Gary Chapman, born January 10, 1938, is a renowned author and radio host from North Carolina, celebrated for his groundbreaking “Five Love Languages” series.
Chapman’s concept, introduced in 1992 with his bestselling book, helps individuals express and understand love through words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch.
With one primary “language” dominating, each person appreciates all five to various extents.
The prolific author has expanded on this idea in several books, tailored for different audiences including parents, singles and workers, significantly influencing the discourse on love, relationships and communication worldwide.
Here is a collection of the best quotes by Gary Chapman.
Best Gary Chapman Quotes
Empathetic listening is an awesome medication for the hurting heart. ~ Gary Chapman.
Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. ~ Gary Chapman.
I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. ~ Gary Chapman.
True love cannot begin until the in love experience has run its course. ~ Gary Chapman.
What we dislike in others is often a weakness in our own lives. ~ Gary Chapman.
In marriage it is never having my own way. It is rather discovering our way. ~ Gary Chapman.
The tongue has the power of life and death. ~ Gary Chapman.
Feedback is a gift only when it comes from a person who has earned your trust. ~ Gary Chapman.
We cannot erase the past, but we can accept it as history. ~ Gary Chapman.
Love is the most important word in the English language – and the most confusing. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
I think that in today’s world, by nature, we are all self-centered. And that often leads to selfishness. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Every single day in a marriage, we influence each other. It is a matter of am I going to have a positive influence or a negative influence? ~ Gary Chapman.
Don’t be a victim of the urgent. In the long run, much of what seems so pressing right now won’t even matter. What you do with your children will matter forever. ~ Gary Chapman.
Remember that your ultimate goal is for your children to grow up secure in your love, strong in their faith, and with sound character. ~ Gary Chapman.
Famous Gary Chapman Quotes
Something in our nature cries out to be loved by another. Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. That is why solitary confinement is considered the cruelest of punishments. ~ Gary Chapman.
When a workplace becomes toxic, its poison spreads beyond its walls and into the lives of its workers and their families. ~ Gary Chapman.
What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage. ~ Gary Chapman.
Women like to be affirmed verbally, just as men like to be affirmed verbally. They tend to pull away from dating partners who do not give affirmation. Lack of verbal affirmation is interpreted as lack of love. ~ Gary Chapman.
We need not agree on everything, but we must find a way to handle our differences so that they do not become divisive. ~ Gary Chapman.
Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English. ~ Gary Chapman.
It was God’s idea to make us male and female. And God’s the one that instituted marriage. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Nothing has more potential for strengthening one’s sense of well-being than effectively loving and being loved. ~ Gary Chapman.
Top Gary Chapman Quotes
Encouragement requires empathy and seeing the world from your spouse’s perspective. We must first learn what is important to our spouse. Only then can we give encouragement. ~ Gary Chapman.
People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need. ~ Gary Chapman.
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. ~ Gary Chapman.
Most people spend far more time in preparation for their vocation than they do in preparation for marriage. ~ Gary Chapman.
Recent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas. ~ Gary Chapman.
When your spouse’s emotional love tank is full and he feels secure in your love, the whole world looks bright and your spouse will move out to reach his highest potential in life. ~ Gary Chapman.
Love is a choice you make everyday. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Many couples have never learned the tremendous power of verbally affirming each other. ~ Gary Chapman.
We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve. A relationship calls for sympathetic listening with a view to understanding the other person’s thoughts, feelings, and desires. ~ Gary Chapman.
Popular Gary Chapman Quotes
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.
Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love. ~ Gary Chapman.
The best thing we can do with the failures of the past is to let them be history. ~ Gary Chapman.
We can’t determine our emotions, but we can choose our attitudes and actions. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
A child may be spoiled by a lack of training or by inappropriate love that gives or trains incorrectly. ~ Gary Chapman.
I think people desperately want to feel love. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
I have been doing marriage counseling for about 15 years and I realized that what makes one person feel loved, doesn’t make another person feel loved. ~ Gary Chapman.
The choice to love is the choice to take initiative. It is the choice to do or say something for the other person’s benefit, something that would help make them a better person, something that would enrich their lives or make life more meaningful for them. ~ Gary Chapman.
Love is a verb. ~ Gary Chapman.
Sometimes the decision to agree with the other person’s idea will involve great sacrifice. However, love always involves some sacrifice. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Anger, then, is the emotion that arises whenever we encounter what we perceive to be wrong. The emotional, physiological, and cognitive dimensions of anger leap to the front burner of our experience when we encounter injustice. ~ Gary Chapman.
Gary Chapman Quotes on Love
Conflicts are not a sign you’ve married the wrong person. They simply affirm you are human. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Nobody has the power to make you miserable . . . unless you choose to give them that power. Choose to enjoy every drop of today! ~ Gary Chapman.
If we can develop the character and work with God, then let him develop the character of Christ in us, we’re going to become the best possible husband, the best possible wife. ~ Gary Chapman.
We all need support, in the workplace and beyond it. When we both give and receive, we stand a much better chance of survival. ~ Gary Chapman.
Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Love is reaching out to try to get to the other person. ~ Gary Chapman.
Short Gary Chapman Quotes
Words of affirmation are simply true statements affirming the worth of another person. ~ Gary Chapman.
No matter what I did, it was never enough. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
Love makes requests, not demands. ~ Gary Chapman.
All of us blossom when we feel loved and wither when we do not feel loved. ~ Gary Chapman.
Our spouse will usually interpret our message based on our tone of voice, not the words we use. ~ Gary Chapman.
We are influenced by our personality but not controlled by it. ~ Gary Chapman.
Life’s deepest meaning is not found in accomplishments, but in relationships. ~ Gary Chapman.
Love doesn’t erase the past, but it makes the future different. ~ Gary Chapman.
Gifts need not be expensive; after all, it’s the thought 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.
I think the tingles are important. They are real, and I am in favor of their survival. But they are not the basis for a satisfactory marriage. I am not suggesting that on should marry without the tingles. Those warm, excited feelings, the chill bumps, that sense of acceptance, the excitement of the touch that make up the tingles serve as the cherry on top of the sundae. But you cannot have a sundae with only the cherry. ~ Gary Chapman.
The one who chooses to love will find appropriate ways to express that decision everyday. ~ Gary Chapman.
The person who is in-love has the illusion that his beloved is perfect. ~ Gary Chapman.
A soft answer turns away anger. ~ Gary Chapman.
The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love. ~ Gary Chapman.
You can’t train them to express their anger in mature ways simply by getting upset at them and forcing them to stop venting their anger. ~ Gary Chapman.
Most of us have more potential than we will ever develop. What holds us back is often a lack of courage. ~ Gary Chapman.
It is the mistaken idea that if I reward mediocrity, I will curtail the person’s aspirations to be better. That is a commonly held myth that keeps some parents from verbally affirming children. Of course, it’s untrue. ~ Gary Chapman.
Inside every child is an ‘emotional tank’ waiting to be filled with love. ~ Gary Chapman.
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.
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.
So these were the 83 quotes from Gary Chapman.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read our other posts on Self Righteous quotes and Light at the End of the Tunnel quotes.
