Agape Quotes

There must be a stronger foundation than mere friendship or sexual attraction. Unconditional love, agape love, will not be swayed by time or circumstances. ~ Stephen Kendrick

Agape's object is always the concrete individual, not some abstraction called humanity. Love of humanity is easy because humanity does not surprise you with inconvenient demands. You never find humanity on your doorstep, stinking and begging. ~ Peter Kreeft

As though frustrated by so much rustic simplicity, though, one of the chefs had provided a charming hors d'oeuvre - a nest, cunningly built from strips of pastry, ornamented with real sprigs of flowering apple, on the edge of which perched two nightingales, skinned and roasted, stuffed with apple and cinnamon, then redressed in their feathers. And in the nest was the entire family of baby birds, tiny stubs of outstretched wings brown and crispy, tender bare skins glazed with honey, blackened mouths agape to show the merest hint of the almond-paste stuffing within. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Bono has commented often that U2 did everything the wrong way around. Other bands started singing about girls and then found the issues in the cosmos and started singing about God; U2 started singing about God and eventually ended up doing a love album. ~ Steve Stockman

Quote words that affirm all men and women are your brothers and sisters. ~ Aberjhani

Roosevelt set his sights on a strikingly tall man striding into camp alongside one of the native's harems. He had no female companions, yet he was also naked and carried a spear and bow in Nhambiquara fashion. As the man approached, Roosevelt's mouth lay agape noticing that he bore a full beard and his skin pigmentation was unquestionably white, and yet he was weathered to a leathery brown. The ~ Mark Paul Jacobs

Agape love, on the other hand, is unselfish, unconditional, and unstoppable. It is based upon choice and commitment, not feelings. So unless this kind of love forms the foundation of your marriage, the wear and tear of time could destroy it. ~ Alex Kendrick

Just as God, above all, is free of every need and self-interest, the spiritual man who has the Spirit struggles and becomes perfected in the love according to Christ, love that is delivered of all need and self-interest. ~ John Romanides

In order for agape to flourish, I must not be afraid to change my life. If I liked what I was doing, very well. But if I did not, there was always the time for a change. If I allowed change to occur, I would be transforming myself into a fertile field and allowing the Creative Imagination to sow its seeds in me.
"Everything I have taught you, include agape, makes sense only if you are satisfied with yourself. If you are not, then the exercises you have learned are inevitably going to make you seek change. And if you do not want all of those exercises to work against you, you have to allow change to happen.
"This is the most difficult moment in a person's life
when the person witnesses the good fight and is unable to change and join the battle. When this happens, knowledge turns against the person who holds it. ~ Paulo Coelho

We stood in the wings together, side by side. Reed's mouth was still agape.
"It makes sense when you think about it," I mused. "You get two people together who have you-know-what, and sparks are going to fly."
Reed's cue was about to start. He pointed at me and said, "Tonight. There's a party. And we're going to talk."
"Yes"
"Because this is crazy."
"Totally."
"Okay. Well." He tugged a strand of my hair. "Good luck out there."
"You're not supposed to say that."
"Fine. How about..." He squinted at me. "Here's looking at you kid."
The smile melted off my face. "What did you say?"
"It's a line. From a movie." He shrugged and burst onto the stage with a hee-haw.
It was a line. From Casablanca. The same line KARL had said to me when I was Elsa. The same like Karl didn't recognize when I said it to him as Floressa. Which meant... nothing. Right? Lots of people know that line. Just because Reed said it, and Reed was a sub, it didn't mean he was... he was...
"You're on," the stage manager whispered.
I stumbled onto the stage. The lights were too bright. The theater was packed. Reed gave me a quick, crooked smile, and I knew.
My crush on Karl was less complicated than I thought, because it wasn't Karl I'd been with that day in the garden.
Now my crush on Reed... ?
THAT was a scandal all on its own. ~ Lindsey Leavitt

