. 

It is all too easy to live and be lost in external worldly concerns 24/7, but there is an alternative. We can choose otherwise, and live and act from the inside out, from our heart center, and source, always accessible through prayer and meditation, healing communities, sages, wise counselors, and loving friends and family.

If it hasn’t become clear yet, it is vital to realize that infinite love, compassion, and kindness are not something we must chase after, capture, and cling to, as they are part of our essential nature and True Self, and waiting within our heart and mind to re-member, re-cognize, and real-ize wherever we are and whatever we are doing. They are real, and a key part of the real you! Always were, and always will be. "You are perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement" Shunryu Suzuki. It may be hard to believe, but it is crucial we do. The only work we have to do is to remove the barriers keeping us from love over, and over, and over for the rest of our loving days!

The Mind of Love - There is also a biological basis for this depth and heart, as there are three parts of the brain with different purposes. The first is the brain stem with its focus on survival through breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure often referred to as the reptilian brain, as reptiles tend to be solitary, competitive, and abandon their young. The top, and newest part of the brain is the neocortex; responsible for learning, language, and problem solving. This is the crowning glory for humans that sets us apart from other creatures due to our amazing aptitude for creativity, thinking, and imagination.

The third part is between the two, deep within at the heart of the brain on top of the spinal cord. This is the limbic system, the emotional paleo (older/ancient) mammalian brain. This is perhaps the best part of our minds, where family and community arose, and we learned to care for our children, parents, others, animals, and all nature with kindness, compassion, and love from the cradle to the grave, if we were lucky.

Mind as Master – The eye sees, the ear hears, the nose smells, and the mind thinks. It is natural, but all too often an obsessive-compulsive narrative that won’t let up, a “monkey mind” jumping all over and capturing our attention. With negativity, favoritism, groupthink, and dozens of other biases coloring our thoughts it is clear our minds need taming, training, and transforming. Prayer and meditation are a couple of effective ways to get back to our heart’s wisdom, truth, and love.

Prayer and Meditation - Spending quiet time in prayer and meditation are excellent ways to get in touch with the infinite love of nature, the universe, God, ourselves, and others. Prayer is communication with living quality of love present in plants, animals, people, our Higher Power, and all creation. Meditation is more a preverbal communion with them. Here we can become one with them in a sacred, eternal, and real presence. Prayer and meditation have a very long history and story, please see the Sanity File for more.

The Human Condition - Our separation and isolation also have a biological basis, as the mind receives information from two eyes, two ears, and two nostrils to judge space, distance, and threats stereoscopically. The mind works to separate things and create inner and outer, here or there, and us or them thinking. Conversely as the head separates, the heart unifies, and makes all others, life, and creation one. It’s time to let the heart take the lead. 

Love of Nature – Nature teaches us the nature of love whether it is in person, in our minds, and wherever nature is found (parks, gardens, houseplants, pets, etc.). “I go to nature every day for inspiration. It is my manifestation of God” Frank Lloyd Wright. "God writes the gospel on trees, flowers, clouds and stars" Martin Luther. "Nature is the art of God" Thomas Browne “The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself. Nature is the source of all true knowledge” Leonardo de Vinci. “I know no staircase to heaven unless it be through earth’s loveliness” Michaelangelo. (more in Nature Sanity File)

Journaling can be very helpful. It can also help take the weight of the world off our shoulders by leaving it on the page, and get us back to a loving head space when the going gets tough. We can write out all our joy and sorrows, successes and failures, and deepest, darkest, as well as most happy secrets. You may also use non-dominant hand writing to access, understand, and love your inner child (or children of various ages). Don’t be afraid to have fun and get wild with drawings, doodles, and  big bold words and punctuation where inspiration hits you. Just a simple spiral bound notebook from most any store serves very well.

Here you can also speak with your Higher Power as your very best friend forever, someone who knows everything you ever did as well as your every thought, idea, opinion, and belief however divine or evil, yet loves you enough to keep the sun shining, rain falling, and seasons changing as if for your own personal benefit. Add to this keeping your body working to balance, digest food, pass waste, and hundreds of other functions non-stop for a lifetime and you may find your Higher Power is an AWESOME friend!

Grieving and Compassion can be a breakthrough to love for ourselves and others if we can really feel the pain and suffering, grieve the losses, comfort the sick and wounded physically, spiritually, mentally, economically, environmentally, and other ways from losses, oppression, exploitation, illness, old age, and other maladies. Too often we hide from our pain and suffering and that of others. This was common in many, if not most homes growing up, as well as in cultures and societies, especially in the USA.

Loving Community - Reaching out and asking for help (from safe people) is also difficult for us, as these forces also teach us we are on our own, shouldn’t show weakness or vulnerability, and yet somehow, we are supposed to “have it all together”. Isolating isn’t the answer, it’s the problem, as a problem shared is a problem halved, and a joy shared is a joy doubled. To cry together and for each other takes real compassion. It breaks through the walls we build to protect ourselves, through the distances we put between us, and through the false biases and prejudices we've come to believe. 

Love Lost - Why has life become so hard and un-loving in so many ways? Let us offer a historical perspective. Perhaps much of our modern angst is a result of the Age of Reason sweeping Europe as rebellion against rule by the Church and Monarchs. Science, industry, and skepticism became favored over kindness and caring so that reasoning became the primary source of authority and legitimacy. This over reliance on thinking and reason led us to believe that "I think therefore I am".

Eventually, many saw that nature and humanity were being trampled and lost, so this gave way to Romanticism in Europe as art and beauty came to balance out excess reason and rationalism. It seems America is long overdue for a similar reawakening as our true and loving self took a backseat to the intellect and let it became the guiding force. This extended out to our world as we became overly reliant on and reactive to external events, and created a nation of rugged individualists ready and willing to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, but left many bewildered, alone, and unloved.

