Top 90 John Gray Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Opening the heart results in greater forgiveness and increased motivation to give and receive love and support.”

— John Gray

52. “Quite often, when one partner makes a positive change the other will also change. This predictable coincidence is one of those magical things about life.”

— John Gray

53. “Aman thinks he scores high with a woman when he does something very big for her, like buying her a new car or taking her on a vacation. He assumes he scores less when he does something small, like opening the car door, buying her a flower, or giving her a hug. Based on this kind of score keeping, he believes he will fulfill her best by focusing his time, energy, and attention into doing something large for her. This formula, however, doesn’t work because women keep score differently.”

— John Gray

54. “A man assumes that her sudden change of mood is based solely on his behavior. When she is happy he takes credit, but when she is unhappy he also feels responsible. He may feel extremely frustrated because he doesn’t know how to make things better. One minute she seems happy, and so he believes he is doing a good job and then the next minute she is unhappy. He is shocked because he thought he was doing so well.”

— John Gray

55. “Love is magical, and it can last, if we remember our differences.”

— John Gray

56. “How to Support a Man in His Cave Don’t disapprove of his need for withdrawing. Don’t try to help him solve his problem by offering solutions. Don’t try to nurture him by asking questions about his feelings. Don’t sit next to the door of the cave and wait for him to come out. Don’t worry about him or feel sorry for him. Do something that makes you happy.”

— John Gray

57. “When the student is ready the teacher appears. When the question is asked then the answer is heard. When we are truly ready to receive then what we need will become available.”

— John Gray

58. “Venusians have different values. They value love, communication, beauty, and relationships. They spend a lot of time supporting, helping, and nurturing one another. Their sense of self is defined through their feelings and the quality of their relationships. They experience fulfillment through sharing and relating.”

— John Gray

59. “Martians value power, competency, efficiency, and achievement. They are always doing things to prove themselves and develop their power and skills. Their sense of self is defined through their ability to achieve results. They experience fulfillment primarily through success and accomplishment.”

— John Gray

60. “Too much intimacy, too quickly, can cause women to become needy and men to pull away. Just as men have a tendency to rush into physical intimacy, women make the mistake of rushing into complete emotional intimacy.”

— John Gray

61. “He has no idea that by just listening with empathy and interest he can be supportive. He does not know that on Venus talking about problems is not an invitation to offer a solution. LIFE.”

— John Gray

62. “Men typically give in relationships what men want, while women give what women want. Each mistakenly assumes that the other has the same needs and desires.”

— John Gray

63. “A woman has within herself the ability to spontaneously rise up after she has hit bottom. A man does not have to fix her. She is not broken but just needs his love, patience, and understanding.”

— John Gray

64. “When a woman innocently shares upset feelings or explores out loud the problems of her day, a man mistakenly assumes she is looking for some expert advice. He puts on his Mr. Fix-It hat and begins giving advice; this is his way of showing love and of trying to help.”

— John Gray

65. “You cannot, nor should you ever try to, change your partner. That is his or her job. Your job is to change the ways you communicate, react, and respond to your partner.”

— John Gray

66. “Fortunately perfection is not a requirement for creating great relationships.”

— John Gray

67. “Some couples fight all the time, and gradually their love dies. On the other extreme, some couples suppress their honest feelings in order to avoid conflict and not argue. As a result of suppressing their true feelings they lose touch with their loving feelings as well. One couple is having a war while the other is having a cold war.”

— John Gray

68. “To fully express their feelings, women assume poetic license and use various superlatives, metaphors, and generalizations. Men mistakenly take these expressions literally. Because they misunderstand the intended meaning, they commonly react in an unsupportive manner.”

— John Gray

69. “One of the most difficult challenges in our loving relationships is handling differences and disagreements. Often when couples disagree their discussions can turn into arguments and then without much warning into battles. Suddenly they stop talking in a loving manner and automatically begin hurting each other: blaming, complaining, accusing, demanding, resenting, and doubting.”