You're a freak. But I really can't accept these-'
Were you raised in a barn? Don't be ruuuuuude, my boy. They're a gift.'
Blay shook his head. 'Take them, John. You're just going to lose this argument, and it will save us from the theatrics.'
Theatrics?' Qhuinn leaped up and assumed a Roman oratory pose. 'Whither thou knowest thy ass from thy elbow, young scribe?'
Blay blushed. 'Come on-'
Qhuinn threw himself at Blay, grasping onto the guy's shoulders and hanging his full weight off him. 'Hold me. Your insult has left me breathless. I'm agasp.'
Blay grunted and scrambled to keep Qhuinn up off the floor. 'That's agape.'
Agasp sounds better.'
Blay was trying not to smile, trying not to be delighted, but his eyes were sparkling like sapphires and his cheeks were getting red. With a silent laugh, John sat on one of the locker room benches, shook out his pair of white socks, and pulled them on under his new old jeans. 'You sure, Qhuinn? 'Cause I have a feeling they're going to fit and you might change your mind.
Qhuinn abruptly lifted himself off Blay and straightened his clothes with a sharp tug. 'And now you offend my honor.' Facing off at John, he flipped into a fencing stance.
Touché.'
Blay laughed. 'That's en garde, you damn fool.'
Qhuinn shot a look over his shoulder. 'ça va, Brutus?'
Et tu?'
That would be tutu, I believe, and you can keep the cross-dressing to yourself, ya perv.'
Qhuinn flashed a b ~ J.R. Ward

If we are talking about a loving God, we are talking about a God who asks us to trust him, whether we get what we ask for or don't. But he will never force us to trust him. That is entirely up to us. We have free will and we can accept his love or reject it, or claim it doesn't exist at all. We can trust him or distrust him as we like. But if he really and truly is the God of the Bible, who loves me with an unchanging and self-sacrificial love (agape), then I really and truly can trust him in all circumstances, which is tremendously freeing. In fact, I can go one step further than trusting him. To use a biblical phrase, I can rejoice in him. But is only possible if we really do know that God has our best interests at heart at all times. Of course, we have to decide on our own whether we believe that. But if we come to see that, that is true and do allow ourselves to believe it, we are precisely where he created us to be: in his loving hands. ~ Eric Metaxas

While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary. ~ Chinua Achebe

The only way love can last a lifetime is if it's unconditional. The truth is this: love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love. ~ Stephen Kendrick

I live by the maxim, love people when they least expect it and least deserve it. That how you change someone's life forever. ~ Mark Batterson

You have to treat your car with love. And I don't mean love of an object. You see, that's just wrong. That's materialism. You have to love your car like it's sentient being, like it can love you back. Now, that's some deep-down agape love. ~ Sherman Alexie

After every few steps, we huddle over our ice axes mouths agape, struggling for sufficient breath to keep our muscles going.... at a height of 8800 metres, we can no longer keep on our feet while we rest. We crumple to our knees, clutching our axes.... Every ten or fifteen steps we collapse into the snow to rest, then crawl on again. ~ Reinhold Messner

We are not born to accommodate tyranny over our hearts, minds, bodies, or souls. We are here to confirm an abundance of love-inspired possibilities greater than such restrictions. ~ Aberjhani

I could feel the blood draining from my face again as I saw him standing there. He was a hallucination. I had gone insane!
"That's very thoughtful of you," the nurse responded to David's comment.
"You see him too?" I sat agape. ~ Nely Cab

The air of a deposed prince. falsehood as restorative-if they wouldnt do that if they wouldnt do all that they do. the body as traitor the body as foe. she's thinking about mythology,about reluctant daphne/ relentless apollo. if she could, as daphne did, cry out to mother earth for protection. and have every suitors find a laurel tree in his arms. people would still look up to her. misjudge her. misunderstand her. worship her evn[damn druids]. or carve someone elses name into her. 'oh sweetie dont take things so seriously: the world is your oister' just as she thot, the world is something slimy in a shell. he's so proud of his knavery. okay, she's been vainglorious about her sins too but shes tired of that. 'if you love someone you accept him as he is, but if you accept him as he is than you dont really love him because if you did youd want whats best for him and that usually means he should be better than he is. a meadowy susuration that she used to pretend to like. but not anymore. shes sick of 'huh?' too, that interjection of ignorance. 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.'-Feodor Dostoyevsky. she wants to kiss him. but just in some neutral way. some agape-not-eros way. like disciples kiss. or brave french freedom fighters. 'for i the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visisting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children'-Exodus 20:5 'its just stuff that i thot was interesting. its not, you know, a rorshach. its not like somebody could r ~ Ron Koertge

We do not measure the value of a person by their outward appearance, rank, or creed, rather by the sum of the agápe in their heart. Your value in the cosmos is greater than precious metals or jewels, humans have to potential to take us all into a period of great enlightenment, or to our ruin. The choice is yours. ~ Guy T. Simpson Jr.

