"It's wonderful to have a psychologist such as Dr. Crawford on contract through Harris County's Risk Management program. I've attended several of his seminars and hold him in the highest regard. In addition, his weekly "Quotes and Comments" are consistently excellent, and, in my opinion, the BEST! Powerful, enlightening, and even liberating. Many thanks to Dr. Bill!"
– Charlotte Mangum
Quotes and Wisdom
from the
Top of the Mind™
from the
Top of the Mind™
Welcome to my page of "favorite quotes!" - If you would like to join my Quotes and Comments service, whereby each week I email you one of my favorite quotes along with some thoughts about how to apply the quote to our lives, simply drop me an email at DrBill@billcphd.com.
This service began mid-March of 2000 and each quote that has been featured has been added to these archives. This page has been organized with the quote topics listed alphabetically. Clicking on the blue "quote topic link" will take you to the quote and some thoughts on how we might apply the wisdom of the quote to our lives.
Indicates that the quote is available as a podcast. Simply click on it to be taken to the podcast page.
| Achievement | "Everyone wants to live on the top of the mountain, but happiness and growth are mostly found in the climb." | |
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Adversity | "People are like tea bags, sometimes what gets them in "hot water" can also bring out their true nature and make them stronger." |
| Agreements | "You cannot make a bad deal with a good person, or a good deal with a bad person." | |
| Ambition | "If you are not playing a big enough game, you will screw up the game you are playing just to give yourself something to do." | |
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Anger | "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal while blaming our misery on the person who started the fire." |
| Anger #2 | "Those who are constantly at war with others are seldom at peace with themselves." | |
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Anger #3 | "Anger is never without a reason, but it is rarely reasonable." |
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Anger and Fear | "Under all anger is fear, and under all fear is fear of loss." |
| Anger and Justification | "Physiologically, it simply doesn't matter whether your anger is justified or not. The body doesn't make moral judgments about feelings... it just responds." | |
| Answers | "The simplest questions are often the most profound - Who are you? Where are you going? What are you doing? Ask yourself these often and watch the answers change." | |
| Anxiety | "That the birds of worry and anxiety fly over our heads, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent." | |
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Arguments | "You don't have to attend every argument to which you are invited." |
| Arguments #2 | "You can not have an argument with a fully conscious person." | |
| Attitude | "Often it's not our position, but our disposition that determines our experience of life." | |
| Attraction | "Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality." | |
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Avoidance | "When our purpose becomes avoidance, our life becomes a void." |
| Awareness | "The first rule of holes: If you are in one, stop digging."
"The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole." | |
| Awareness #2 | "What we should learn before we die is what we're running from, and to, and why." | |
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Being Rushed | "When 'Being Rushed' is the problem . . . Rushing is never the solution." |
| Being Rushed #2 | "We suffer from the illusion that the faster we run, the more likely we are to grasp happiness. The truth is that the velocity necessary for success rarely exceeds the rate of reflection." | |
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Beliefs | "If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is this the good news?" |
| Beliefs #2 | "Intense desire often exerts a strong gravitational pull on belief. When we really want it to be true, we often make it so." (and this, of course, is both the problem and the solution) | |
| Beliefs #3 | "We are either creating new beliefs or reacting to old ones, depending on where we invest our attention. Creating keeps us from reacting because it is impossible to do both at the same time." | |
| Birth and Death | "When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die the world cries and you rejoice." | |
| Bitterness | "Bitterness does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored . . . than the vessel on which it is poured." | |
| Blame | "The only time a mistake becomes a failure is when we look for someone to blame." | |
| Blind Faith | "Blind faith does not require that you close your eyes to reality . . . It only asks that you open your heart to possibilities." | |
| Career | "In choosing what to do next, don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do that. For what the world needs are more people who have come alive." | |
| Cause and Effect | The Natural Law of Cycles... "All of life presents itself as a cycle of cause and effect. When this cycle is negative, there are three ways to change. You can change the cause, change the effect, or choose the most powerful option... become the cause!" | |
| Centered | "When deciding what to do next, we can always ask: Does this thought, emotion, or behavior bring me closer to or take me further away from my center?" | |
| Change | "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." | |
| Change #2 | "Change isn't the problem. People can deal with change, they just can't deal with being changed." | |
| Change #3 | "Some people will never change until the misery of the known becomes greater than the mystery of the unknown." | |
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Change #4 | "We cannot discover new lands until we first have the courage to lose sight of the shore." ~~~~ "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." |