Losing Heart - Many of us have been living an "out-of-body" (especially heart) experience for decades as our soul and spirit seemingly moved into our heads and our "being" was overcome by seeking, doing, and possessing. Our hearts passion became ego ambition endlessly seeking people, things, and pleasures to "complete" us and fill the emptiness we felt as we ran from our pain and discomfort. Perhaps we should work on losing our heads, and going out of our minds!

Homecoming - The emphasis on head over heart was a necessary evolutionary cycle for us to survive and thrive but it has served its purpose and gone too far. Like the prodigal child we must turn for home. We now need to spend at least as much time in our hearts as we do on our heads. Finding this center, source, and essential home again brings a peace, joy, beauty, and uniting love that is primordial and preverbal. It seems the heart and mind are like an hour glass, and it was the wrong way up for a time as we lost our hearts to compulsive thinking and reasoning. The time has come to fill the heart and follow it’s lead.

Mother Nature - Another great way to take this journey is with nature. When we look to nature, we see it is infinite as well. First there are all the stars, planets, and other "heavenly bodies" engaged in an intricate seemingly infinite dance across the universe in perfect mechanical order like a Swiss watch. Life is similarly and infinitely tenacious, abundant, diverse, and beautiful as it clings to every possible crack and crevice across the earth, oceans, and skies it can, and likely across the cosmos as well.

Look to the myriad of processes going on non-stop like clockwork in our bodies for a lifetime like digestion, balance, circulation, and immunity and you can see we are blessed. Add our amazing senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste, and you find we are outrageously blessed!

True Power, Life, and Love manifest through our internal essential self and being, our True Self. This love is our anchor and safe harbor, and sound foundation to build our lives on. Hopefully this understanding will help you feel the heart and wisdom of a deeply loving Higher Power in your body, heart, mind, spirit, and soul to carry out to the world through your eyes, words, heart, and hands.

Give Up and Give In - Rest in your center and source, so you can start to live, really live again, with love for yourself and others, from the inside out. It’s that simple. It’s not going to be fast, easy, or painless, in fact it’s damn hard work, but you are worth it. “You, as much as anybody in the universe, deserve love and affection” The Buddha. Also, your family, friends, all humanity, and life need you to be the true and wonderful self waiting within you.

Brighter Days - Unfortunately, the shit is already hit the fan in many places around the world, as many worst-case scenarios are happening daily due to climate change, wars, famines, sickness, and other problems, and it seems things will get much worse. Yet there is hope, healing, and happiness if we seek out truly helpful people and situations to guide and support us. We need love more than ever. Love for ourselves, each other, animals and plants, and our dear mother earth. Each of us can find the peace, joy, beauty, and most importantly love in our hearts and minds to carry with us and to our personal world.

The Music in Me - The love of music, and the music of love is deep in the heart of humans and many other animals, even plants love music! Chimps and cockatoos like to drum (the cockatoos hold sticks in their beaks), Shanthi the elephant could play the harmonica, Nora the cat played the piano, and Koko the gorilla played the harmonica, recorder, and whistles! Birds of course love to sing (and dance), and lemurs even sing with rhythm!

Personally, music and songs play in my mind, heart, and soul much of the time whether I’m playing music or not. I made a list of my favorite songs that now stands at seven pages broken down to categories of love/compassion, joy/passion/inspiration, Higher Power/God/The Force, the Blues (sorrow/sadness), and Rock and Roll.  I have the same files saved on my music players so I can always find the music that fits the mood. Unfortunately, my family didn’t play instruments so I didn’t learn to either, but I love to sing and often do, regularly at events as well.

It actually defies explanation how much and how deep my love of music goes, so I will let the music tell the story with some of my favorite songs: I Believe Love is the Answer   Power of Love   Give Me Love   Love is the Answer   I Want to Know What Love Is   Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher    It's All About Love   I Believe in Love   Love is Here   Can't Keep It In  Perfectly Loved  Love Take Me Over  Crazy Love  I Believe (in Love)  Give Me Love  Perhaps you might start jotting down your favorites and make a list of your own to enjoy.

Nothing can bring a real sense of security except true love. Thomas Aquinas

Where there is love, there is life. Mahatma Gandhi

You yourself, as much as anyone in the universe deserves your love and affection. Buddha

True love doesn't come to you, it has to be inside you. Julia Roberts

Love is like an hour glass, the heart fills as the mind empties. Jules Renard

Trust your heart, but use your head Julie Garwood

The seat of the soul is the heart. The mind is an organ of minor importance. Aristotle

You'll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart. George Michael

The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller

Don't let your brain interfere with your heart. Albert Einstein

I wish you to understand that a good loving heart is rich is enough, and without it, intellect is poverty. Mark Twain

Each moment from all sides rushes to us the call to love. Rumi

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. Erich Fromm

Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. Khalil Gibran

A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. Mother Teresa

You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from. Werner Erhard

A loving heart is the truest wisdom. ~Charles Dickens

For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love. Carl Sagan

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality, all else is folly. Leo Tolstoy

The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of. Blaise Pascal

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved — loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. Victor Hugo

Love is the greatest refreshment in life. Pablo Picasso

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. Dalai Lama.

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. Kahlil Gibran.

Love is like a beautiful flower whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight. Helen Keller.

We are most alive when we are in love. John Updike.

You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams. Dr. Seuss.

Who, being loved, is poor? Oscar Wilde.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom. Charles Dickens.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love. Sophocles.