It was Sunday morning. I woke very early to a bright and cheery day, anxious to join my fellow Christians in this lovely garden of a land. The clerk in the hotel eyed me a little dubiously when I asked for a church. 'We don't have many of those, you know,' he said. 'Besides, you couldn't understand the language.'
'Didn't you know?' I said, 'Christians speak a kind of universal language.'
'Oh. What's that?'
'It's called "agape".'
'Agape? I never heard of it.'
'Too bad. It's the most beautiful language in the world. ~ Brother Andrew

Your father tells you a story when you're a kid, or your mother or your uncle or whoever it is. You sit there with your mouth open, and your mind goes to all these places they're telling you about that you've never seen, and you're agape. You just can't believe that things can happen like that - but it's just so direct. ~ David Chase

We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. ~ Paulo Coelho

Christ is a persuasion, a form evoking desire, and the whole force of the gospel depends upon the assumption that this persuasion is also peace: that the desire awakened by the shape of Christ and his church is one truly reborn as agape, rather than merely the way in which a lesser force succumbs to a greater, as an episode in the endless epic of power. (3) ~ David Bentley Hart

Of course, one might object that it is impossible for one person, one woman, to represent the ideal of both agape and eros. If you will allow my indulgence for a moment, I will suggest that such skepticism is a form of misogyny. For only a misogynist would argue that women are either saints or seductresses - virgins and whores. Of course, a woman, or a man for that matter, can be both - the muse can be lover to both soul and body. ~ Sylvain Reynard

Every action is a losing, a letting go, a passing away from oneself of some bit of one's own reality into the existence of others and of the world. In Jesus Christ, this character of action is not resisted, by trying to use our action to assert ourselves, extend ourselves, to impose our will and being upon situations. In Jesus Christ, this self-expending character of action is joyfully affirmed. I receive myself constantly from God's Parenting love. But so far as some aspects of myself are at my disposal, these I receive to give away. Those who would live as Jesus did - who would act and purpose themselves as Jesus did - mean to love, i.e., they mean to expend themselves for others unto death. Their being is meant to pass away from them to others, and they make that meaning the conscious direction of their existence.

Too often the love which is proclaimed in the churches suppresses this element of loss and need and death in activity. As a Christian, I often speak of love as helping others, but I ignore what this does to the person who loves. I ignore the fact that love is self-expenditure, a real expending and losing and deterioration of the self. I speak of love as if the person loving had no problems, no needs, no limits. In other words, I speak of love as if the affluent dream were true. This kind of proclamation is heard everywhere. We hear it said: 'Since you have no unanswered needs, why don't you go out and help those other people who are in need?' But we n ~ Arthur C. McGill

He [God] chooses not to intervene in the world. Why not? Because he figures he's done enough and the rest is up to us? Or he wouldn't know where to begin? Or because he's in awe of his own miracle? That's how I picture him, his mouth slightly agape, his eyes wide in disbelief. ~ Jon Cohen

Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if a certain internal boundary has vanished. With agape what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is the meaning of loving another as yourself – transcending our phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in, not apart from, us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Therefore, how can we support the illusion of this isolated, separate self that is threatened by and defends itself from everything outside? Love returns us to the unity that is actually Reality. Reality is not the isolation, suspicion, envy, selfishness, and fear of loss that we have come to accept as normal; it is that we are all part of one Life. The same Spirit moves in us all. You come to know this better when you realize that we all have the same kinds of feelings, the same wish to be known and respected, to share ourselves and let down our defenses. We are continually faced with a choice between personal achievement, personal security, and comfort on the one hand, and working for the whole and helping everyone and everything toward perfection on the other. We are faced with a choice between looking out for ourselves and contributing wholeheartedly to a common good. We are faced with focusing on self-love or increasing our love of all Life. (p. 191) ~ Kabir Edmund Helminski

That was the thing about Ben. He could get away with saying shit like that. I totally couldn't. I wasn't big or masculine enough. In my mind, anyway. But Ben could get all agape on your ass, and you'd just sit there like, huh. Agape. Interesting. ~ Bill Konigsberg