| Change #5 | "You don't have to become something that you aren't to become better than you are." | |
| Character | "As we interact with others, we can either be a person who is bringing out their best or pointing out their worst. Regardless, however, our choice is always more information about us than them." | |
| Character #2 | "Character isn't simply inherited. We build it daily by the way we think and act, thought by thought, action by action. If we let fear, anger, or resentment take possession of our mind, these thoughts and actions become self-forged chains. . . chains of habit that are often too light to be felt until they feel too heavy to be broken." | |
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Children | "Our children...don't make them grow up in our shadow...let them grow up in our light." |
| Children and Integrity | "Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you." | |
| Choice | "We can't always choose how we feel. We can, however, choose what we do about it, which ironically can change how we feel!" | |
| Choice #2 | "Everything that happens in our lives is "good information" about the degree to which our choices are working for us. We can, however, choose to believe that we are a victim of the world we see, and have no choices. And, of course, we will receive "good information" about this belief as well." | |
| Choice #3 | "All of life is an announcement of who we are. The only question is whether this proclamation will be made by choice or by chance." | |
| Choices | "It is our choices that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities." | |
| Choices #2 | "Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials." | |
| Communication | "Most of the time we don't communicate, we just take turns talking." | |
| Communication #2 | "Words are the ambassadors of our intentions. How we say what we say makes a statement about who we are." | |
| Communication #3 | "The most successful form of correction is when the "other" feels informed versus chastised." | |
| Communication #4 | "The basic building block of good communications is the feeling that every human being is unique and of value." | |
| Compassion | "Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless" | |
| Confidence | "Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world ... even if what is published is not true." | |
| Conflict Resolution | "You can't always stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. Sometimes, you have to go to them." | |
| Courage | "Courage isn't the absence of fear, but a decision that what we want is more important than what we are afraid of." | |
| Criticism | "Criticism can be effective when there is something that must be destroyed or dissolved, but it is capable only of harm when there is something to be built." | |
| Criticism #2 | "To 'belittle' is to be little." | |
| Decision Making | "Living exclusively in the land of the head or the heart will always be a limiting, limited experience. The most successful among us have dual citizenship." | |
| Disagreement | "A discussion becomes destructive when it begins to generate more heat than light." | |
| Dreams | "Many people have the right aim in life, they just never get around to pulling the trigger. The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps -- we must step up the stairs." | |
| Enemies | "If you learn to know your enemy before you hate him, you may learn to not have an enemy." | |
| Enlightenment | "In our lives, we can either be a reflection of the world around us . . . or a beam that enlightens the lives of others." | |
| Excellence | "Excellence is the result of: Caring more than others think is wise... Risking more than others think is safe... Dreaming more than others think is practical, and Expecting more than others think is possible." | |
| Excellence #2 | "We are what we repeatedly do . . . excellence, therefore, isn't just an act, but a habit and life isn't just a series of events, but an ongoing process of self-definition." | |
| Excuses | "When all is said and done, our lives will either be a collection of experiences or excuses. Unfortunately, most people wait until all is said and done to decide what they want to collect." | |
| Failure | "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" | |
| Failures | "True failures are divided into two classes ... those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought." | |
| Faith | "When you come to the edge of all you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, Faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught how to fly." | |
| Family | "The bond that links one's true family is not necessarily one of blood but of respect and joy in each other's life." | |
| Fate | "What is not brought to consciousness, comes to us as fate." | |
| Fear | "Those who love to be feared and fear to be loved, they themselves are more frightened than any one." | |
| Fear #2 | "Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed." | |
| Fear #3 | "Hiding our fears with the hope that they will go away rarely works. Unlike most organic substance, fear doesn't decompose when it's buried." | |
| Fear #4 | "Every moment of our lives begins with one of two phrases: "I'm afraid that . . ." or "I would love to . . . ." Our choice of phrases determines our experience of life." | |
| Fear #5 | "Each day befriend a single fear, and the miscellaneous terrors of being human will never join together to form such a morass of vague anxiety that it rules your life from the shadows of the unconscious. We learn to fly not by being fearless, but by the daily practice of courage." | |
| Fear #6 | "Fear of feeling bad rarely makes one feel good." | |
| Fear of Communication | "What we are afraid to communicate runs our life." | |
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Flexibility | "Blessed are the flexible for they will not allow themselves to become bent out of shape!" |
| Flexibility #2 | "The bend in the road is not the end of the road unless we fail to make the turn." | |
