NOW is All There is & the Future is Just Another Present Moment to Live when it Arrives
If you give appreciation to people, you win their goodwill.
To spend life for something which outlasts it.
The world hangs on a thin thread, and that is the psyche of man.
Being relaxed, at peace with yourself, confident, emotionally neutral loose, and free-floating - these are the keys to successful performance in almost everything.
How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole
The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things.
Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.
We do not feel as if we were producing the dreams, it is rather as if the dreams came to us. They are not subject to our control but obey their own laws.
Emotions are choices.
Human beings are born into this little span of life of which the best thing is its friendships and intimacies … and yet they leave their friendships and intimacies with no cultivation, to grow as they will by the roadside, expecting them to "keep" by force of mere inertia.
Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively.
Protection and security are only valuable if they do not cramp life excessively.
We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue.
Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?
Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.
Psychology saves us from mistakes. It makes us more clear as to what we are about. We gain confidence in respect to any method which we are using as soon as we believe that it has theory as well as practice at its back.
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.
Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
Problems in relationship occur because each person is concentrating on what is missing in the other person.
Healing proceeds from the depths to the heights.
Science can tell us what exists; but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart.
We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort.
A creative person has little power over his own life. He is not free. He is captive and driven by his daimon.
A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers.
Once a decision is reached, stop worrying and start working.
I release all feelings of worry and guilt. Throughout life, the two most futile emotions are guilt for what has been done and worry about what might be done.
People who feel empowered by your presence become kindred spirits.
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness.
When I sit down to write a book, I don't ask myself, "How many am I going to sell?"
But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life's morning — for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.
Love is co-operation rather than competition.
Wisdom is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.
Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text
Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.
As you begin to heal the inner you, you alter your immune system.
For morality life is a war, and the service of the highest is a sort of cosmic patriotism which also calls for volunteers.
Your children are not your children, they come through you, but they are life itself, wanting to express itself.
If there's a distinction between men and women, I don't pay attention to it. Honestly, I don't see it. I think all of us are part feminine and part masculine. I'm sure sociologists can come up with distinctions about what's different between men and women, but for every example you can give about what a woman does, you can come up with an opposite example of other women who don't do that. Those are more artificial distinctions, I think.
Dreams are symbolic in order that they cannot be understood; in order that the wish, which is the source of the dream, may remain unknown.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.
I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum. I am incapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness; I have no judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about. I have no definite convictions - not about anything, really. I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation or something I do not know.
Abraham Maslow taught me, that when you're working with a patient, never let them spend more than a few moments on the problem, because what you think about is what expands, and if they're talking about the problem all the time, when they leave your session, the problem will expand. Get 'em to put their attention on what they intend to create, or on solutions.
We cannot change anything unless we accept it.
By banishing doubt and trusting your intuitive feelings, you clear a space for the power of intention to flow through.
What I'm most excited about is that there's an openness to a shift, and I do think that there's a shift happening.
The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads.
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.
Truth happens to an idea
Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult. In actual life it requires the greatest discipline to be simple, and the acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook upon life.
There is no such thing as stress; only people thinking stressful thoughts.
Neurosis is the natural by-product of pain avoidance.
Science is the tool of the Western mind and with it more doors can be opened than with bare hands.
Nothing is possible without love.
The only important thing is to follow nature. A tiger should be a good tiger; a tree, a good tree. So people should be people. But to know what people are, one must follow nature and go alone, admitting the importance of the unexpected. Still, nothing is possible without love. . . . For love puts one in a mood to risk everything, and not to withhold important elements.
A true barometer of intelligence is an effective, happy life lived each day and each present moment of the day.
We divert our attention from disease and death as much as we can; the slaughterhouses are huddled out of sight and never mentioned, so that the world we recognize officially in literature and in society is a poetic fiction far handsomer, cleaner and better than the world that really is.
