"No Man Is an Island"

"We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another."

"They are inseparable from our own destiny, and,therefore, our love for them is especially holy: it is a manifestation of God in our lives."

"We must make up our minds to love well."

"My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labors is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another."

"A selfish love seldom respects the rights of the beloved to be an autonomous person. Far from respecting the true being of another and granting his personality room to grow and expand in its own original way, this love seeks to keep him in subjection to ourselves. It insists that he conform himself to us, and it works in every possible way to make him do so... In loving them we seek to make pets of them, to keep them tame."

"May God preserve me from the love of a friend who will never dare rebuke me. May He preserve me from the friend who seeks to do nothing but change and correct me."

-Thomas Merton