| Forgiveness | "Forgiveness is the realization that you are no longer harmed." | |
| Forgiveness #2 | "When we open up a quarrel Between the present and the past We only sacrifice the future It's the bitterness that lasts. So, don't yield to the fortunes You sometimes see as fate You may have a new perspective On a different day And if you don't give up, and don't give in You may just be okay" | |
| Freedom | "Freedom is one thing we cannot have unless we are willing to give it to others." | |
| Freedom #2 | "Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us." | |
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Friction | "Why waste our life in friction when the same effort can be turned into momentum?" |
| Friendship | "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words." | |
| Future | "The future is not just a series of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created--created first in the mind and will, and then realized next in activity." | |
| Generosity | "True generosity is when you give your all and yet feel as if it cost you nothing." | |
| Giving | "The act of giving is simply a behavior, and the gift merely a symbol ? it is the energy behind both that will determine their impact on our lives, and the lives of others." | |
| Giving & Receiving | "We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." | |
| God | "A process for discernment: God is my ultimate source of truth and wisdom, and dwells forever at the center of my being. Therefore, any thought, emotion, or action that takes me further from my center can be neither truthful, nor wise." | |
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Grief (Part I) | "All connections are infused with dreams of what is possible in the future. Thus, when we lose something or someone important to us, we aren't just grieving the loss, we are grieving the shattered dream." |
| Grief (Part II) | "Grieving is not the problem, it's part of the solution. It is an unlearned, self-sufficient process that helps us to move from the past to the future, from inaction to action... from shattered dreams to more purposeful dreams based upon who we really are and what we can create." | |
| Growth | "You can change without growing, but you cannot grow without changing. Focus on the growth, and change becomes the "good news." | |
| Growth #2 | "Live so that the child that you were would be proud of the adult you are becoming." | |
| Growth & Change | "Seek to create change in your life not because something is 'wrong' ? but because it no longer makes an accurate statement of 'who you are'." | |
| Grudges | "Carrying a grudge is like being stung to death by just one bee." | |
| Guidance | "There's a thread you follow. It goes among things that change, but it doesn't change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is harder for others to see. While you hold it, you can't get lost. Tragedies happen, people get hurt or die, and you grow old and die. Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding. You don't ever let go of the thread!" | |
| Guidance #2 | "The universe guides and nurtures those who sincerely strive to understand and follow its laws - It relentlessly frustrates, meticulously unravels, and ultimately educates those who don't. (Nothing personal)" | |
| Guilt | "One key to successful relationships is learning to say "no" without guilt, so that you can say "yes" without resentment." | |
| Guilt Trips | "The journey of life is both too short and too precious to be sidetracked by guilt trips." | |
| Habits | "The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole." ~ and ~ "The first rule of holes...if you are in one, stop digging." | |
| Habits #2 | "Habit is either the best of servants, or the worst of masters." | |
| Happiness | "In the path of your true happiness lie the lessons you have chosen this lifetime to learn." | |
| Happiness #2 | "Happiness is not a reward -- it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment -- it is a result." | |
| Happiness #3 | "What if happiness was our default position?" | |
| Happiness #4 | "A happy life is just a string of happy moments, but most people don't create the happy moments because they're so busy chasing a happy life." | |
| Honesty | "There is brutality and there is honesty. There is no such thing as brutal honesty." | |
| Honesty #2 | "Honesty isn't always just saying the truth, sometimes it's about facing the truth. A life of confusion can often be a form of self-delusion. . . What are you pretending not to know?" | |
| Hope | "Hope and optimism aren't just attitudes, they are life strategies." | |
| Hopes | "Until we have named our ghosts and blessed our hopes... we will forever remain someone else's creation." | |
| Ideas | "Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating, and absolutely useless until we call on it to inform our choices." | |
| Imagination | "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." | |
| Inadequacy | "Nothing destroys a relationship quicker than our fears of inadequacy and loss." | |
| Incompatibility | "One aspect of a successful relationship is not just how compatible you are, but how you deal with your incompatibility." | |
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Influence | "There are two ways to make someone important in our lives ... we can either love them or hate them." |
| Insight | "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." | |
| Inspiration | "When we are inspired, our thoughts break their bonds, our mind transcends limitations, and our consciousness expands in every direction. Dormant forces, faculties, and talents become alive, and we discover ourselves to be greater by far than we have ever dreamed ourselves to be." | |
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Intent | "Misunderstandings often arise when we judge others' intent by their behavior, while judging our behavior by our intent." |
| Interpersonal Interactions | "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being." | |
