Relationship Quotes

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These relationship quotes show there is nothing more challenging or rewarding than developing good relationships with others.

Establishing and maintaining healthy relationships is one of the most important things we’ll do in our lives.

Whether they are based on romance, friendship, or kinship, having the support of others makes us feel valued, confident, and happy.

While relationships aren’t always easy, they are some of the greatest gifts we have. We’ve put together a list of all the very best quotes about relationships to help you celebrate the people who mean the most to you.

Top Relationship Quotes

Relationships don’t always make sense. Especially from the outside.

Sarah Dessen

Assumptions are the termites of relationships.

Henry Winkler
Anthony J. D'Angelo quote "Treasure your relationships not your possessions"
“Treasure your relationships, not your possessions.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo

To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship.

Doménico Cieri Estrada

Forgiveness is the oil of all relationships.

Unknown

The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.

Alexandra Penney

We have to recognize that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.

Cornel West
Greta Scacchi quote "A relationship requires a lot of work and commitment"
“A relationship requires a lot of work and commitment.” – Greta Scacchi

Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.

Robert Holden

A relationship where you can be weird together is your best choice.

Paolo Coelho

Quotes about Relationships

What we wait around a lifetime for with one person, we can find in a moment with someone else.

Stephanie Klein

We can not control a relationship. We can only contribute to a relationship. All relationships, business or personal, are an opportunity to serve another human being.

Simon Sinek

The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.

Neale Donald Walsch

The relationship between husband and wife should be one of closest friends.

B. R. Ambedkar

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Carl Jung

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.

Gloria Steinem
"Everything you want in life is a relationship away"
“Everything you want in life is a relationship away.” – Idowu Koyenikan

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.

Emily Kimbrough

In the end there doesn’t have to be anyone who understands you. There just has to be someone who wants to.

Robert Brault

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Leo Buscaglia

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Relationships are worth fighting for, but you can’t be the only one fighting.

Unknown

To love is easy, to be in a relationship is extremely difficult.

Santosh Kalwar

#1 relationship rule: over communicate.

Carlos Del Valle

Truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

Bob Marley

A true relationship is two imperfect people refusing to give up on each other.

Unknown

Relationships-of all kinds-are like sand held in your hand. Held loosely, with an open hand, the sand remains where it is. The minute you close your hand and squeeze tightly to hold on, the sand trickles through your fingers. You may hold onto some of it, but most will be spilled. A relationship is like that. Held loosely, with respect and freedom for the other person, it is likely to remain intact. But hold too tightly, too possessively, and the relationship slips away and is lost.

Kaleel Jamison
Paul Young quote "Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationships"
“Life takes a bit of time and a lot of relationships.” – Paul Young

We’re often afraid of being vulnerable, but vulnerability creates genuine connection.

Gabby Bernstein

The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.

Audrey Hepburn

Be honest, brutally honest. That is what’s going to maintain relationships.

Lauryn Hill

Successful relationships start by giving up control, giving up the need to be loved or wanted or right all the time.

Mark Manson

Related Reading: Love Quotes to Warm Your Heart

The most profound relationship we will ever have is the one with ourselves.

Shirley MacLaine

Nothing is perfect. Life is messy. Relationships are complex. Outcomes are uncertain. People are irrational.

Hugh Mackay

It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone that we can have a real relationship with them.

Anthony Storr

In any relationship in which two people become one, the end result is two half people.

Wayne W. Dyer

We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.

Joyce Meyer

Each relationship nurtures a strength or weakness within you.

Mike Murdock
Stephen Covey quote "In relationships, the little things are the big things"
“In relationships, the little things are the big things.” – Stephen Covey

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are.

Stephen Covey

It is the things in common that make relationships enjoyable, but it is the little differences that make them interesting.

Todd Ruthman

Beyond friendships adding to the list of improving life success and happiness, experts also assert that supportive relationships improve our odds of survival by fifty percent.

Shasta Nelson

Forgiveness is essential for every kind of relationship we have.

Barbara J. Hunt

Cute Relationship Quotes

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.

Donald Miller

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.

Albert Schweitzer

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

Epicurus

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you… I could walk through my garden forever.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.

Mahatma Gandhi

Three things I want in a relationship: Eyes that won’t cry, lips that won’t lie, and love that won’t die.

Wiz Khalifa

Stick to the basics: Hold on to your family and friends—they will never go out of fashion.

Niki Taylor

I never want to stop making memories with you.

Pierre Jeanty
"Grow old with me, the best is yet to be"
“Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.” – Robert Browning

Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them.

Bill Maher

Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can’t figure out what from.

Mae West

A dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up.

Mae West

Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

Oscar Wilde

The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once.

E. Joseph Cossman

It’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party.

Nick Hornby

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung

Having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night is a very old human need.

Margaret Mead

An archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets the more interested he is in her.

Agatha Christie

Good Relationship Sayings

Many people would argue that having great relationships is the key to happiness. After all, what good are money and success if you have no one to share it with?

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

George Eliot

Maybe our girlfriends are our soulmates and guys are just people to have fun with.

Candace Bushnell
"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye"
“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The extent to which two people in a relationship can bring up and resolve issues is a critical marker of the soundness of a relationship.

Henry Cloud

Great relationships are not great because they have no problems. They are great because both people care enough about the other person to find a way to make it work.

Unknown

Trust is the fruit on a relationship in which you know you are loved.

