Quote

The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.

Harriet Lerner

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Harriet Lerner
Strongest
Relationships
Two
Live
Without
People

More quotes by Harriet Lerner

Image
Through words we come to know the other person--and to be known. This knowing is at the heart of our deepest longings for intimacy and connection with others. How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Whole-hearted listening is the greatest spiritual gift you can give to the other person.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Relationships are most likely to fail when we don't address problems or hold our partner accountable for unfair or irresponsible behavior ... the ability to clarify our values, beliefs, and life goals--and then to keep our behavior congruent with them--is at the heart of a solid marriage.
Harriet Lerner
Image
If what we are doing with our anger is not achieving the desired result, it would seem logical to try something different.
Harriet Lerner
Image
It's a cliché, but also a deep truth (as cliché's tend to be), that you can't love another person very well if you don't love yourself.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.
Harriet Lerner
Image
If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.
Harriet Lerner
Image
The miracle is that your children will love you with all your imperfections if you can do the same for them.
Harriet Lerner
Image
As many have observed, it is easy to tell a lie, but it is almost impossible to tell only one.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Often when someone apologizes - like a parent who says to a child, I'm very sorry I neglected you when you were a kid - they also ask, Do you forgive me?, because they want the other person to be over it. However, healing can take a great deal of time. And if we forgive too quickly, we cut the process short.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Women are raised to be the nurturers and steadiers of rocked boats, to hold relationships in place as if our lives depended on it. But it shores up your own dignity and integrity if you're able to say, There are a million things I love about you, and I want our relationship to continue. I forgive you 95 percent, but not this 5 percent.
Harriet Lerner
Image
deception and 'con games' are a way of life in all species and throughout nature. Organisms that do not improve their ability to deceive - and to detect deception - are less apt to survive.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.
Harriet Lerner
Image
What initially attracts us and what later becomes 'the problem' are usually one and the same.
Harriet Lerner
Image
Women ... have long been discouraged from the awareness and forthright expression of anger. Sugar and spice are the ingredients from which we are made. We are the nurturers, the soothers, the peacemakers, and the steadiers of rocked boats.
Harriet Lerner
Image
We will be in tune with our bodies only if we truly love and honor them. We can't be in good communication with the enemy.
Harriet Lerner
Image
the body, seeking truth, sends a signal. But decoding it, interpreting its meaning, and knowing how to proceed from there is another matter entirely.
Harriet Lerner
Image
The happiest people are focused on living their own life (not someone else's) as well as possible.
Harriet Lerner