Wild eyes were another sign. It is something I have seldom seen - the expression of an ecstatic state - though much is foolishly written of them, as if they grew like Jerusalem artichokes along the road. The eyes are black, right enough, whatever their normal color is; they are black because their perception is condensed to a coal, because the touch and taste and perfume of the lover, the outcry of a dirty word, a welcome river, have been reduced in the heat of passion to a black ash, and this unburnt residue of oxidation, this calyx, replaces the pupil so it no longer receives but sends, and every hair is on end, though perhaps only outspread on a pillow, and the nostrils are flared, mouth agape, cheeks sucked so the whole face seems as squeezed as a juiced fruit; I know, for once Lou went into that wildness while we were absorbing one another, trying to kiss, not merely forcefully, not the skull of our skeleton, but the skull and all the bones on which the essential self is hung, kiss so the shape of the soul is stirred too, that's what is called the ultimate French, the furtherest fuck, when a cock makes a concept cry out and climax; I know, for more than once, though not often, I shuddered into that other region, when a mouth drew me through its generosity into the realm of unravel, and every sensation lay extended as a lake, every tie was loosed, and the glue of things dissolved. I knew I wore the wild look then. The greatest gift you can give another human being is ~ William H. Gass

God is love"; He does not have love, as something added to Him, something that may or may not be present, that is capable of change, increase, or decrease. He is love; it is the way He is in His essential nature. I may tell you that I have a glass of water or a reservoir of water, but it is in an entirely different category to say that I am water! To have water means that my possession of it is subject to change whether by increase or decrease, but to be water means I am never subject to change because it is what I am! He is the definition of love; love is the way He is. Agape ~ Malcolm Smith

Agape" is loving a person for exactly who they are - not who we hope they'll become with enough fixing. It's this idea that every person has their layers, so you can never confine a person to only what you know about them from the first glance. It's stacked on the premise that to love anyone is to hope in them always. ~ Hannah Brencher

What I am trying to say is that it is not without any value. The value of copies is that they can direct us towards the original. I was recently at the Louvre Museum and I was filming people who were viewing the Mona Lisa. I noticed the number of ordinary people, astonished, mouths agape, standing still for long stretches looking at the work, and I wondered, "Where does this come from? Are these people all art connoisseurs?" They are like me; through the years, we've seen this work in our schoolbooks or art history books, but when we stand before the original, we hold our breath. ~ Abbas Kiarostami

My teenage children watched Senator Clinton on the Today Show, mouths agape. They attended our local caucus with me and saw hundreds of our friends and neighbors gathered in the elementary school gym on that Sunday afternoon, despite an ugly Maine snowstorm. They listened to the thoughtful searching debates and saw us cast our votes. How could anyone suggest we didn't know exactly what we were doing? 'What's the point of electing someone who doesn't believe in the American people?' they asked. 'If she wants to ignore us now when she's only a candidate, what will she do as the President?' ~ Shoshana Zuboff

Agape is a sobering love to receive, for it says, 'If I cannot love you for who you are, then I will do so despite who you are.' It is unique in that it is able to love those whom it cannot like. ~ James Castleton, MD, Mending Of A Broken Heart

The first three years of our marriage were miserable. Until I got a divorce. A divorce from loving myself and seeking my own way. I was reading the book of Galatians one night when I stumbled on the verse, "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (2:20), and the most profound thought hit me: If I am dead, and Christ lives in me, can my wife see Him there? Finding the right person, I have since discovered, is less important than being the right person. The happiest married people I know discovered early on that the "better" comes after the "worse". ~ Phil Callaway

When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love. ~ Mother Teresa

I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, "Love one another as I have loved you." Ask yourself "How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?" Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love. Work without love is slavery. ~ Mother Teresa

Friendship evangelism' is the freedom to Agape others without an agenda (Young)."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

Agape is the concrete commitment to the flourishing of someone or something outside of oneself. Even and perhaps especially when that flourishing, hence the joy, is threatened. ~ Bas Heijne

What emerged for me as purpose was the search for and cultivation of possibilities for experiencing meaningful human transactions in different languages and across cultural differences through play, sports, travel, food, literature, and conversation. I sought to establish relations of mutual understanding and love with people no matter what their culture or place of origin in the world - relations based on philia, eros, and agape, according to context and persons. I perhaps sensed instinctively that such relations were the key to being equally at home everywhere, even in la Yunai. More than an immigrant, at that time I still felt myself to be a sojourner in this country, but I wanted my sojourn to be imbued with the meaning found in earnest, sincere connections with the people and places that life brought to my experience. ~ Daniel G. Campos

