Top 280 Gary Chapman Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

— Gary Chapman

2. “Love is a choice you make everyday.”

— Gary Chapman

3. “Life’s deepest meaning is not found in accomplishments, but in relationships.”

— Gary Chapman

4. “Love makes requests, not demands.”

— Gary Chapman

5. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. – Proverbs 3:5–6.”

— Gary Chapman

6. “People do not get married planning to divorce. Divorce is the result of a lack of preparation for marriage and the failure to learn the skills of working together as teammates in an intimate relationship.”

— Gary Chapman

7. “Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment.”

— Gary Chapman

Featured in: Forgiveness Quotes

8. “Love is always freely given. Love cannot be demanded. We can request things of each other, but we must never demand anything. Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.”

— Gary Chapman

9. “Feedback is a gift only when it comes from a person who has earned your trust.”

— Gary Chapman

10. “When people respond too quickly, they often respond to the wrong issue. Listening helps us focus on the heart of the conflict. When we listen, understand, and respect each other’s ideas, we can then find a solution in which both of us are winners.”

— Gary Chapman

11. “For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, deserts unbearable, and hardships our lot in life.”

— Gary Chapman

12. “Love doesn’t erase the past, but it makes the future different.”

— Gary Chapman

13. “Conflicts are not a sign you’ve married the wrong person. They simply affirm you are human.”

— Gary Chapman

14. “In marriage it is never having my own way. It is rather discovering our way.”

— Gary Chapman

15. “Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving.”

— Gary Chapman

16. “Love is the fundamental building block of all human relationships. It will greatly impact our values and morals. Love is the important ingredient in one’s search for meaning.”

— Gary Chapman

17. “Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself.”

— Gary Chapman

18. “Words of affirmation are simply true statements affirming the worth of another person.”

— Gary Chapman

19. “I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in so doing, they pollute a potentially wonderful day.”

— Gary Chapman

20. “All of us blossom when we feel loved and wither when we do not feel loved.”

— Gary Chapman

21. “Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offense up against the offender. Forgiveness is an expression of love.”

— Gary Chapman

22. “Lack of love from parents often motivates their children to go searching for love in other relationships. This search is often misguided and leads to further disappointment.”

— Gary Chapman

23. “When a workplace becomes toxic, its poison spreads beyond its walls and into the lives of its workers and their families.”

— Gary Chapman

24. “Togetherness has to do with focused attention. It is giving someone your undivided attention. As humans, we have a fundamental desire to connect with others. We may be in the presence of people all day long, but we do not always feel connected.”

— Gary Chapman

25. “You cannot force someone to accept an expression of love. You can only offer it. If it is not accepted, you must respect the other person’s decision.”

— Gary Chapman

26. “A soft answer turns away anger.”

— Gary Chapman

27. “The one who chooses to love will find appropriate ways to express that decision everyday.”

— Gary Chapman

28. “Empathetic listening is an awesome medication for the hurting heart.”

— Gary Chapman

29. “We are trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve.”

— Gary Chapman

30. “We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language.”

— Gary Chapman

31. “The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.”

— Gary Chapman

32. “At the heart of mankind’s existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another. Marriage is designed to meet that need for intimacy and love.”

— Gary Chapman

33. “People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”

— Gary Chapman

Featured in: Romance Quotes

34. “Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.”

— Gary Chapman

35. “Our spouse will usually interpret our message based on our tone of voice, not the words we use.”

— Gary Chapman

36. “Recent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas.”

— Gary Chapman

37. “Another reality about relationships is that they are never static. All of us experience changes in relationships but a few stop to analyse why a relationship gets better or worse.”

— Gary Chapman

38. “Inside every child is an ’emotional rani’s waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty ’love tank.”

— Gary Chapman

39. “We cannot erase the past, but we can accept it as history.”

— Gary Chapman

40. “Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty LOVE TANK.”

— Gary Chapman

41. “True love cannot begin until the “in love” experience has run it’s course.”

— Gary Chapman

42. “Inside every child is an ‘emotional tank’ waiting to be filled with love.”

— Gary Chapman

43. “Sometimes our words say one thing, but our tone of voice says another.”

— Gary Chapman

44. “The in-love experience does not focus on our own growth or on the growth and development of the other person. Rather, it gives us the sense that we have arrived and that we do not need further growth.”

— Gary Chapman

45. “Most people spend far more time in preparation for their vocation than they do in preparation for marriage.”

— Gary Chapman

46. “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? – Luke 6:41.”

— Gary Chapman

47. “What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage.”

— Gary Chapman

48. “Many couples have never learned the tremendous power of verbally affirming each other.”

— Gary Chapman

49. “If we are to develop an intimate relationship, we need to know each other’s desires. If we wish to love each other, we need to know what the other person wants.”

— Gary Chapman

50. “Gifts need not be expensive; after all, “it’s the thuoght that counts.” But I remind you, it is not the thought left in your head that counts; it is the gift that came out of the thought that communicates emotional love.”

— Gary Chapman