Your life is not just about you. It’s also about contributing to others. It’s about living true to your mission and reason for being here on this earth at this time. It’s about adding your piece of the puzzle to the world. Most people are so stuck in their egos that everything revolves around me, me, and more me. But if you want to be rich in the truest sense of the word, it can’t only be about you. It has to include adding value to other people’s lives.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Our lives improve only when we take chances—and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.
—Walter Anderson
People say that what we’re all seeking in life is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experience on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually fee the rapture of being alive.
—Joseph Campbell (1904–87) American Mythologist, Writer, Lecturer
What I call “doing the dishes” is the practice of loving the task in front of you. Your inner voice guides you all day long to do simple things such as brush your teeth, drive to work, call your friend, or do the dishes. Even though it’s just another story, it’s a very short story, and when you follow the direction of the voice, the story ends. We are really alive when we live as simply as that—open, waiting, trusting, and loving to do what appears in front of us now…What we need to do unfolds before us, always—doing the dishes, paying the bills, picking up the children’s socks, brushing our teeth. We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do. Whether you have ten dollars or ten million dollars, life never gets more difficult than that.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Choose to be in close proximity to people who are empowering, who appeal to your sense of connection to intention, who see the greatness in you, who feel connected to God, who live a life that gives evidence that Spirit has found celebration through them.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Go first to your highest thought about yourself. Imagine the you that you would be if you lived that thought every day. Imagine what you would think, do, and say, and how you would respond to what others would do and say… Do you see any difference between that projection and what you think, do, and say now?
—Neale Donald Walsch (b.1943) American Spiritual Writer
Don’t wait until you die to learn the warrior’s way. Do it now, each night, just before you drift off to sleep. As you review your day, consider these two questions of courage and love. Learn from each day, so that each day you can show a little more courage and a little more love. Then, as incidents occur, you may rise to the occasion and look back at the end of your life and feel good about the way you lived.
—Dan Millman (b.1946) American Children’s Books Writer, Sportsperson
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. To be awake is to be alive. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Every man is a builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Emerson is a person who lives instinctively on ambrosia – and leaves everything indigestible on his plate.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
Whatever may be said in praise of poverty, the fact remains that it is not possible to live a really complete or successful life unless one is rich.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
Don’t try to live. Let yourself be lived.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
When a difficult situation comes into your life, it is possible to tune in to your mind and say, “Okay, choose”. Are you going to make yourself miserable or content? Are you going to visualize scarcity or abundance? Are you going to put yourself down for getting angry with your husband or are you simply going to notice what insecurity you were feeling at the time and discuss it with him? The choice is definitely yours. Pick the one that contributes most to your aliveness and growth.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
To live differently, to love differently, to think differently, or to try to. Is the danger of beauty so great that it is better to live without it (the standard model)? Or to fall into her arms fire to fire? There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.
—Jeanette Winterson (b.1959) English Novelist, Journalist
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild, and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.
This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The experiences of camp life show that a man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress. We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even in the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to life.
—Viktor Frankl (1905–97) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist
Money is a result, wealth is a result, health is a result, illness is a result, your weight is a result. We live in a world of cause and effect.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.
—Unknown
Every moment of our lives we are either growing or dying—and it’s largely a choice, not fate. Throughout its life cycle, every one of the body’s trillions of cells is driven to grow and improve its ability to use more of its innate yet untapped capacity. Research biologist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, who was twice awarded the Nobel Prize, called this syntropy, which he defined as the “innate drive in living matter to perfect itself”. It turns conventional thinking upside down…As living cells—or as people—there is no staying the same. If we aim for some middle ground or status quo, it’s an illusion—beneath the surface what’s actually happening is we’re dying, not growing. And the goal of a lifetime is continued growth, not adulthood. As Rene Dubos put it, “Genius is childhood recaptured”. For this to happen, studies show that we must recapture—or prevent the loss of—such child-like traits as the ability to learn, to love, to laugh about small things, to leap, to wonder, and to explore. It’s time to rescue ourselves from our grown-up ways before it’s too late.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
Most of us do not “sculpt” our lives. We accept what comes our way…then we gripe about it.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
Live. If you live, God will live with you. If you refuse to run his risks, he’ll retreat to that distant heaven and be merely a subject for philosophical speculation. Everyone knows this, but no one takes the first step, perhaps for fear of being called insane.
—Paulo Coelho (b.1947) Brazilian Songwriter, Novelist
Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
If you call one thing good, you must call its opposite bad. If you think it wonderful to make a big profit in your business, you will also think it terrible if you incur a large loss. The idea is to live above the opposites.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
As a peaceful warrior, I would choose when, where and how I would behave. With that commitment, I began to live the life of a warrior.
—Dan Millman (b.1946) American Children’s Books Writer, Sportsperson
How do you want to live your life? How do you want to play the game? Do you want to play in the big leagues or in the little leagues, in the majors or the minors? Are you going to play big or play small? It’s your choice.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Nothing terrible has ever happened except in our thinking. Reality is always good, even in situations that seem like nightmares. The story we tell is the only nightmare that we have lived.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It’s something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) American Military Leader
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Fun things happen when you earn dollars, live on pesos, and compensate in rupees.
—Tim Ferriss (b.1977) American Self-help Author
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
My definition of financial freedom is simple: it is the ability to live the lifestyle you desire without having to work or rely on anyone else for money.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined! As you simplify your life, the laws of the Universe will be simpler, solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Believe me! The secret to reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
In our course we teach that “no thought lives in your head rent-free”. Each thought you have will either be an investment or a cost. It will either move you toward happiness and success or away from it. It will either empower you or disempower you. That’s why it is imperative you choose your thoughts and beliefs wisely.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look at fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along”. You must do the think you think you cannot do.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
We all want to fall in love. Why? Because that experience makes us feel completely alive. Where every sense is heightened, every emotion is magnified, our everyday reality is shattered and we are flying into the heavens. It may only last a moment, an hour, an afternoon. But that doesn’t diminish its value. Because we are left with memories that we treasure for the rest of our lives.
—Unknown
When I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin’s lamp…
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
I have discovered that I cannot enhance anybody’s performance without getting them not only to live with the butterflies that come with high-pressure jobs but to embrace that kind of physical response, enjoy it, get into it. That’s the first real ticket to being a performer who thinks exceptionally.
—John Eliot (b.1971) American Psychologist, Academic
Some people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some people move our souls to dance.
They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom.
Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.
They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, nd we are never ever the same.
—Flavia Weedn
It seems mutants have something in their lives called gravy. They know truth, but it is buried under thickening and spices of convenience, materialism, insecurity, and fear. They also have something called frosting. It seems to represent how they spend almost all the seconds of their existence in doing superficial, artificial, temporary, pleasant-tasting, nice appearing projects and spend very few actual seconds of their lives developing their eternal beingness.
—Marlo Morgan (1937–98) American Novelist, Author
Without our stories, we are not only able to act clearly and fearlessly, we are also a friend, a listener. We are people living happy lives. We are appreciation and gratitude that have become as natural as breath itself. Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there’s nothing to know and that we already have everything we need, right here now.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
You have to live your life as if you are already where you want to be.
—Russell Simmons (b.1957) American Music Promoter