| Intimidation | "If people can get you to answer the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answer." | |
| Intuition | "Stress is what happens when your gut says 'no way,' but your mouth says "no problem." | |
| Intuition #2 | "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." | |
| Iraq: dialogue vs. debate | "A discussion becomes destructive when it begins to generate more heat than light." | |
| Issues and interactions | "Regardless of what is being discussed . . . the issue is never more important than the quality of the interaction." | |
| Joy | "It's not the person that has the most toys, but the person that creates the most joy that is truly wealthy." | |
| Knowledge | "Some people drink deeply from the fountain of knowledge ... others just gargle and spit." | |
| Leadership | "The mark of a true leader is not how many followers you have, but how many leaders you produce." | |
| Leadership #2 | "Those that look to us for leadership will always be more motivated by the power of our example than an example of our power." | |
| Learning | "We are not merely what we know, we are what we are willing to learn." | |
| Letting Go of Fear | "Letting go of fear and worry will never work, primarily because the motivation to "let go" is generally fear and worry about what will happen if we don't." | |
| Life | "Your life is not about what you are doing. Yet, it is true that what you are doing is often a reflection of what your life is about." | |
| Life #2 | "Life is like a grindstone, whether it grinds us down or polishes us up, however, depends on us." | |
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Life As A Stage | "What if all the world is indeed a stage . . . and what if Love wrote the play? " |
| Life Lessons | "In school you get the lesson and then take the test ... in life you take the test and then get the lesson." | |
| Limitations | "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours" | |
| Limits of Perception | "We limit our success when we mistake the limits of our perception for reality." | |
| Listening | "No one ever 'listened' themselves into trouble." | |
| Listening #2 | "Wisdom is the reward for our willingness to have listened ... all of those times when we would have preferred to talk." | |
| Love | "Love is the productive form of relatedness to others and to oneself. It implies responsibility, care, respect. If it isn't productive and respectful, it isn?t love, but only fear masquerading as love." | |
| Love #2 | "Love is most successful when expressed in this order... ... love of who you are ... what you do ... who you do it for, & ... who you do it with" | |
| Magic | "True 'magic' is simply the ability to transcend what seems to be and, thus, transform one's experience. Maybe we could all use a little 'Harry Potter' in our lives." | |
| Mastering the Art of Living | "Masters in the art of living draw no sharp distinction between their work and their play, their labor and their leisure, their mind and their body, their education and their recreation. They simply pursue their vision of excellence through whatever they are doing, and leave others to determine whether they are working or playing. To themselves, they always seem to be doing both." | |
| Meaning | "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." | |
| Miracles | "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." | |
| Misery and Strength | "We can either make ourselves miserable, or make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." | |
| Parenting | "Having a baby no more makes one a parent than having a baby grand piano makes one a pianist." | |
| Problems | "As long as we define ourselves in terms of our pain and our problems, we will never be free from either." | |
| Purpose | "Every thought, emotion, and action is a statement about who we are, and who we are becoming. Why not make this statement 'On Purpose'?" | |
| Purpose #2 | "Life is not a means to an end but a series of experiences. Are you creating your series 'on purpose' ?" | |
| Questions | "Behind every great answer is a greater question. The challenge in life is having the patience to ask the most purposeful questions, and the courage to listen to, and act upon the answers." | |
| Reactions | "There are two ways to respond to the trials and tribulations of our present and past . . . 'Ain't it awful?' . . . or . . . 'Good information!' Our choice of responses will determine our experience of life." | |
| Realistic Optimism | "Realistic optimism allows us to experience the best until we have to deal with the worst ... which often, never comes." | |
| Relationships | "The biggest mistake we make in creating successful relationships is that we seek to experience who we are through others rather than allowing others to experience who they are through us." | |
| Relationships #2 | "Just because you have a history with someone ... doesn't mean that you need to keep repeating it." | |
| Relationships #3 | "We get treated in life the way we teach others to treat us." | |
| Relationships #4 | "Never make a person a priority to whom you are an option." | |
| Relationships #5 | "A relationship is like life. It isn't a process of preservation, but of change and growth. Unless you grow and change together, you will change ... and grow apart." | |
| Relationships #6 | "How long will we give up the days and weeks of our lives addicted to someone else's drama?" | |
| Relaxation | "Our ability to relax is in direct proportion to our ability to trust ourselves and life." | |
| Resentment | "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." | |
| Resentment and Guilt | "Resentment is anger directed toward others - Guilt is resentment directed toward ourselves." | |
| Resolutions | "I will" is a statement that merely speaks to some possibility in the future ... to influence your life in the most powerful way, begin with the words "I am." | |
