Top 30 Esther Perel Quotes to Strengthen Your Relationships

Esther Perel is a world renowned psychotherapist most well known for her work exploring the tension between people’s need for security and need for freedom. Her book, which is titled “Mating Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence”, was published in 2006. Following the publication of the book, she became an international advisor on sex and relationships.

Perel is the daughter of two Polish-born Holocaust survivors, and was raised in Antwerp. She attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. Although she now specializes in family systems theory, she was trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy.

She gave a TED in February of 2013, which has been viewed online more than 11 million times. Perel is now considered one of the more world’s foremost authorities on the psychology of sex and relationships. In the past, Perel has worked as an actress and has run a high-end clothing store in Antwerp. Her latest book, which was published in 2017, is titled “The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity”.

Here are Top 30 Esther Perel Quotes to Strengthen Your Relationships

1. “When we listen deeply to the experiences of other people, we often find ourselves standing in front of our own mirror.” – Esther Perel

2. “We all straddle two fundamental human needs; the need for security, and the need for adventure.” – Esther Perel

3. “It is the quality of our relationships that will determine the quality of our lives.” – Esther Perel

4. “The more you enter the relationship of others, the more you understand yourself.” – Esther Perel

5. “Navigating relationships and cultivating relational intelligence are key to your professional success.” – Esther Perel

6. “We all may have similar resumes, but we will for sure have different eulogies!” – Esther Perel

7. “What makes us feel emotionally secure is not always what turns us on sexually. Instead of looking to the other to meet your needs, if you want to reignite your love life, you must take on the responsibility of your own desire.” – Esther Perel

8. “Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning.” – Esther Perel

9. “Time never exists on its own. It’s what you do in it. It’s how you shape it.” – Esther Perel

10. “Listen. Just listen. You don’t have to agree. Just see if you can understand that there’s another person who has a completely different experience of the same reality.” – Esther Perel

11. “Marriage and monogamy are concepts that are shifting before our eyes today… Monogamy used to be one person for life; today it is one person at a time” – Esther Perel

12. “Your relationships are your story. Write well. Edit often.” – Esther Perel

13. “If you want to change a relationship, you need to change yourself. Own what’s yours.” – Esther Perel

14. “Masculinity is often framed as a performance,” Perel says. “All over the world, men go through multiple rituals and experience to ‘prove’ and ‘test’ their masculinity. Our culture thinks that we are born women and that we ‘become’ men.” – Esther Perel

15. “One of the very first ways you learn to love yourself is by being loved by others and loving them back.” – Esther Perel

16. “Women are over-served in the space of relationships and men are totally underserved. And because the lives of women will not change until men come along, that means that men need to have a chance to also rethink what it means to be a man at home and at work.” – Esther Perel

17. “People come in with a story. At the end of the session, I want them to leave with a different story, because a different story is what breeds hope – is what gives them a sense of possibility.” – Esther Perel

18. “Modern intimacy is bathed in self-disclosure, the trustful sharing of our most personal and private material – our feelings.” – Esther Perel

19. “Criticism is a veiled wish.” – Esther Perel

20. “Love without desire can be tender, intimate and secure, but love without desire lacks adventure, edge, the sense of risk that fuels romantic passion.” – Esther Perel

21. “Longevity is not the only indicator of a successful relationship.” – Esther Perel

22. “Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery.” – Esther Perel

23. “Self-confidence and self-acceptance increase with age. Both help us claim our desire and feel entitled to it.” – Esther Perel

24. “Tell me how you were loved, and I will tell you how to make love.” – Esther Perel

25. “Allow yourself to feel more deeply the otherness of your partner. You never really possess each other. You just think you do.” – Esther Perel

26. “In our individualistic society, we have replaced rules with conversation. Everything today in relationships is a negotiation.” – Esther Perel

27. “The intimacy of it, the private listening of it, the fact that you don’t see them, thus you see yourself. You hear them but you see you. It reflects you in the mirror.” – Esther Perel

28. “Love is at once an affirmation and a transcendence of who we are.” – Esther Perel

29. “To apologize – there is nothing weak about it. Whoever apologizes first is always the stronger one.” – Esther Perel

30. “Love is a verb. Not a permanent state of enthusiasm.” – Esther Perel