These reciprocal quotes will inspire you. Reciprocal used to describe a relationship in which two people or groups agree to do something similar for each other, to allow each other to have the same rights.
Below you will find a collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging reciprocal quotes, reciprocal sayings, and reciprocal proverbs.
Best Reciprocal Quotes
- “There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life -reciprocity.” ~ Confucius
- “The basis of social relationships is reciprocity: if you cooperate with others, others will cooperate with you.” ~ Carroll Quigley
- “Abundance is a dance with reciprocity – what we can give, what we can share, and what we receive in the process.” ~ Terry Tempest Williams
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“Reciprocity is a deep instinct; it is the basic currency of social life.” ~ Jonathan Haidt
- “When a man is guided by the principles of reciprocity and consciousness, he is not far from the moral law. Whatever you don’t wish for yourself don’t do unto others.” ~ Confucius
- “Peace is not just the absence of war, it is the active presence of a capacity for love and compassion, and reciprocity. It is an awareness that our lives are not to be lived simply for ourselves through expressing our individuality, but we confirm the purpose of our lives through the work of expressing our shared sense of community in a purposeful and practical way; to sustain our own lives we sustain the lives of others – in family, in a community of neighborhoods called a city, and in a community of nations called the world.” ~ Dennis Kucinich
- “We must remember how to honor and respect life with each breath, step, word, and thought. What you bless blesses you in return. This is the power of reciprocity.” ~ Sandra Ingerman
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“A little reciprocity goes a long way.” ~ Malcolm Forbes
- “Reciprocity, a symbiotic relationship, is a relationship in which two people have worked out certain terms. I am using you in certain ways; you are using me in certain ways. That is a balanced relationship.” ~ Frederick Lenz , Reciprocal quotes relationships
- “The universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf.” ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin
- “True community is based on upon equality, mutuality, and reciprocity. It affirms the richness of individual diversity as well as the common human ties that bind us together.” ~ Pauli Murray
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“there is one word that can be the guide for your life- it is the word reciprocity.” ~ Pearl S. Buck
- “Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing by rain?” ~ Alan Lightman
- “Tell me who I’ve got to be, to get some reciprocity” ~ Lauryn Hill
- “If you ask anyone, what is morality based on? These are the two factors that always come out: One is reciprocity, … a sense of fairness, and the other one is empathy and compassion.” ~ Frans de Waal
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“Lack of reciprocity ruins friendships, but makes love affairs exciting for a time.” ~ Mason Cooley
- “Whenever you feel ‘short’ or in ‘need’ of something, give what you want first and it will come back in buckets. That is true for money, a smile, love, friendship. I know it is often the last thing a person may want to do, but it has always worked for me. I just trust that the principle of reciprocity is true, and I give what I want.” ~ Robert Kiyosaki , Reciprocal quotes friendship
- “The universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf. The vapor climbs the sunbeam, and comes back in blessings upon the exhausted herb. The exhalation of the plant is wafted to the ocean. And so goes on the beautiful commerce of nature. And all because of dissimilarity–because no one thing is sufficient in itself, but calls for the assistance of something else, and repays by a contribution in turn.” ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin
- “Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.” ~ Bertrand Russell
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“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
- “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” ~ Confucius
- “Hospitality is always an act that benefits the host even more than the guest. The concept of hospitality arose in ancient times when the reciprocity was easier to see: in nomadic cultures, the food and shelter one gave to a stranger yesterday is the food and shelter one hopes to receive from a stranger tomorrow. By offering hospitality, one participates in the endless reweaving of a social fabric on which all can depend-thus the gift of sustenance for the guest becomes a gift of hope for the host.” ~ Parker J. Palmer
- “Tsze-Kung asked, “Is there one word with which to act in accordance throughout a lifetime?” The Master said, “Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” ~ Confucius
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“No love is ever wasted. Its worth does not lie in reciprocity.” ~ Neal A. Maxwell