Hanna was surprised by the warmth of the chicken's feet, that were scaly and bony and should not be warm at all. She could feel her father laughing at her, as he left her to it and went into the house. Hanna held the chicken away from herself with both hands and tried not to drop the thing as it flapped in the wind and twisted over the space where its head used to be. One of the cats already had the fleshy cockscomb in its little cat's teeth, and was running away with the head bobbing under its little white chin. Hanna might have screamed at all that - at the dangling, ragged neck and the cock's outraged eye - but she was too busy keeping the corpse from jerking out of her hands. The wings were agape, the russet feathers all ruffled back and showing their yellow under-down, and the body was shitting under the black tail feathers, in squirts that mimicked the squirting blood. ~ Anne Enright

No one said a word for some time. Everyone stared at Hadrian in wonder, including Albert, whose mouth hung agape.

It was the duchess who finally found words to sum up their collective thoughts. "Well, aren't you just an astonishment topped with surprises! ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Sometimes ... " Miss Charming's voice dropped lower, and she looked Charlotte in the eye. "Sometimes my boobs kill."
Charlotte's eyes wideened, her mouth agape. It wasn't until Miss Charming followed her shocking statement by rubbing her chest in discomfort that Charlotte realized " my boobs kill" meant "my boobs ache" rather than " my boobs fatally maim people." It was a natural mistake to make. After all they really were large enough to suffocate a grown man. ~ Shannon Hale

The only hope of success is the way of love as agape rather than eros. From this rival perspective, the secret of the search is not our "great ascent" but "the great descent" - of God toward us. Instead of the seeker finding love, love seeks out the seeker - not because the seeker is worthy of love but simply because love's nature is to love regardless of the worthiness or merit of the one loved. ~ Os Guinness

It is possible to be at the top of Christian service, respected and admired, and not have that indispensable ingredient by which God has chosen to work in His world today - the absolute sacrificial agape love of the Eternal God. ~ David Jeremiah

I see in the papers that the singer, Frank Ifield, popular in the fifties, is planning a comeback. I remember reviewing his debut at the Palladium under the insane misapprehension that he was blind. (I had him confused with a blind vocalist who bore a similar name.) I watched agape with admiration while he strolled around the stage with every appearance of knowing where he was going, and I burst into spontaneous applause as he strode down to within a foot of the orchestra pit without the least sign of fear. By the end of his act I was misty with tears at the thought of his courage. I often wonder what he thought when he read the review in which I congratulated him on the gallantry with which he had overcome the handicap of sightlessness. ~ Kenneth Tynan

Agape means recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

I simply try to act as an honest broker for greater persons and writers than I am ... I present no theory, nor do I have one ... I have constructed no Schema ... in terms of the struggle between Eros and agape and the futility of the former in the face of the latter. I have no aspirations, hoping only to show you what some great writers thought these things are. ~ Allan Bloom

Mouth agape, breathing labored, his own eyes bulging, he's unable to form a coherent sentence, remaining annoyingly mute. Men don't realize, they're busted either way they choose to go in times like these. No words scream, "I'm gonna dig my hole deeper if I talk because you'll outsmart me" louder than actual silence. And if they speak? They're right - we will, in fact, one up them until that deceptive foot is shoved directly in their mouth. ~ Angela Graham

To us, to the everyday teachers of everyday students, neither of whom is writing the book of the universe but who both have their fullest life only when they align themselves with its truths, working out our own commitment to and our own vision of agape, in however homely or personal a form, is a life long task that both guides us in our teaching endeavors and honors those endeavors at the same time. ~ Marshall Gregory

Before them stood a small, erect man who fixed them with a withering gaze, Marshal Ferdinand Foch. After cool introductions, Foch opened the proceedings with a question that left the Germans agape. "Ask these gentlemen what they want," he said to his interpreter. When the Germans had recovered, Erzberger answered that they understood they had been sent to discuss armistice terms. Foch stunned them again: "Tell these gentlemen that I have no proposals to make. ~ Joseph E. Persico

Normally, we allow enthusiasm to elude us when we are involved in such mundane activities, those that have no importance at all in the overall scale of our existence. We lose our enthusiasm because of the small and unavoidable defeats we suffer during the good fight. And since we don't realize that enthusiasm is a major strength, able to help us win the ultimate victory, we let it dribble through our fingers; we do this without recognizing that we are letting the true meaning of our lives escape us. We blame the world for our boredom and for our losses, and we forget that it was we ourselves who allowed this enchanting power, which justifies everything, to diminish
the manifestation of agape in the form of enthusiasm. ~ Paulo Coelho

