“You alone plan to commit a sin, you alone plan to do evil; and you alone can escape sin and purify your thoughts. Only your inner self can damn you, and only your inner self can save you.”
Dhammapada, via A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 236)
“I seek neither your approval nor to influence you. So do not make up your mind as to ‘this is this’ or ‘that is that.’ I will be more than satisfied if you begin to learn to investigate everything yourself from now on.”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 2)
“Individual goodness and individual evil both have the power to spread goodness and evil throughout the world.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 167)
“to expect another to resolve all of our issues and give us the happiness we desire is to expect to see the sunrise without opening our own eyes. it is to ask a river to give us nourishment without dipping our own hands into the water. another cannot answer a riddle that was only ever meant for our own minds to solve. the universe seeks to enlighten and empower us, thus it is only rational that we are our own greatest healers.”
Yung Pueblo, Inward (Page 159)
“Stop wandering about! You aren’t likely to read your own notebooks, or ancient histories, or the anthologies you’ve collected to enjoy in your old age. Get busy with life’s purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue—if you care for yourself at all—and do it while you can.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, The Daily Stoic (Page 387)
“If you are willing to discipline yourself, the physical universe won’t need to discipline you.”
Leonard Orr, via Sunbeams (Page 137)
“For nothing outside my reasoned choice can hinder or harm it—my reasoned choice alone can do this to itself. If we would lean this way whenever we fail, and would blame only ourselves and remember that nothing but opinion is the cause of a troubled mind and uneasiness, then by God, I swear we would be making progress.”
Epictetus, Discourses, via The Daily Stoic (Page 246)
“It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.”
Will Durant, via Sunbeams (Page 120)
A Short Story About A Mom Who Had Enough—A Lesson For “No-Longer-Dependents”
Except: A short story about a mom who had enough. She was tired, irritable, and sick. And her family kept using her as a crutch. Here’s what she did.
Read More »A Short Story About A Mom Who Had Enough—A Lesson For “No-Longer-Dependents”
“Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war.”
Thomas Merton, via Sunbeams (Page 115)
“Your character defects are not where you’re bad, but where you’re wounded. But no matter who or what caused the wound, it’s yours now and you’re responsible for it. The only person who can bring it up and release it is you. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where you got your character defects anyway. They’re yours now. You can’t live with a sign around your neck saying, ‘It’s not my fault. My parents were difficult.’ Your only way out of your conundrum is to take total responsibility for those defects.”
Marianne Williamson, The Shadow Effect (Page 171)