Canadian author quotes Quotes

“Important thing to realize is the world is not here to make me happy. When you don't demand that the situation, or place, or person should make you happy, then actually the situation, place, or person is quite satisfying.”

“Do you really need to mentally label every sense perception and experience? Do you really need to have a reactive like/dislike relationship with life where you are in almost continuous conflict with situations and people? Or is that just a deep-seated mental habit that can be broken? Not by doing anything, but by allowing this moment to be as it is.”

“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.”

“My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.”

“Once bliss becomes normal it's no longer bliss, it's just peace.”

“I have made the mistaken assumption - and I will attempt to be better at this - of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake.”

“The past cannot survive in your presence. It can only survive in your absence.”

“Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.”

“After having been lost in the world, suddenly, through the pressure of suffering, the realization comes that the answers may not be found out there in worldly attainment and in the future. That's an important point for many people to reach. That sense of deep crisis-when the world as they have known it, and the sense of self that they have known that is identified with the world, become meaningless.”

“The moment you put a mental label on another human being, you can no longer truly relate to that person. . . It then becomes possible to perpetrate any act of violence.”

“Transformational entertainment is a story that both entertains and uplifts you, not simply because you are inspired, but because it reveals the mechanics that allow people to have more effective, loving lives, lives of more connection, community, and communion.”

“I heard people say, 'Why would he want to do this?' My answer is 'Why not?' It is what I love. It's what I know.”

“I started SpaceX with the expectation of failure.”

“As soon as the mind and mind identification return; you're no longer yourself but a mental image of yourself, and you start playing games and roles again to get your ego needs met.”

“When Doing becomes infused with the timeless quality of being, that is success”

“Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain.”

“When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it.”

“Even if producing CO2 was good for the environment, given that we're going to run out of hydrocarbons, we need to find some sustainable means of operating.”

“Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.”

“The equivalent of external noise is the inner noise of thinking. The equivalent of external silence is inner stillness.”

“Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.”

“Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.”

“The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future — which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now”

“You have to be still for a moment to even notice that there is silence outside.”

“Everything flows with much greater ease when people live as one with the present moment.”

“Once you realize that a certain kind of food makes you sick, would you carry on eating that food and keep on asserting that it's okay to be sick?”

“You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.”

“Sometimes it's easier to see the madness in others---but we also have to see it in ourselves.”

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”

“The thinking mind can be so noisy that it cannot relate to stillness. It doesn't even recognize it and certainly can't remember it.”

“You cannot fight against the ego and win, just as you cannot fight against darkness. The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light.”

“Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.”

“I'm probably the only guy in hockey who can win a scoring title and everybody is saying I had a bad year. I don't worry about it.”

“Whenever there is negativity in you, if you can be aware in that moment that there is something in you that takes pleasure in it or believes it has a useful purpose, you are becoming aware of the ego directly. The moment this happens your identity has shifted from ego to awareness. This means the ego is shrinking and awareness is growing.”

“You can be very much aware that when you are stressed, it always is a sign you have lost the present moment. So, you can choose to re-enter the present moment.”

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

“Optimism, pessimism, f**k that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.”

“You don't need to suffer anymore. You've suffered enough to take you to this point where you hear the words, "You don't need to suffer anymore," and you understand them. You recognize their truth and you then see that you do have a choice ­ that you can surrender to the suchness of now, which means every moment to relinquish resistance and if it still arises, to recognize it.”

“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”

“Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking. They pay more attention to that than to what the other person is saying, and none at all to what really matters: the Being of the other person underneath the words and the mind. Of course, you cannot feel someone else's Being except through your own. This is the beginning of the realization of oneness, which is love. At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.”

“Instead of making up stories, stay with the facts. For example, "I am ruined" is a story. It limits you and prevents you from taking effective action. "I have 50 cents left in my bank account" is a fact.”

“When the movie comes to an end, you are not totally the same person you are when you started the movie.”

“Non- reaction is not weakness, But Strength!”

“It is the stillness that will save and transform the world.”

“When you drop your expectations that a person, a situation, a place, or an object should fulfill you, it's easier to be present in this moment because you're no longer looking to the next one. Most people want to get what they want, whereas the secret is to want what you get at this moment.”

“Any action that arises out of stress is of low quality, and it contributes to human suffering. You are making yourself and others suffer.”

“Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind.”

“For my part, I will never give up, and I mean never.”

“Government isn't that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you've got to have commercial companies do it.”

“Man has the power to act as his own destroyer - and that is the way he has acted through most of his history.”