Parents were the only ones obligated to love you; from the rest of the world you had to earn it. ~ Ann Brashares

We've made it private, contained it in family, when its audacity is in its potential to cross tribal lines. We've fetishized it as romance, when its true measure is a quality of sustained, practical care. We've lived it as a feeling, when it is a way of being. It is the elemental experience we all desire and seek, most of our days, to give and receive. The sliver of love's potential that the Greeks separated out as eros is where we load so much of our desire, center so much of our imagination about delight and despair, define so much of our sense of completion. There is the love the Greeks called filia - the love of friendship. There is the love they called agape - love as embodied compassion, expressions of kindness that might be given to a neighbor or a stranger. The Metta of the root Buddhist Pali tongue, "lovingkindness," carries the nuance of benevolent, active interest in others known and unknown, and its cultivation begins with compassion towards oneself. ~ Krista Tippett

August stared at her, aghast. "Did I know that kissing you would bring your soul to surface? That - THAT - would have the same effect as pain or music? No, I must have missed that lesson."

She stared at him, agape. "August, was that sarcasm? ~ Victoria Schwab

I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world. ~ Mother Teresa

Maryanne paid for her purchases, and once everything was stuffed into the blue plastic bags, she headed toward the exit. That's when she spotted her tail again... not six feet away.

"Here," she said, thrusting her purchases at J.Z.'s middle. "Since you're sticking to me like used bubble gum to my shoes, you can make yourself useful. Carry these to my car, please."

She left him, arms full of bags, jaw agape, and wend to buy a soft pretzel and an icy drink. ~ Ginny Aiken

The biblical concept of agape love involves giving of yourself for the benefit of another, even at your own expense. Biblical love is defined by passionately and righteously seeking the well-being of another. Biblical love is an act of the will and not just a fuzzy feeling in the stomach. That's why God can command us to love one another. Love really has nothing to do with whether you feel loving at a particular moment. It has to do with the need of the person being loved, not the feelings of the one doing the loving. ~ Tony Evans

What is this love that endures decades, passes on sleep, and resists death to give one kiss? Call it agape love, a love that bears a semblance of God's. ~ Max Lucado

Holiness doesn't demand denial of happiness, only selfishness. Where unhappiness exists in a relationship, I would submit that such isn't the price of holiness but a sign of sin. It is an indication that one or both partners is holding to the wrong value system, that of self-love.

When husbands and wives love each other with agape, they meet the deepest needs God designed to be met in the very manner He intended. The result is a joy that is complete and a relationship where happiness is the fruit of holiness and meaning is the consequence of a loving relationship. ~ —James Castleton, MD, Mending Of A Broken Heart

Divine love, agape, is self-sacrificing love, which sounds difficult, as it is, and not very attractive. If the best image we have of love is of a man who's been tortured and hung upon a cross to die an excruciating death, this is something that human beings find very, very hard to understand as love. But it is the highest Christian image of love. ~ Kevin Hart

Yes, eros and agape are different, but the stifling of the former leads to a distortion of the latter. ~ Jay Michaelson

Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice.

If we have brains or courage, then we are blessed and called on not to frit these qualities away, standing agape at the ideas of others, winning pissing contests, improving the efficiencies of the neocorporate state, or immersing ourselves in obscuranta, but rather to prove the vigor of our talents against the strongest opponents of love we can find.

If we can only live once, then let it be a daring adventure that draws on all our powers. Let it be with similar types whos hearts and heads we may be proud of. Let our grandchildren delight to find the start of our stories in their ears but the endings all around in their wandering eyes.
The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering.

Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them. ~ Julian Assange

I am blessed and being blessed is something more than just having something. It is a state of mind in which the good of the world is illuminated, it's understood. It is as if one is vouchsafed a vision of some sort, a vision of love, of 'agape', of the essential value of each and every living thing. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

If the Love of Christ in us and through us does not affect others as it has us, then it is not authentic".