William Paul Young

Real giving is when we give to our spouses what’s important to them, whether we understand it, like it, agree with it, or not.

Michele Weiner-Davis

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Marcel Proust

You can’t have a relationship with someone hoping they’ll change. You have to be willing to commit to them as they are, with no expectations. And if they happen to choose to change at some point along the way, then that’s just a bonus.

Neil Strauss

Do what you did in the beginning of the relationship and there won’t be an end.

Tony Robbins

When you’re in a relationship and it’s good, even if nothing else in your life is right, you feel like your whole world is complete.

Keith Sweat

Long-term relationships, the ones that matter, are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys.

Nicholas Sparks

The biggest difference trust makes in any relationship – and not just an intimate one – is that you can relax, be open, be yourself.

Mira Kirshenbaum

When you cultivate quality relationships, not only do you feel better and help your friends feel better, but you contribute to an increase of joy, love, and peace in the world.

Tara Bianca
"You deserve someone who is terrified to lose you"
“You deserve someone who is terrified to lose you.” – R.H. Sin

When in a relationship, a real man doesn’t make his woman jealous of others, he makes others jealous of his woman.

Steve Maraboli

A successful relationship requires falling in love multiple times, but always with the same person.

Mignon McLaughlin

What we wait around a lifetime for with one person, we can find in a moment with someone else.

Stephanie Klein

You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.

Frida Kahlo

There are lots of people who can call you by your name, but there is only one person who can make it sound so special.

Kim Jarabelo

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Emily Bronte

For the two of us, home isn’t a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.

Stephanie Perkins

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

Harry Burns

My heart is, and always will be, yours.

Jane Austen
NR Heart quote "Souls tend to go back to who feels like home"
“Souls tend to go back to who feels like home.” – N.R. Heart

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Don’t give up at the first signs of friction: only through clear communication, flexibility and willingness to adapt can you find a relationship that will weather the storms of life.

Tom Miles

Companionship Quotes

Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.

Oscar Wilde

I suffer from girl-next-door-itis where the guy is friends with you and that’s it.

Taylor Swift

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

Walter Winchell

The relationship between husband and wife should be one of closest friends.

B. R. Ambedkar

People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.

Joseph F. Newton

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

Swedish Proverb

In the end there doesn’t have to be anyone who understands you. There just has to be someone who wants to.

Robert Brault

Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human beings.

Miles Franklin
Turkish relationship proverb "No road is long with good company"
“No road is long with good company.” – Turkish Proverb

Everything that happens is nicer with you.

Sandol Stoddard

To get the full value of joy, you must have someone to divide it with.

Mark Twain

I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Albert Camus

Toxic Relationship Quotes

We’ve mentioned a lot of the benefits of relationships, but sometimes it pays to let go of the bad ones.

As we grow, people fall in and out of our lives. Sometimes, we may need to get away from the ones who hurt us, drag us down, or limit our potential.

These thoughts on toxic relationships will help you assess your interactions with others and see if anyone needs to go.

A man who marries a woman to educate her falls victim to the same fallacy as the woman who marries a man to reform him.

Elbert Hubbard

Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.

J.K. Rowling

It’s probably a bad indicator of your lifestyle when you miss your ex-boyfriend because he’s absolutely lethal.

Charlaine Harris

The person you’re meant to be with will never have to be chased, begged or given an ultimatum.

Mandy Hale

The true measure of a man is how he treats you when others are not looking.

Alessandra Torre

A healthy relationship will never require you to sacrifice your friends, your dreams, or your dignity.

Dinkar Kalotra
Robert Anthony quote "The one who loves the least controls the relationship"
“The one who loves the least, controls the relationship.” – Robert Anthony

Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.

Tony Robbins

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

Dalai Lama

One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretending you care about them more than you really do.

Douglas Coupland

Be a loving person rather than in a love relationship.

Osho

Quotes on Bad Relationships

Relationships, marriages are ruined where one person continues to learn, develop and grow and the other person stands still.

Catherine Pulsifer

Relationships end too soon because people stop putting in the same effort to keep you, as they did to win you.

Unknown

Whether it is a friendship or a relationship, all bonds are built on trust. Without it, you have nothing.

Unknown

Cheating and lying aren’t struggles, they’re reasons to break up.

Patti Callahan Henry

When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said.

Catherine Gilbert Murdock

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater.

Sarah Dessen

Don’t settle for a relationship that won’t let you be yourself.

Oprah Winfrey

There’s no perfect relationship. All relationships are work. If you put in the work, you’ll reap the rewards.

Jesse Metcalfe

Our lack of attention means we don’t notice or we miss much that is going on and this affects our relationships.

Anna Black

If you love yourself you love others, if you hate yourself you hate others, because in relationship with others it is only you mirrored.

Osho

Maintaining long-lasting, rewarding relationships is a challenge we can all relate to. We hope these thoughts on relationships help you improve all of yours.

There is always room to get along better with others, whether our relationships are close or not. So use these quotes to improve all your relationships or even start new ones when you have the opportunity to.

Whether you and your partner want to be a happier couple, or you want to interact with your family and friends better, it pays to make the effort. Not all relationships are romantic, but that doesn’t make them any less important! Let us know which relationships are important to you in the comments.

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Quincy Seale

Quincy is KIM's editor, and has collected and shared inspiring quotes and stories since 2005. Quincy holds an MBA from the University of Dundee and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, and lives in San Antonio with his wife Natalie, son Alex, and his dog Oban.

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