Top 280 Gary Chapman Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person, knowing that if his or her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction – the satisfaction of having genuinely loved another. It does not require the euphoria of the ‘in-love’ experience. In fact, true love cannot begin until the ‘in-love’ experience has run its course.”

— Gary Chapman

252. “Time is a precious commodity. We all have multiple demands on our time, yet each of us has the exact same hours in a day. We can make the most of those hours by committing some of them to our spouse. If your mate’s primary love language is quality time, she simply wants you, being with her, spending time.”

— Gary Chapman

253. “We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.”

— Gary Chapman

254. “A willingness to examine and change stereotypes is necessary in order to express love more effectively. Remember, there are no rewards for maintaining stereotypes, but there are tremendous benefits to meeting the emotional needs of your spouse.”

— Gary Chapman

255. “Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.”

— Gary Chapman

256. “The good news is that Dead Seas can learn to talk and Babbling Brooks can learn to listen. We are influenced by our personality but not controlled by it.”

— Gary Chapman

257. “Welcome to the real world of marriage, where hairs are always on the sink and little white spots cover the mirror, where discussions center not on “where should we eat tonight?” but “why didn’t you get milk?” It is a world where bills and in-laws and jobs and children all clamor for our attention, a world where routine and resentment can silently eat away at the love we once had. In this world, a look can hurt and a word can crush. Intimate lovers can become enemies, and marriage a battlefield.”

— Gary Chapman

258. “Child psychologists affirm that every child has certain basic emotional needs that must be met if he is to be emotionally stable. Among those emotional needs, none is more basic than the need for love and affection, the need to sense that he or she belongs and is wanted. With an adequate supply of affection, the child will likely develop into a responsible adult. Without that love, he or she will be emotionally and socially challenged.”

— Gary Chapman

259. “When I have been wronged by my spouse and she has painfully confessed it and requested forgiveness, I have the option of justice or forgiveness. If I choose justice and seek to pay her back or make her pay for her wrongdoing, I am making myself the judge and she the felon.”

— Gary Chapman

260. “In every vocation, those who truly excel have genuine desire to serve others.”

— Gary Chapman

261. “Meeting my wife’s need for love is a choice I make each day.”

— Gary Chapman

262. “I dream of a day when children can grow up in homes filled with love and security, where children’s developing energies can be channeled to learning and serving rather than seeking the love they did not receive at home.”

— Gary Chapman

263. “Love doesn’t keep a score of wrongs. Love doesn’t bring up past failures. None of us is perfect.”

— Gary Chapman

264. “We needed love before we ‘fell in love,’ and we will need it the rest of our lives.”

— Gary Chapman

265. “True love cannot begin until the in-love experience has run its course. We cannot take credit for the kind and generous things we do while under the influence of the obsession.”

— Gary Chapman

266. “My parents may have given me negative or mixed messages about my worth, but my spouse knows me as an adult and loves me. Her love builds my self-esteem. The.”

— Gary Chapman

267. “Keith, Allison’s husband, had paid little attention to Allison’s writing in the early days of their marriage. He was busy with his own profession and trying to make a place for himself in that world. In time, however, Keith had realized that life’s deepest meaning is not found in accomplishments but in relationships.”

— Gary Chapman

268. “Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally.”

— Gary Chapman

269. “Research seems to indicate that there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was – a temporary emotional high – and now pursue “real love” with our spouse.”

— Gary Chapman

270. “We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve.”

— Gary Chapman

271. “Clearly our bodies are for touching, but not for abuse.”

— Gary Chapman

272. “The emotional need for love must be met if we are to have emotional health. Married.”

— Gary Chapman

273. “Giving verbal compliments is only one way to express words of affirmation to your spouse. Another dialect is encouraging words. The word encourage means “to inspire courage.” All of us have areas in which we feel insecure. We lack courage, and that lack of courage often hinders us from accomplishing the positive things that we would like to do. The latent potential within your spouse in his or her areas of insecurity may await your encouraging words.”

— Gary Chapman

274. “Among those emotional needs, none is more basic than the need for love and affection, the need to sense that he or she belongs and is wanted.”

— Gary Chapman

275. “Now I realize that she didn’t want advice when she told me about her struggles at work. She wanted sympathy. She wanted me to listen, to give her attention, to let her know that I could understand the hurt, the stress, the pressure. She wanted to know that I loved her and that I was with her. She didn’t want advice; she just wanted to know that I understood.”

— Gary Chapman

276. “We believe that she is committed to meeting our needs, that he loves us as much as we love him and would never do anything to hurt us. That thinking is always fanciful. Not that we are insincere in what we think and feel, but we are unrealistic. We fail to reckon with the reality of human nature. By nature, we are egocentric.”

— Gary Chapman

277. “Perhaps your spouse has untapped potential in one or more areas of life. That potential may be awaiting your encouraging words. Perhaps she needs to enroll in a course to develop that potential. Maybe he needs to meet some people who have succeeded in that area, who can give him insight on the next step he needs to take. Your words may give your spouse the courage necessary to take that first step.”

— Gary Chapman

278. “When you are given public honor for an accomplishment, be sure to share the credit with your spouse.”

— Gary Chapman

279. “When my spouse lovingly invests time, energy, and effort in me, I believe that I am significant. Without love, I may spend a lifetime in search of significance, self-worth, and security.”

— Gary Chapman

280. “Babies who are held, stroked, and kissed develop a healthier emotional life than those who are left for long periods of time without physical contact.”

— Gary Chapman