- “Unconditional love. That’s what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return. All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn’t he, by wanting her to love him in return? He hopes that she loves him in return. Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing of rain?” ~ Alan Lightman
- “The need to speak the truth and even to seek it for oneself is only conceivable in so far as the individual thinks and acts as one of a society, and not of any society (for it is just the constraining relations between superior and inferior that often drive the latter to prevarication) but of a society founded on reciprocity and mutual respect, and therefore on cooperation.” ~ Jean Piaget , Reciprocal quotes respect
- “I’ve argued that many of what philosophers call moral sentiments can be seen in other species. In chimpanzees and other animals, you see examples of sympathy, empathy, reciprocity, a willingness to follow social rules. Dogs are a good example of a species that have and obey social rules; that’s why we like them so much, even though they’re large carnivores.” ~ Frans de Waal
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“Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.” ~ Fulton J. Sheen
- “When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not far from the path.” ~ Confucius
- “I think that all moralities adequately serving the function of fostering social cooperation must contain a norm of reciprocity – a norm of returning good for good received. Such a norm is a necessity, I argue, because it helps relieve the strains on motivation of contributing to social cooperation when it comes into conflict with self-interest.” ~ David Wong
- “Reciprocity helps us balance the need for self-determination and creative individuality with mutual hope, and therefore what might be described as “solidarity”.” ~ David Blunkett
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“Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.” ~ Bernard Meltzer
- “Between women love is contemplative; caresses are intended less to gain possession of the other than gradually to re-create the self through her; separateness is abolished, there is no struggle, no victory, no defeat; in exact reciprocity each is at once subject and object, sovereign and slave; duality become mutuality.” ~ Simone de Beauvoir
- “The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.” ~ Saint Augustine
- “Ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think is most reasonable to enact.” ~ John Rawls
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“I like to believe that love is a reciprocal thing, that it can’t really be felt, truly, by one.” ~ Sean Penn
- “Competing against each other leaves little space for reciprocity and the growth of social capital. Running against another in a race may benefit our speed, but jointly organising the sports day produces cooperation and trust. There are many situations where cooperation and reciprocity are more effective than competition. Civic virtues come from building on what we have in common rather than by using our differences to create in-groups, outgroups and fear driven competition” ~ Eva Cox
- “We see things like reciprocity which are fairly central to our view of ethics. But if you’re talking about a set of worked-out rules on what we are supposed to do then, yes, it is a human product.” ~ Peter Singer
- “Whatever mourns when many leave these shores: Whatever shares The eternal reciprocity of tears.” ~ Wilfred Owen
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“Social peace requires reciprocity.” ~ Ralph Peters
- “We think that we live in a heterosexual society because most men are fixated on women as sexual objects; but, in fact, we live ina homosexual society because all credible transactions of power, authority, and authenticity take place among men; all transactions based on equity and individuality take place among men. Men are real; therefore, all real relationship is between men; all real communication is between men; all real reciprocity is between men; all real mutuality is between men.” ~ Andrea Dworkin
- “The very ingredients that nurture love – mutuality, reciprocity, protection, worry, responsibility for the other – are sometimes the very ingredients that stifle desire.” ~ Esther Perel , Reciprocal quotes love
- “A society that relies on generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society, for the same reason that money is more efficient than barter. Trust lubricates social life. Networks of civic engagement also facilitate coordination and communication and amplify information about the trustworthiness of other individuals.” ~ Robert D. Putnam
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“Only by affirming the animateness of perceived things do we allow our words to emerge directly from the depths of our ongoing reciprocity with the world.” ~ David Abram
- “Conversations are efforts toward good relations. They are an elementary form of reciprocity. They are the exercise of our love for each other. They are the enemies of our loneliness, our doubt, our anxiety, our tendencies to abdicate. To continue to be in good conversation over our enormous and terrifying problems is to be calling out to each other in the night. If we attend with imagination and devotion to our conversations, we will find what we need; and someone among us will act—it does not matter whom—and we will survive.” ~ Barry Lopez