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

I wonder why Miss Kosugi's lectures are always so stiff. Is she a fool? It makes me sad. She went on and on, explaining to us about patriotism, but wasn't that pretty obvious? I mean, everyone loves the place where they were born. I felt bored. Resting my chin on my desk, I gazed idly out the window. The clouds were beautiful, maybe because it was so windy. There were four roses blooming in a corner of the yard. One was yellow, two were white, and one was pink. I sat there agape, looking at the flowers, and thought to myself, There are really good things about human beings. I mean, it's humans who discovered the beauty of flowers, and humans who admire them. At ~ Osamu Dazai

Lack of faith hinders agape from being expressed, and so does pride. ~ Steven Chopade

Jury trials are really nothing more than poorly written stage plays. You've got two authors writing opposing narratives and a director who is paid not to care about either outcome. Hired actors sit on either end of the stage, while unwitting audience members strive to remain quiet. No applause should be rendered, no gasps of glory. Witnesses sit agape with fury as they stumble across their rehearsed lines. If only they had practiced just once more. If only they had more time or a dress rehearsal, then they would recite their packaged words with such eloquent delivery that the critics in the jury box would believe only them. ~ Elizabeth L. Silver

The Greeks were smarter than us, and they had different words for different kinds of love. There's storge, which is family love. That's not us. There's eros, which is sexual love. There's philia, which is brotherly love. And then there's the highest form. Agape." He pronounced it 'aga-pay'. "Thats transcendental love, like when you place the other person above yourself. ~ Bill Konigsberg

Ronan glanced at me and did a completely ridiculous, cartoonish double-take complete with wide eyes, agape mouth, raised eyebrows, and three blinks. ~ L. H. Cosway

Immature love seeks to change the beloved for its own benefit. Mature love seeks to see the beloved change for their benefit. Sacrificial love recognizes that there may be wounds so deep that their beloved may not be able to change. It is content to care, sometimes without the contentment which is to be found in being cared for. ~ James Castleton, MD, Mending Of A Broken Heart

This is the secret of life: the self lives only by dying, finds its identity (and its happiness) only by self-forgetfulness, self-giving, self-sacrifice, and agape love. ~ Peter Kreeft

I know my mouth is agape and my eyes are wide, but I'm relieved that hope isn't a tangible thing, because everyone around me would see mine crumbling. ~ Colleen Hoover

God's love, and hence the love with which we come to love God, is eros and agape at once: a desire for the other that delights in the distance of otherness. ~ David Bentley Hart

It had been well if he had been left with only a wounded heart, but in that heart lay wounded pride. He hid it carefully, and the keener in consequence grew the sensitiveness, almost feminine, which no stranger could have suspected beneath the manner he wore. Under that bronzed countenance, with its firm-set mouth and powerful jaw--below that clear blue eye, and that upright easy carriage, lay a faithful heart haunted by a sense of wrong: he who is not perfect in forgiveness must be haunted thus; he only is free whose love for the human is so strong that he can pardon the individual sin; he alone can pray the prayer,"Forgive us our trespasses," out of a full heart. Forgiveness is the only cure of wrong. And hand in hand with Sense-of-injury walks ever the weak sister-demon Self-pity, so dear, so sweet to many--both of them the children of Philautos, not of Agape. ~ George MacDonald

Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes. ~ Pope Francis

On this special day of love, remember that your Father loves you more than you could ever imagine ... no matter what you've done or haven't done. No box of candy or flowers can compare to this kind of agape love! ~ Joyce Meyer

With mouths agape, they stared in awe at the floor of fire and wall of flame. Atop a horse of golden flames that whipped and licked the leather reins, untouched by the fire that twisted and burned, sat Heimdallr, guardian of the Bilrost. ~ Angela B. Chrysler

In the English language, we have one word for love, which translates into our sexual drive. The ancient Greeks had more than one word for it, including the word agape. It means to compromise or sacrifice, and it's a kind of love I've seen in all couples who have gotten married and stayed married. It is my opinion that this kind of love determines the entire success of your married life, and to an extent, it's a good part of your financial life too. Reaching a financial goal always takes a little bit of sacrifice, and would be impossible to do on your own. Once you and your spouse realize that mutual sacrifice is a healthy part of your marriage, you are well on your way to achieving harmony in planning for your finances together. ~ Celso Cukierkorn

Agape is related to Eros, as Mozart to Beethoven. How could they possibly be confused? ~ Karl Barth

Agape love is strengthened by the person who expresses it - not by the person who receives it. In fact, the person who receives agape love does not have to show any appreciation at all. ~ Brian Apollo

