Sean Kinney

“Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bitter-sweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt to take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.”
― Alain de Botton, Essays in Love

“We had often read the same books at night in the same bed, and later realized that they had touched us in different places: that they had been different books for each of us. Might the same divergence not occur over a single love-line? I felt like a dandelion releasing hundreds of spores into the air - and not knowing if any of them would get through.”
― Alain de Botton, On Love

“A main reason for our experience of pain is because of our eagerness to bring people we love or care about into our own growth spurts and into our own leaps forward that they are simply not ready to morph into. You could be a tree sprouting new branches left and right or a planetary wonder hurtling space rocks igniting the skies in glowing streaks, then the other person or people are plantlings still forming roots, or, sunbeams that want to stay on bedroom walls. See, that hurts. It hurts to grow alone, it hurts to realise that someone else won't be coming with you.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts.”
― James C. Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't