The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly.
Richard BachRead
The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we're afraid.We fear we will not find love,and when we find it we fear we'll lose it. We fear that if we don't have love we will be unhappy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We often deceive ourselves about our feelings and fears regarding love, leading to denial and unhappiness.
This quote by Richard Bach highlights the profound impact of self-deception on our emotional lives, particularly concerning love. It suggests that we often lie to ourselves about our wants and needs because we fear the consequences of facing our true feelings. This denial can lead to unhappiness as we navigate our relationships, driven by both the fear of not finding love and the anxiety of potentially losing it once we do. Ultimately, our internal struggles may prevent us from experiencing genuine love and contentment.
Themes
LiesSelf-DeceptionFearLoveHappiness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in a relationship counseling session to highlight the importance of honesty.
More from Richard Bach
All quotes →Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . . was no ordinary bird. Most gulls don't bother_x000D_ _x000D_ to learn more than the simplest facts of flight how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this_x000D_ _x000D_ gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else,_x000D_ _x000D_ Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.
Richard BachRead
True love stories never have endings.
Richard BachRead
We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks.
Richard BachRead
From time to time it's fun to close our eyes, and in that dark say to ourselves, 'I am the sorcerer, and when I open my eyes I shall see a world that I have created, and for which I and only I am completely responsible.' Slowly then, eyelids open like curtains lifting stage-center. And sure enough, there's our world, just the way we've built it.
Richard BachRead
If our body is a perfect expression of our thought about body, and if our thought about body is that it’s condition has everything to do with inner image and nothing to do with time, then we don’t have to be impatient for being too young or frightened of being too old.
Richard BachRead
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