“…I am sure that when we love we are better than ourselves and when we hate, worse.”

“When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

“I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

“We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

“we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

“The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

“When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

“I believe in God, not because the Bible tells me that he is, but because my heart tells me so; and the same heart tells me we can only have His peace with us if we love Him and obey Him, and that we can only he happy when we each love our neighbour better than ourselves.”

James Anthony Froude book The Nemesis of Faith

“When we give ourselves in love we become our most vulnerable. We are never safe. We become open to disappointment and hurt.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer