Leo Buscaglia

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Biologically and physiologically, we are not equal. Some of us learn better at different times of day. Some learn best visually, some auditorially, some tactilely, by touching.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“Change is the end result of all true learning.”

“All of my youth growing up in my Italian family was focused around the table. That's where I learned about love.”

“I was lucky to have such a loving, crazy family. I learned to give and share.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”