Fasting and feasting are universal human responses, and any meal, shared with love, can be an agape. ~ Elise M. Boulding

10:13 Your situation is not unique! Every human life faces contradictions! Here is the good news: God believes in your freedom! He has made it possible for you to triumph in every situation that you will ever encounter! 10:14 My 1dearly loved friends! Escape into his image and likeness in you where the 2distorted image (2idolatry) loses its attraction! (Dearly loved friends, translated as 1agapetos; to know the agape love of God is to know our true identity! The word, agape, comes from agoo, meaning to lead as a shepherd guides his sheep, and pao, to rest, like in Psalm 23, "he leads me beside still waters where my soul is restored; by the waters of reflection my soul remembers who I am! Now I can face the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil!") ~ Francois Du Toit

In its essence, Elemental, the Power of Illuminated Love, maintains we are all on a quest to experience qualities of compassion and acceptance capable of helping to sustain both the individual and the larger society. Because such a journey tends to take place even more within than without, the visual imagery, words, and music of ILLUMINATED LOVE incorporates both levels of that reality. ~ Aberjhani

A mother's heart is a vast and glorious thing. My mother's heart was expansive, having been enlarged by suffering and years of clinging to Jesus while being misunderstood, dismissed, and judged by those she loved most. Me included. It had cost her to love, had cost her much to mother. It always does. But she would tell you that it's worth it, that there is no other way. ~ Stasi Eldredge

AGAPE Today no one has come to inquire, nor have they wanted anything from me this afternoon. I have not seen a single cemetery flower in so happy a procession of lights. Forgive me, Lord! I have died so little! This afternoon everyone, everyone goes by without asking or begging me anything. And I do not know what it is they forget, and it is heavy in my hands like something stolen. I have come to the door, and I want to shout at everyone: - If you miss something, here it is! Because in all the afternoons of this life, I do not know how many doors are slammed on a face, and my soul takes something that belongs to another. Today nobody has come ; and today I have died so little in the afternoon! Translated by John Knoepfle ~ Robert Bly

Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it's what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

How can we know something that surpasses or is beyond knowledge? How can we know something that is beyond words?... We can and do use words to point to all of our human experiences. However, the experience of "God as Agape" is beyond words, beyond the limitations of our minds. ~ John David Geib

She started to turn around, but I tugged her hand just enough for me to see her profile as she closed her eyes. She felt it as just like I did. There was an undeniable connection between us. I pulled her into my arms and with one hand moved the stray strands of her caramel hair away from her soft skin. I saw her mouth was slightly agape, and I pulled her face towards mine. I was mere centimeters from her lips, the warmth of her breath sliding against my own.
"You should go Mylie or you might regret staying," I said softly.
"I don't want to go," she said anxiously.
Damn. ~ H.P. Landry

Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely "neighbor-regarding concern for others," which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friend and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained from the friendship, rather than for the friend's own sake. Consequently, the best way to assure oneself that love is disinterested is to have love for the enemy-neighbor from whom you can expect no good in return, but only hostility and persecution. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Signs & wonders are a manifestation of God's love for us. The Resurrection was the greatest sign & wonder of them all and without it our existence would be in vain. If theology matters (Wimber), then so does knowledge. Without it Noah, Abraham, Jesus, or Paul would not have fulfilled God's purposes. 'My people perish for a lack of knowledge' (NT-passim)."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] ~ R. Alan Woods

Ashlei was free to spout off how much she loved her savior because Jesus was not about to rear back and tell her He did not quite feel the same way, that He had died for the sins of the world just because it was fun and did not want things to be too serious. He was only thirty-three, after all, and might want to martyr himself for other people. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

It appears that Venus has Beatrice's face. Once again, I'm not interested in a historical analysis of the models for the painting. I'm simply asking you to note the visible similarities between the figures. They represent two muses, two ideal types, one theological and one secular. Beatrice is the lover of the soul; Venus is the lover of the body. Botticelli's La Bella has both faces - one of sacrificial love or agape, and one of sexual love or eros. ~ Sylvain Reynard

Agape is your genesis. Loving everyone around you is what you are all about." (Our love for one another is awakened by God's love for us.) ~ Francois Du Toit

Agape love is ... profound concern for the well-being of another, without any desire to control that other, to be thanked by that other, or to enjoy the process. ~ Madeleine L'Engle