John Powell, "Why Am I Afraid To Love?"
* There is no human being who will not eventually respond to love if only he can realize that he is loved.
* Man must go through the door of human giving to find the God who gives himself.
* The book of Genesis says that god created man to His image and likeness. It seems that the most
purduring heresy in all of Christian history has been this that man has reversed Genesis man has made
God to his image and likeness.
* Meeting God in other humans is the most costly part of the dialogue between God and man.
* It is quite evident that true love demands self-forgetfulness.
* There are many counterfeit products on the market which are called love, but which in fact are falsely
named.
* Somehow these pains - loneliness, frustrations, emotional and spiritual starvation - are radically due
to failures in love.
* It is the unanimous consensus of psychologists that our basic personalities are fairly well formed in
the first seven years of life.
* We are, each of us, the product of those who have loved us… or refused to love us. (Our lives are
shaped by those who love us - by those who refused to love us.)
* When a woman is consistently upset emotionally during the period of pregnancy, the child to be born
will receive and retain the message, transmitted via blood chemistry and muscular contradiction: this is a
very insecure world into which it is coming.
* The first seven years of life are the critical years, and much of what is called the basic human option,
either to love (to seek others and their happiness) or to lust (to seek self and one's own gratification) will
be determined by the lessons of parental example and the osmosis of childlike imitation.
* The great human need is to know and accept oneself as he is.
* We desperately need to see in the mirror of another's eyes our own goodness and beauty, if we are
to be truly free.
* Never build a wall until you know what you are walling in and what you're walling out.
* When we resort to acting out roles or wearing masks there is no possibility of human and personal
growth.
* The main thing in life is not to be afraid to be human. (Pablo Casals)
* We must learn to look through the sham and pretense of the pain and the lonely voids that have
constructed these defense walls. Direct attacks on these defenses will only produce their reinforcement.
* When you repress or suppress those things which you don't want to live with you don't really to solve
the problem because you don't bury the problem alive. It remains alive and active inside of you.
* The need to be loved, to feel important, and the need for self-acceptance can very often, even when
we are unaware of it, have a profound influence on our conduct and dealings with others.
* A true and meaningful human friendship supposes more than mere association with another. It
supposes that we are able to share ourselves, to reveal ourselves to another who is our friend. It
supposes that we can entrust him with our secrets and accept his confidences.
* Love is essentially a relationship.
* When we confide ourselves to another we acquire some sense of dimension and growth in self-
identity and the capacity to accept ourselves as we are.
* The patterns of maturity are recognized in the ability to go out to others, to get along with them, to
exercise a reasonable self-sufficiency, to set realistic goals, to exercise discretion, to differentiate the
important and unimportant things in life, flexibility, adaptability, and emotional stability.
* Children can endure serious emotional strain from other sources if the tender and loving care of their
parents is present.
* If we build pedestals, young people will climb up on them; if we keep our hands on the edge of the
rug, always ready to pull it out from under them, there can only be trouble ahead.
* There may be a God in heaven who forgives us our sins, but human nature does not.
* When situation gets tough, the Christian must get tougher. He must become bigger than his problems.
* Unless you love someone nothing else makes any sense.
* You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You.
* Only the person who has experienced love is capable of growing.
* By loving me or refusing to love me, others hold the potential of my maturity in their hands.
* If we seek the love which we need, we will never find it… Stop being concerned with ourselves and to
begin to be concerned with others.
* We must learn to respond to the needs of others without seeking the satisfaction of our own needs.
* The person who wants only his own fulfillment, or who decides to love in order that he be fulfilled, will
find that his love is in vain because the focus remains on himself.
* Love means a concern for, acceptance of, and an interest in the others around me whom I am trying
to love.
* Love is indeed costly and demanding.
* How can we love if we have never been loved?
* Between black and white there is always an area of gray.
* When we ask that question: "What Have You Done For Me?" we have ceased to love.
* The only attitude worthy of the Christian is that of Christ, who thought of others always who gave
himself until he had not another drop of blood to give.
* God does not create in order to acquire something but in order to give something… only to share
Himself.
* If Christians wish us to believe in their Redeemer, why don't they look a little more redeemed?
(Nietzsche)
* For better or for worse Christ has taken us (Christians) as his living symbols in this world. The world
that is asking whether God is dead or not, the world that is asking who Christ is can find its answers only
in the Christian. For better or for worse, we are Christ to the world.
* Love is the only way to our human destiny and to the feet of God, who is Love.
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