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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
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Harriet Lerner
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More quotes by Harriet Lerner
If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.
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Many people value criticism in the early stage of a relationship, but become allergic to it over time. Remember this: No one can survive in a marriage (at least not happily) if they feel more judged than admired. Your partner won't make use of your constructive criticism if there's not a surrounding climate of admiration and respect.
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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.
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If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.
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Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self.
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The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.
Harriet Lerner
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
The bolder and more courageous you are, the more you will learn about yourself.
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Men are often (though not always) the pursuers for sex, just like women are often (though not always) the pursuers for conversation.
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Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
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It is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run but, it will never make you less afraid.
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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.
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Wherever you find a wife and mother-in-law slugging it out, you'll find a son who's not speaking up to either his mother or his wife.
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Although it's not useful to drown in despair, it's also not useful to keep a 'positive attitude' when this means concealing or denying real emotions.
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Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.
Harriet Lerner
Being who we are requires that we can talk openly about things that are important to us, that we take a clear position on where we stand on important emotional issues, and that we clarify the limits of what is acceptable and tolerable to us in a relationship.
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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.
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Whole-hearted listening is the greatest spiritual gift you can give to the other person.
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No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.
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