Leo Buscaglia
I love the idea of being gentle, and I love the paradox of gentleness being one of our greatest strengths. I think that not enough of us understand the importance of such a paradox because we're taught from such an early age that it's important for us to be strong, to not let other people walk all over us, to look out for number one. It's true, though, that only strong people can be truly gentle without being weak, because those people who are gentle understand the importance of being so. If I'm gentle, other people can feel better in my presence. They can trust me more, and they can relax and not feel fear. If I truly want to be helpful to other people, then it's important for me to put them in a state of mind in which they'll actually accept help from me. Gentleness is by no means weakness, for we need confidence in ourselves if we're to put ourselves in an often vulnerable situation when we show gentleness. I hope that as time goes on I can be more gentle in more situations, because I have a limited amount of time here on this planet, and I want to give as much help as I can while I'm here. While there certainly can be times for strength and a lack of gentleness, me being gentle has much more potential to be truly helpful to others than does me being strong.
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