| Responsibility | "We have some role in almost everything that happens in our lives. When "bad" things happen, the mistake is not in the role, but in calling them bad. For in calling them bad, we call ourselves bad, since we had a role in their creation. We then have only two choices: blame ourselves, or disown our creative power, neither of which is congruent with our highest purpose." | |
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Revenge | "Images of resentment and revenge only have us spending the precious moments of our lives imagining the 'other' as both dangerous and important!" |
| Right | "Sometimes there is a big difference between what we have the right to do, and what is right to do." | |
| Self Destruction | "Beating ourselves up is really beating ourselves down! If "down" isn't where we're wanting to go, then maybe "beating on ourselves" isn't the best path to take." | |
| Self-Care | "Selfish is caring for ourselves at others' expense ... Self-care is taking care of ourselves so that we can be there for others." | |
| Self-Confidence | "The difference between self-confidence and conceit is as simple as love and fear. Jesus was self-confident ... Hitler was afraid." | |
| Self-Definition | "Every moment is an opportunity to imagine and act out a fresh version of "How do I want to define myself, or who do I want to be now?" | |
| Self-Determination | "Regardless of the problem, as long as our solution requires someone else to change, we will never know the power and promise of self-determination." | |
| September 11 | "Every thought, emotion, and action, is a statement about who we are, and who we are becoming . . . . Why not make this statement 'On Purpose'? " | |
| Service | "To truly be of service to others, we must first serve the server. The ability to bring an enlightened presence to those in need is the ability to light a candle without burning ourselves out." | |
| Shame | "Creating a meaningful life has less to do with how we feel about our past than what we do about our future." | |
| Stimulus and Response | "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. And in this choice lies our freedom and power to grow." | |
| Stress | "Stress is an indicator of our belief in the value and validity of our worries and fears." | |
| Stress #2 | "Stress is what happens when your gut says 'no way,' but your mouth says 'no problem'." | |
| Stress as a Signal | "Stress is a signal that something needs to change. Suffering, is when we don't make the change!" | |
| Success | "If you're looking for the key to the Universe, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is ... there is no key to the Universe. The good news is... it has been left unlocked." | |
| Tact | "Tact is the art of making a point without inflicting a wound." | |
| Teaching | "Learning is remembering what you already know, doing is demonstrating that you know it, teaching is reminding others that they know it just as well as you . . . we are all learners, doers, and teachers." | |
| The Destination | "What you get by reaching your destination is not as important as who you become along the way." | |
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The Present | "You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by coming into the present." |
| The Soul | "The best way to create a purposeful life is to allow the soul's decision to precede the body's action. One does not do something in order to be compassionate, one is compassionate and, therefore, does certain things in certain ways. The actions of the body were meant to be reflections of a state of being, not attempts to attain a state of being." | |
| The Value of Happiness | "What if happiness was our default position?" | |
| Thoughts | "By the thoughts we choose to allow in our hearts, we thereby choose the kind of life we experience. We always, always have a choice." | |
| Transformation | "When dealing with problems, seek not to "change" some aspect of your life but instead, choose who you want to become as a path to what you want. Transformation and healing then take place as a process of becoming versus avoiding." | |
| Truth | "Lying makes a problem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past. | |
| Truth #2 | "Truth is often painful to speak, but soothing to live." | |
| Trying | "Trying" is an attitude option that says your time for success is not now, but in the future, or maybe never." | |
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Unhappiness | "Unconsciousness and unhappiness comes from our compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation." |
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Validity | "We are not responsible for every thought that goes wandering through our mind. We are, however, responsible for the ones we bestow with value and validity." |
| Value of a Gift | "Anything that is of value in life only multiplies when given." | |
| Values | "The true measure of our belief in the validity of our values is our willingness to act upon them." | |
| Vision | "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." | |
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Waiting | "Waiting is a state of mind that says we want what we don't have. Therefore, with every kind of waiting we produce an inner conflict between now and the projected future. This greatly reduces the quality of our life. Are you a 'habitual waiter'?" |
| Wisdom | "One key to success is knowing the difference between knowledge and wisdom. One is information from the past while the other is the key to the future." | |
| Wisdom of Life | "Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials." | |
| Work | "The problem with always keeping your nose to the grindstone is that pretty soon, all you smell is grind." | |
| Worry | "Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength." | |
| Worry #2 | "Worrying about the future is like trying to eat the hole in a doughnut. It's munching on what isn't." | |
| Worry #3 | "To invest our worries and anxiety with value and validity is to place our faith in fear." | |
| Worry and Fear | "Worry is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained." | |
| Zen | "To do a certain kind of thing you have to be a certain kind of person." |