Daisaku Ikeda Quotes

My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here’s how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man’s chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homonculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was.

Real love makes you more of an individual. It does not efface your individuality, it gives you individuality. Real love is very respectful.

We need to help people to discover the true meaning of love. Love is generally confused with dependence. Those of us who have grown in true love know that we can love only in proportion to our capacity for independence.

The only way you can make a marriage work is as free, independent people. It needs to be based on the good feelings that you have for each other, not on need.

It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone that we can have a real relationship with them.

In the past I would self destruct when it came to love - I was immature, throwing myself into things but now times have changed, I want a relationship where you understand the other person.

The person who needs the other person the least in a relationship is the stronger member.

Men must be stripped of arrogance and women must become independent for any mutually nurturing alliance to endure between the sexes.

Mature people relate to each other without the need to merge.

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other.

I love you so much. I love you enough that I want to stay separate from you. You're an extraordinary man, Frank Wright. I could so easily lose myself in your world and never make a world of my own. And where would that leave us? We'd both be bored stupid.

. . . and I don’t expect him to suborn his life into mine any more than I would change my dreams for him. We’re not one soul, one being, however much we love each other.

I've always been very independent. Even in relationships, I'm focused on the quality of my life and not enmeshing myself so much with somebody else's experience. But I think there's incredible value in being married.

I don't think you can really, truly be the partner you want to be until you know on an absolute level that you are a complete person on your own.

If we are happy within ourselves, we don't accept or demand that our partner should fulfill every need. We need to be comfortable with our own company.

I don't think it's necessarily healthy to go into relationships as a needy person. Better to go in with a full deck.

I know now that there are men out there who are, for me, the whole package, who are supportive of my successes because they know I will be just as supportive of theirs. I'm less tolerant of foolishness now; I know that it's important I not tie myself up with the wrong person, because then I will miss the right person coming along.

Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.

Too many people get married and lose themselves. You have to fiercely hold on to who you are, and you need to celebrate that in the other person because that's what made you fall in love in the first place.

Other than marriage, she doesn't control me and I don't control her.

I think if we want to find happiness by finding a life partner, then it's a little selfish. You should be complete within yourself, so that when you're in a relationship, you can give out happiness rather than expect it.

I think its wonderful to have a relationship where you both go out and live your lives, and you bring something to the table because you've had other interactions.

I think there's a big difference between loving someone out of duty and dependency and loving someone because you really are able to sort of grow and be whole in the context of that relationship.

The best relationship is one that does not foster too much independence nor too much dependence, but exists in the healthy interdependence zone.

I need a woman who is secure and loves herself first. Then she can share that love and light with me.