Great Throughts Treasury

"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."

"All of us are crazy in one or another way."

"Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best."

"Compassion for myself is the most powerful healer of them all."

"I must learn to love the fool in me-the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool."

"Have you considered that if you don't make waves, nobody including yourself will know that you are alive?"

"Television deprives children of their imaginations."

"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom."

"There are a great many people in our society who are happy, but since they don't know they're happy, they're not happy."

"The process of writing a book is infinitely more important than the book that is completed as a result of the writing, let alone the success or failure that book may have after it is written . . . the book is merely a symbol of the writing. In writing the book, I am living. I am growing. I am tapping myself. I am changing. The process is the product."

"There are two ways to slide easily through life to believe everything or to doubt everything both ways save us from thinking."

"Health is relative. There is no such thing as an absolute state of health or sickness. Everyone's physical, mental, and emotional condition is a combination of both."

"Children are extremely perceptive and absorb what goes on around them long before they can talk or even comprehend language. They are like finely tuned receivers that pick up much more than is merely said. They are receptive and attuned to every mood, feeling, and change that goes on in people around them."

"Feeling angry is a universal human phenomenon. It is as basic as feeling hungry, lonely, loving, or tired. The capacity to feel angry and to respond in some way to that feeling is in us from birth."

"Sometimes the routes leading to feelings of anger are so convoluted and circuitous that it takes enormous skill to discern their original source, or fountainhead. But regardless of the reason for or the source of the anger or the relative ease or complexity in perceiving either the anger or its source - everybody, but everybody, gets angry."