"The psychic entropy peculiar to the human condition involves seeing more to do than one can actually accomplish and feeling able to accomplish more than what conditions allow."
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)

"To forgive is to set the prisoner free and then discover the prisoner was you."
— Lewis B. Smedes

"May I gain no victory that harms me or my opponent. May I reconcile friends who are mad at each other. May I, insofar as I can, give all necessary help to my friends and to all who are in need. May I never fail a friend in trouble.
-- Prayer on the Golden Rule (abridged)"
— Eusebius

"This is no dress rehearsal."
— Phillip C. McGraw

"The only way to get what you really want is to let go of what you don't want."
— Iyanla Vanzant

"Everybody in this room is bored.
The poems drag, the voice and gestures irk.
He can't be interrupted or ignored.

Poor fools, we came here of our own accord
And some of us have paid to hear this jerk.
Everybody in the room is bored.

The silent cry goes up, 'How long, O Lord?'
But nobody will scream or go berserk.
He won't be interrupted or ignored.

Or hit by eggs, or savaged by a horde
Of desperate people maddened by his work.
Everybody in the room is bored,

Except the poet. We are his reward,
Pretending to indulge in his every quirk.
He won't be interrupted or ignored.

At last it's over. How we all applaud!
The poet thanks us with a modest smirk.
Everybody in the room was bored.
He wasn't interrupted or ignored."
— Wendy Cope (If I Don't Know)

"If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don't understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won't help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you. How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice."
— Shunryu Suzuki (Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen)

""Each time you judge yourself, your break your heart"
-Rirpal Venanji
(Hindu Monk, qoted by Barbara Sher in "Refuse To Choose") "
— Rirpal Venanji

"Deeply buried in the mind, there lies a mechanism that accepts what the mind experiences as beautiful and pleasant and rejects those experiences that are perceived as ugly and painful. This mechanism gives rise to those states of mind that we are training ourselves to avoid-- things like greed, lust, hatred, aversion, and jealousy."
— Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (Mindfulness in Plain English, Updated and Expanded Edition)

"Now we are going to make a new-way path. So you take a shovel, you take a ground-haker, you take a hairpin and you start digging. And you dig in all directions: up and down, in and out, right and left. Not in a straight line. Nothing natural or interesting goes in a straight line. As a matter of fact, it is the quickest way to the wrong place. And don't pretend you know where you are going. Because if you know where you are going, that means you've been there, and you are going to end up exactly where you came from."
— Sherry Ruth Anderson (The Feminine Face of God: The Unfolding of the Sacred in Women)

"May I be an enemy to no one and the friend of what abides eternally.
May I never quarrel with those nearest me, and be reconciled quickly if I should.
May I never plot evil against others, and if anyone plot evil against me,
may I escape unharmed and without the need to hurt anyone else.
May I love, seek and attain only what is good.
May I desire happiness for all and harbor envy for none.
May I never find joy in the misfortune of one who has wronged me.
May I never wait for the rebuke of others, but always rebuke myself until I make reparation.
May I gain no victory that harms me or my opponent.
May I reconcile friends who are mad at each other.
May I, insofar as I can, give all necessary help to my friends and to all who are in need.
May I never fail a friend in trouble.
May I be able to soften the pain of the
grief stricken and give them comforting words.
May I respect myself.
May I always maintain control of my emotions.
May I habituate myself to be gentle, and never angry with others because of circumstances.
May I never discuss the wicked or what they have done, but know good people and follow in their footsteps.
[Prayer to practice the Golden Rule]"
— Eusebius

"They say in old stories that you can't discover new lands without losing sight of the shore for a long time."
— Laurie Gough (Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odyssey)

"If we believe that this particular pain is the one that will push the baby out of the womb and into our arms, we somehow try to make a place for that pain in our heart. Pain is still there: excruciating, terrible pain. But at the moment of birth, we rarely feel betrayal or rage; we somehow feel that this is simply pain that has come with life."
— Wayne Muller (Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantage of a Painful Childhood)

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning."
— Frederick Douglass

"Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up."
— Joseph R. Ferrari

"Tolstoy's 5 Teachings of Christ (according to A.N. Wilson)
- the ideal of perfect chastity
- the ideal of universal love and of banishing ill-will for anyone
- the ideal of living in the present and not caring for the future
- never to use violence
- to love our enemies"
— Leo Tolstoy

"Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work."
— Gustave Flaubert

"Don't die wondering."
— Alicia Molik

"Doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong; it may be a sign that he is thinking."
— Oswald Chambers

"[L]earn ... to see people as the subjects of their own stories rather than as needs they express. [A. Katherine Grieb paraphrasing Robert Coles.]"
— grieb (The Story of Romans)