— John Gray

70. “The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialisation, ‘Western civilisation’ or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. Throughout all of history and prehistory, human advance has coincided with ecological devastation.”

— John Gray

71. “Most of the time she just needs more understanding and affection and her heart will warm up again and her eyes will begin to sparkle.”

— John Gray

72. “It is very difficult for a man to differentiate between empathy and sympathy. He hates to be pitied.”

— John Gray

73. “To feel better, women talk about past problems, future problems, potential problems, even problems that have no solutions. The more talk and exploration, the better they feel. This is the way women operate. To expect otherwise is to deny a woman her sense of self.”

— John Gray

74. “Not only do men and women communicate differently but they think, feel, perceive, react, respond, love, need, and appreciate differently.”

— John Gray

75. “When men and women are single for a long time, the differences are sometimes not as defined.”

— John Gray

76. “Most men are not only hungry to give love but are starving for it. Their biggest problem is that they do not know what they are missing.”

— John Gray

77. “Make a goal to stay confident today. The world believes in you when you fully believe in yourself.”

— John Gray

78. “Making some of these changes may at first feel awkward or even manipulative. Many people have the idea that love means “saying it like it is.” This overly direct approach, however, does not take into account the listener’s feelings. One can still be honest and direct about feelings but express them in a way that doesn’t offend or hurt.”

— John Gray

79. “History is a treadmill turned by rising human numbers. Today GM crops are being marketed as the only means of avoiding mass starvation. They are unlikely to improve the lives of peasant farmers ; but they may well enable them to survive in greater numbers.”

— John Gray

80. “Western though is fixated on the gap between what is and what ought to be.”

— John Gray

81. “The closer we are to someone, the easier it is to bruise or be bruised.”

— John Gray

82. “A man commonly makes the mistake of thinking that once he has met all of a woman’s primary love needs, and she feels happy and secure, that she should know from then on that she is loved. This is not the case. To fulfill her sixth primary love need he must remember to reassure her again and again.”

— John Gray

83. “Like their Martian ancestors, men pride themselves on being experts, especially when it comes to fixing mechanical things, getting places, or solving problems. These are the times when he needs her loving acceptance the most and not her advice or criticism.”

— John Gray

84. “To receive support we not only have to teach our partners what we need but we also have to be willing to be supported.”

— John Gray

85. “A woman should not behave with a man as if she is exclusive or intimate if he is still working through issues with other women. And she should not mistakenly believe that if she listens sympathetically to him, he will become convinced she is the one for him.”

— John Gray

86. “When men and women are on the verge of arguing, they are generally misunderstanding each other.”

— John Gray

87. “It took me years to understand that my wife actually wanted me to worry for her when she was upset. Without this awareness of our different needs, I would minimize the importance of her concerns. This only made her more upset.”

— John Gray

88. “Women today truly need their men and whatever help they can provide.”

— John Gray

89. “Global laissez-faire is not a conspiracy of corporate America. It is a tragedy – one of several that have occurred in the twentieth century – in which an hubristic ideology runs aground on enduring human needs that it has failed to comprehend.”

— John Gray

90. “Men feel frustrated by problems unless they are doing something to solve them. By appreciating him, a woman can help him realize that just by listening he is also helping.”

— John Gray

91. “Martians talk about problems for only two reasons: they are blaming someone or they are seeking advice. If a woman is really upset a man assumes she is blaming him. If she seems less upset, then he assumes she is asking for advice.”

— John Gray

92. “Both men and women need to stop offering the method of caring they would prefer and start to learn the different ways their partners think, feel, and react.”

— John Gray

93. “As commonly practiced, philosophy is the attempt to find good reasons for conventional beliefs.”

— John Gray

94. “The neo-conservative ascendancy has identified the free market with America’s claim to be the exemplary modern nation. It has appropriated America’s self-image as the model for a universal civilization in the service of a global free market. For a public nurtured on such illusions the coming years will be traumatic.”

— John Gray