Like too much alcohol,self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves - mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, an...
The values that I have are the values I was raised with, from where I'm from, which is a middle-class place. So that informs everything about me, my politics and all that stuff. I mean, politically, I vote against my own self-interest at every electi...
Dedicating some time to meditation is a meaningful expression of caring for yourself that can help you move through the mire of feeling unworthy of recovery. As your mind grows quieter and more spacious, you can begin to see self-defeating thought pa...
Had he learned nothing from all those years of teaching Hawthorne? Through story after story he’d led his boys to consider the folly of obsession with purity – its roots sunk deep in pride, flowering condemnation and violence against others and s...
Loyalty cannot be blueprinted. It cannot be produced on an assembly line. In fact, it cannot be manufactured at all, for its origin is the human heart -- the center of self-respect and human dignity. It is a force which leaps into being only when con...
Truth is that we all need facts we cannot continue to eat only the food that is given to us. Sometimes we have to feed ourselves otherwise we set our self up for dependency on the wrong nutrition without realizing that we were being poisoned the wh...
The love and war in the previous injunctions are of the nature of sport, where one respects, and learns from the opponent, but never interferes with him, outside the actual game. To seek to dominate or influence another is to seek to deform or destro...
To attempt, to brave, to persist, and persevere, to be faithful to one's self, to wrestle with destiny, to astound the catastrophe by the slight fear which is causes us, now to confront unjust power, again to insult intoxicated victory, to hold firm ...
I firmly believe the key difference between living a life fulfilled and a life of status quo is courage. Unless we find the courage to follow our Heart’s Wisdom – the wisdom of our Highest Self – we may never know the fullest joy that the Unive...
The answers to your problems lie all around you. The keys to your self-discovery are waiting to be found in each sunset, each pair of eyes, each breath of fresh air. Listen to the symphony of life and you will hear yourself. Find the beauty of nature...
But how are you going to get out, into the world of other people? That is your problem now, if I may hazard a guess — to find the right relationship, now that you know yourself, between the self that you know and the world outside. It is a difficul...
Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequen...
Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes...
I don't find myself interesting as a person and the details I find boring, quite frankly. You could sum it up in a few words or sentences really: came from nothing. Self-educated. Luck. Energy. Curiosity. Ambition. That's it. Nothing at all can illum...
To be grounded in an attitude of compassion is to be capable of receiving and welcoming the suffering, which the other is giving us. This does not mean that we suffer for them, but that we offer them possibility of going beyond the separate self in w...
Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from con...
Be grateful for every scar life inflicts on you. Where we’re unhurt is where we are false. Where we are wounded and healed is where our real self gets to show itself. That’s where you get to show who you really are
If you spend your energy condemning and judging the people who mistreat you it puts you in a condemning and judging mindset, which subconsciously makes you feel condemned and judged too. The more judgmental you are, the worse your self-esteem will be...
yelling while eating was like swallowing anger. It’s simply not good for us. It leaves us unhappy and unsatisfied, as if the meal didn’t count or wasn’t good, and an hour later we’re back looking for something to make us feel better.
It's like the day you realize dolls are dolls. I pick up my old self and I see it's silly. A toy I've played with too often. It's a little sad, like an old golliwog at the bottom of the cupboard. Innocent and used-up and proud and silly.
Cheapskates...are too self-confident - and frankly too smart - to spend money on things they don't need and probably don't even want, simply to impress others or just because they can.
