SELF-KNOWLEDGE is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it. S.D. Beauvoir
EXPLORING the wilderness of your own soul through contemplation brings you to the alter of your imagination.
Lynn Andrews
PEOPLE ARE DISTURBED NOT BY EVENTS THAT HAPPEN TO THEM, BUT BY THEIR VIEW OF THEM. EPICTETUS
IF your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
ALBERT ELLIS 1913-2007 “Overcoming Destructive Beliefs Feelings”
YOU MAINLY FEEL HOW YOU THINK.
STRONG FEELINGS are fine; it’s the overreactions that mess us up.
CONVINCE yourself that worrying about many situations will make them worse rather than better.
BY HONESTLY acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit.
if human emotions LARGELY RESULT FROM THINKING, THEN ONE MAY APPRECIABLY control one’s feelings by controlling one’s thoughts — or by changing the internalized sentences, or self-talk, with which one largely created the feeling in the first place.
THE BEST years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.
IN FACT most of what we call anxiety is over concern about what someone thinks of you.
YOU NVER TRULY NEED WHAT YOU WANT. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity.
IF YOU WOULD STOP, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally — about anything. Yes, anything.
WORRYING ABOUT DYING WILL HARDLY HELP YOU LIVE.
YOU HAVE ONLY to exist as you do and to live your life as best you can.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO PROVE THAT YOU ARE WORTHY OF EXISTING.
HAPPINESS is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.
THINKING RATIONALLY is often different from “positive thinking,” in that it is a realistic assessment of the situation, with a view towards rectifying the problem if possible.
BEING ASSERTIVE does not mean attacking or ignoring others feelings. It means that you are willing to hold up for yourself fairly-without attacking others.
TO ERR IS HUMAN; to forgive people and yourself for poor behavior is to be sensible and realistic.
NEUROSIS IS JUST A HIGH-CLASS WORD FOR WHINING.
IF PEOPLE STOPPED looking on their emotions as ethereal, almost inhuman processes, and realistically viewed them as being largely composed of perceptions, thoughts, evaluations and internalized sentences, they would find it quite posible to work calmly and concertedly at changing them.
THE ATTITUDE of unconditional self-acceptance is probably the most important variable in their long-term recovery.
ACCEPTANCE IS NOT LOVE. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they’re alive and human.
FAILURE doesn’t have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person.
THE GREAT MAJORITY of the things we now make ourselves panicked about are self-created ‘dangers’ that exist almost entirely in our own imagination.
EVEN INJUSTICE has it’s good points. It gives me the challenge of being as happy as I can in an unfair world.
HENRI FREDERIC AMIEL 1821-1881 “Amiel’s Journal”
IN HEALTH THERE IS FREEDOM. HEALTH IS THE FIRST OF ALL LIBERTIES.
PAY BAD PEOPLE WITH YOUR GOODNESS; fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve a victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.
LIFE IS SHORT and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
TO KNOW HOW TO SUGGEST IS THE ART OF TEACHING.
LEARN TO . . . be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.
TRUTH is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence.
THERE IS NO RESPECT FOR OTHERS WITHOUT HUMILITY IN ONE’S SELF.
THE MAN WITH NO INNER LIFE IS A SLAVE TO HIS SURROUNDINGS.
What we do not understand we have no right to judge.
THE GREAT ARTIST & THINKER ARE THE SIMPLIFIERS.
YOU DESIRE TO KNOW THE ART OF LIVING, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
THE TEST of every religious, political or educational systems is the man that it forms.
THANKFULNESS is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.
CIVILIZATION is first of all a moral thing. Without truth, respect for duty, love of neighbor, and virtue, everything is destroyed. The morality of a society is alone the basis of civilization.
Samuel Adams 1722-1803 REVOLUTIONARY.
IT IS IN THE INTEREST OF TYRANTS to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.
IF EVER A TIME SHOULD COME, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.
IT DOES NOT take a majority to prevail . . . but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
LIBERTY WILL NOT LONG SURVIVE THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF MORALS.
IT IS NO DISHONOR TO BE IN A MINORITY IN THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY AND VIRTUE.
HOW STRANGELY WILL THE TOOLS OF A TYRANT PERVERT THE PLAIN MEANING OF WORDS!
If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.
A TRUE PATRIOT would keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances, and not allow them to rest till the causes of their just complaints are removed.
LET EACH CITIZEN REMEMBER at the moment he is offering his vote . . . that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to god and his country.