One‘s ownperson becomes an instrument in the practice of the art, andmust be kept fit, according to the specific functions it has tofulfill. With regard to the art of loving, this means that anyonewho aspires to become a master in this art must begin by prac-ticing discipline, concentration and patience throughout everyphase of his life. - P102
Indeed, to be able toconcentrate means to be able to be alone with oneself-andthis ability is precisely a condition for the ability to love. If Iam attached to another person because I cannot stand on myown feet, he or she may be a lifesaver, but the relationship isnot one of love. Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is thecondition for the ability to love. Anyone who tries to be alone with himself will discover how difficult it is. - P103
Besides such exercises, one must learn to be concentratedin everything one does, in listening to music, in reading abook, in talking to a person, in seeing a view. The activity atthis very moment must be the only thing that matters, towhich one is fully given. If one is concentrated, it matters littlewhat one is doing; the important, as well as the unimportantthings assume a new dimension of reality, because they have one’s full attention. - P104
To be concentrated means to live fully in the present, inthe here and now, and not to think of the next thing to bedone, while I am doing something right now. Needless to saythat concentration must be practiced most of all by peoplewho love each other. They must learn to be close to each otherwithout running away in the many ways in which this is cus-tomarily done. - P106
While we teach knowledge, we are losing that teachingwhich is the most important one for human development: theteaching which can only be given by the simple presence of amature, loving person. In previous epochs of our own culture,
or in China and India, the man most highly valued was theperson with outstanding spiritual qualities. Even the teacherwas not only, or even primarily, a source of information, buthis function was to convey certain human attitudes. - P108
I said about the nature of love, the main condition for theachievement of love is the overcoming of one‘s narcissism. Thenarcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as realonly that which exists within oneself, while the phenomenain the outside world have no reality in themselves, but areexperienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful ordangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectiv-ity; it is the faculty to see people and things as they are, objec-tively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from apicture which is formed by one‘s desires and fears. - P109
The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotionalattitude behind reason is that of humility. To be objective, touse one‘s reason, is possible only if one has achieved an atti-tude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omni-science and omnipotence which one has as a child. - P111
our feeling of identity. Only the person who has faith in him-self is able to be faithful to others, because only he can be surethat he will be the same at a future time as he is today and,
therefore, that he will feel and act as he now expects to. Faithin oneself is a condition of our ability to promise, and since, asNietzsche said, man can be defined by his capacity to promise,
faith is one of the conditions of human existence. What mat-ters in relation to love is the faith in one‘s own love; in itsability to produce love in others, and in its reliability. - P162
To take thedifficulties, setbacks and sorrows of life as a challenge which toovercome makes us stronger, rather than as unjust punishmentwhich should not happen to us, requires faith and courage. - P117
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