Great Throughts Treasury

"Procrastination is illogical from every viewpoint. It is like the man who wanted to cross the stream, so he sat on the bank to wait for all the water to run by."

"Protection that really works is invisible, not visible; cosmic, not earthly; individual, not social; peaceful, not noisy; innocent, not guilty."

"Q. How can we change unpleasant facts about ourselves? A. By seeing and accepting them as unpleasant facts."

"Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it."

"Q: I am afraid we rarely see ourselves as others see us. A: Ah, yes. The more obnoxious the man the more he is sure that others cannot survive without his charming company."

"Q: You have urged us to see ourselves as we are, not as we like to picture ourselves. What are most people like? A: Like a thermometer. Their feelings rise or fall according to the social atmosphere. Never living from themselves, they remain at the mercy of exterior events. Everything outside tells them how to feel inside. They are slaves to bad news, or an angry look, or an unexpected change of plans. And, of course, the more a man is influenced by exterior events, the more he will angrily insist that no one tells him what to do. It is not necessary to live like a mindless thermometer. Any man can learn to live from himself."

"Realize that ordinary thoughts cannot contact God. This explains why past attempts to reach higher help have failed. Usual thought is filled with egotism, which blocks contact."

"Quit thinking that you must halt before the barrier of inner negativity. You need not. You can crash through...whatever we see a negative state; that is where we can destroy it."

"Refusal is the way to heaven."

"Relaxation means receptivity."

"Q: Who are you? A: I’m an ordinary man who discovered the extraordinary."

"Realize that truth disturbs in order to cure."

"Remember above all that mental stability comes by examining the contents of the mind, not by avoidance."

"Remember that an answer to a difficulty resides at a higher level than our usual thinking, so seek this loftier level."

"Remember, the world is filled with people who do not know who they are, who spend their lives telling other people who they are."

"Remove the dark cloud of negative thought and the guiding star of understanding brightly appears."

"Right knowledge comes only from God. You will never get anything right from another human being."

"Right reactions to daily challenges can change the kind of a day you experience."

"Seek revelation, not comfort."

"Seek THE Castle not YOUR Castle."

"Self-absence creates self-presence."

"Self-centeredness is incapable of learning a lesson from an experience, having only a wish to feel a neurotic thrill."

"See everyone you meet as a collection of wild ideas."

"Seek something more important than yourself."

"Self-development begins where self-righteousness ends."

"Self-honesty coupled with self-investigation will bring you to self-healing."

"Self-awakening enables you to see the human scene as it is, not as it appears to be, which frees you of its chaos."

"Self-awareness attracts harmonious feelings."

"Self-ignorance is the only crime and punishment."

"Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives."

"Self-knowledge is everything. If you know what you are all about, you know what life is all about. You are not separate from life; you are life itself."

"Self-righteousness loves to pounce on an evil which by sheer accident is not its particular evil."

"Since understanding can be acquired, the tyrant need not be endured."

"Staying home (spiritually) is where a true spiritual hero is. Don’t go into thought."

"Serve your true interest, not your self-interest."

"Stop giving bothersome people false rewards and they will stop bothering you."

"Study carefully the law of cause and effect."

"Take disturbance as an awakening sign that you misunderstand something you assumed you understood."

"Stupidity hurts, while intelligence does not hurt."

"The Higher Feeling comes faintly at first like a dimly remembered dream."

"The individual has had a problem only with his own wrong thinking toward love."

"The capacity for remembering what you must do is increased by awareness that you cannot remember."

"The feeling of self-worth of every person is like an elevator, right? Your feeling of self-value goes up, stays up for a short time, plunges down again. Something favorable comes across your path and the elevator goes up. Up and down. Up and down. Always restless. Never stable, never still. Always making a racket and making movements. This a form of self-betrayal, which you have not as yet detected."

"The delusion of having wisdom creates the dangerous delusion of having power, leading to disaster."

"The greatest day in your life is when you hear the voice of God."

"The intelligent reaction toward trouble is to ask, How can I think clearly toward this?"

"The invented self is rudeness itself."

"The knowledge of human behavior will lead you to God."

"The last thing on earth which should bother you is the sudden failure of your carefully laid plans. Do not take your plans as being you and the disruption of any plan will be as nothing to you. Your plans are not you; they only appear to be so because of that human mistake called identification."

"The leap is made by dropping vanity over knowledge and by a willingness to become nothing in order to become everything."