- “By a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of being, we can never reach the higher levels until all our fellows ascend with us.” ~ Edwin Markham
- “Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity.” ~ C. S. Lewis
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“Quadratic reciprocity is the song of love in the land of prime numbers.” ~ Kato
- “Granted, we may try to help our own family members because they share our DNA. Or help someone else in expectation that they will help us later. But when you look at what we admire as the most generous manifestations of altruism, they are not based on kin selection or reciprocity. An extreme example might be Oskar Schindler risking his life to save more than a thousand Jews from the gas chambers. That’s the opposite of saving his genes.” ~ Richard Dawkins
- “That which you do not wish for yourself, do not impose on others.” ~ Umar
- “Volleyball is one of the most interactive games going. It is a game of intuition, imagination, improvisation – but most of all, of reciprocity – of teamwork. There is no way to free-lance in volleyball.” ~ Marv Dunphy
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“a lot of brothers don’t understand. When it comes to making love, reciprocity is everything.” ~ Pearl Cleage
- “In masturbation there is nothing but loss. There is no reciprocity. There is merely the spending away of a certain force, and no return. The body remains, in a sense, a corpse, after the act of self-abuse. There is no change, only deadening. There is what we call dead loss. And this is not the case in any act of sexual intercourse between two people. Two people may destroy one another in sex. But they cannot just produce the null effect of masturbation.” ~ D. H. Lawrence
- “Inscrutably involved, we live in the currents of universal reciprocity.” ~ Martin Buber
- “Nature is purposeless. Nature simply is. We may find nature beautiful or terrible, but those feelings are human constructions. Such utter and complete mindlessness is hard for us to accept. We feel such a strong connection to nature. But the relationship between nature and us is one-sided. There is no reciprocity. There is no mind on the other side of the wall.” ~ Alan Lightman , Reciprocal quotes feelings
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“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.” ~ Oscar Wilde
- “One of the most powerful shocks of the Middle Passage is the collapse of our tacit contract with the universe-the assumption that if we act correctly, if we are of good heart and good intentions, things will work out. We assume a reciprocity with the universe. If we do our part, the universe will comply. Many ancient stories, including the Book of Job, painfully reveal the fact that there is no such contract, and everyone who goes through the Middle Passage is made aware of it.” ~ James Hollis
- “One thing I’ve always struggled with in life is loving people too much. It’s painful when that love is not reciprocated. But one thing I always comfort myself with is the fact that Allah will always show greater love to those who love Him. Allah doesn’t disappoint you so keep your heart attached to Him.” ~ Omar Suleiman
- “The central law of all wholesome life is reciprocity, mutuality. … But the group is valuable only as it permits personalities, not automatons, to emerge.” ~ Norman Thomas
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“Reciprocity is not mandatory.” ~ David Lubar
- “A semi-civilized state of society, equally removed from the extremes of barbarity and of refinement, seems to be that particular meridian under which all the reciprocities and gratuities of hospitality do most readily flourish and abound. For it so happens that the ease, the luxury, and the abundance of the highest state of civilization, are as productive of selfishness, as the difficulties, the privations, and the sterilities of he lowest.” ~ Charles Caleb Colton
- “It could all be so simple, but you’d rather make it hard, lovin you is like a battle, and we both end up with scars, tell me who i have to be, to get some reciprocity.” ~ Michael Baisden
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“(Male) culture was (and is) parasitical, feeding on the emotional strength of women without reciprocity.” ~ Shulamith Firestone
- “To stand emotionally open before the world & give of our hearts without fear of hurt or demand of reciprocity – this is the ultimate act of human courage.” ~ Brendon Burchard
- “We should expect hope’s reciprocity as a natural flowering of the life of hope. Helping others and nurturing hope is expressive of hopefulness itself. It is an extension of the hopeful self to reach out to others, promoting the connection of agency and the enrichment of horizons of meaning. Hope’s reciprocity grows out of the very social nature of hope; we thus frequently see it live in family relations, in intimacy, in love. And so hope spreads. This spreading should not surprise us; like love, it is freely given, fostered, and nurtured.” ~ Patrick Shade
