Selected growth quotes

1. I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.

2. Autumn to winter, winter into spring, Spring into summer, summer into fall, - So rolls the changing year, and so we change; Motion so swift, we know not that we move.

3. Nothing fails like success.

4. It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

5. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

6. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

7. What has changed is that my life then was less difficult and my future seemingly less gloomy, but as far as my inner self, my way of looking at things and of thinking is concerned, that has not changed. But if there has indeed been a change, then it is that I think, believe and love more seriously now what I thought, believed and loved even then.

8. Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.

9. I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feels a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected, it is necessary to take heart again and new courage. For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.

10. If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

11. It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one's youth.

12. When we are working at a difficult task and strive after a good thing, we are fighting a righteous battle, the direct reward of which is that we are kept from much evil. As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

13. I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.

14. A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist.

15. The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks, and gapes for drink again; The plants suck in the earth, and are With constant drinking fresh and fair.

16. He is your friend who pushes you nearer to God.

17. I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.

18. I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

19. You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

20. Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose.

21. The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.

22. What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

23. Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.

24. There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.

25. I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

26. A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

27. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

28. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

29. Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest.

30. Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them.

31. Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

32. One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

33. You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them.

34. Man is the result of slow growth; that is why he occupies the position he does in animal life. What does a pup amount to that has gained its growth in a few days or weeks, beside a man who only attains it in as many years.

35. The striving for significance, this sense of yearning, always points out to us that all psychological phenomena contain a movement that starts from a feeling of inferiority and reach upward. The theory of Individual Psychology of psychological compensation states that the stronger the feeling of inferiority, the higher the goal for personal power.

36. It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.

37. There will be certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled.

38. I've always believed in experiencing everything in life. When you walk out with blinders on, you cut yourself off from the angels and the fairies.

39. Life is a stream On which we strew Petal by petal the flower of our heart.

40. Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

41. I believe that in the 20th century, humanity has learned from many, many experiences. Some positive, and many negative. What misery, what destruction! The greatest number of human beings were killed in the two world wars of this century. But human nature is such that when we face a tremendous critical situation, the human mind can wake up and find some other alternative. That is a human capacity.

42. Spiritual practice is difficult in the beginning. You wonder how on earth you can ever do it. But as you get used to it, the practice gradually becomes easier. Do not be too stubborn or push yourself too hard. If you practice in accord with your individual capacity, little by little you will find more pleasure and joy in it. As you gain inner strength, your positive actions will gain in profundity and scope.

43. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

44. There's no question that His Holiness is my root guru, and he's been quite tough with me at times. I've had to explain to people who sometimes have quite a romantic vision of His Holiness that at times he's been cross with me, but it was very skillful. At the moment he did it, I'm not saying it was pleasant for me, but there was no ego attachment from his side. I'm very thankful that he trusts me enough to be the mirror for me and not pull any punches. Mind you, the first meetings were not that way; I think he was aware how fragile I was and was being very careful. Now I think he senses that my seriousness about the teachings has increased and my own strength within the teachings has increased. He can be much tougher on me.

45. Mr President, one does not need help going down, only going up.

46. To add to golden numbers golden numbers.

47. But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum - which arranges that wisdom to do shall come pari passu with the departure of zest for doing - stood in the way of all that.

48. A small beginning has led us to a great ending. If I were to put the bit of chalk with which we started into the hot but obscure flame of burning hydrogen, it would presently shine like the sun. It seems to me that this physical metamorphosis is no false image of what has been the result of our subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought to-night. It has become luminous, and its clear rays, penetrating the abyss of the remote past, have brought within our ken some stages of the evolution of the earth. And in the shifting 'without haste, but without rest' of the land and sea, as in the endless variation of the forms assumed by living beings, we have observed nothing but the natural product of the forces originally possessed by the substance of the universe.

49. An act like ours wouldn't even be around today if someone hadn't brought us along and let us make mistakes and grow at our own pace. Today it seems that if you don't have a hit - or even if you do - they have no use for you the next time.

50. If we don't get to a higher place and find somebody who can help somebody might be nobody no more.

51. I hope you never need no one, hope you treasure your independence. I hope you never fall in love with someone like you.

52. I had no idea Gwendolen knew any foreign languages, and I am not sure that I approve. It's the sort of thing that can only broaden a girl's mind.

53. You have got to stop seeing yourself as a victim, take control and take responsibility.

54. 'She beckoned to him, shining and silver, and he knew he must go: unafraid, not hesitating, he paused only at the garden's edge, as though he'd forgotten something, he stopped and looked back at the bloomless, descending blue, at the boy he had left behind.'

55. Coming to grips with my past, it was hard. I don't feel like what I did was so evil, I just feel like the way I was living, and my mentality, was part of my progression to be a man.

56. The only crime I been convicted of is fighting; getting into a fight with my fears.

57. I don't think I will ever mellow out. I think if you mellow out, you get eaten up. You become like a commodity. So I don't think I will mellow out. It is not in my blood.

58. Someone to hold onto And keep me from all fear Someone to be my guiding light And keep me ever dear To keep me from my selfishness To keep me from my sorrow To lead me on to givingness So I can see a new tomorrow.

59. Showed me pictures in the gallery Showed me novels on the shelf Put my hands across the table Gave me knowledge of myself. Showed me visions, showed me nightmares Gave me dreams that never end Showed me light out of the tunnel When there was darkness all around instead.

60. Thanks for the information Never give a sucker an even break When he's breaking through To a new level of consciousness There always seems to be more Obstacles in the way Thanks for the information I know It's only a combat zone Thanks for the memory, I'll just have To carry on on my own.

61. The way you see me walking on That's why I'm telling you in song There's only one way to get ahead You've got to give it up instead Start all over again.

62. 'I've got an insatiable appetite for life and a lot more! MORE! MORE!'

63. 'You want me to change? I can change. I know I can be a better father and a better husband.' (Towards his family)

64. Oh, Theo, why should I change - I used to be very passive and very gentle and quiet - I'm that no longer, but then I'm no longer a child either now - sometimes I feel my own man.

65. Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artis paulatim.

66. La vie est herissee de ces epines, et je n'y sais d'autre remede que de cultiver son jardin.

67. That I may reduce the monster to Myself, and then may be myself In face of the monster, be more than part Of it, more than the monstrous player of One of its monstrous lutes, not be Alone, but reduce the monster and be, Two things, the two together as one, And play of the monster and of myself, Or better not of myself at all, But of that as its intelligence, Being the lion in the lute Before the lion locked in stone.

68. The casual is not Enough. The freshness of transformation is The freshness of a world. It is our own, It is ourselves, the freshness of ourselves, And that necessity and that presentation Are rubbings of a glass in which we peer.

69. Everyone has been remarkably influenced by a book, or books. In my case it was a book on cartoon animation. I discovered it in the Kansas City Library at the time I was preparing to make motion-picture animation my life's work. The book told me all I needed to know as a beginner - all about the arts and the mechanics of making drawings that move on the theater screen. From the basic information I could go on to develop my own way of movie storytelling. Finding that book was one of the most important and useful events in my life. It happened at just the right time. The right time for reading a story or an article or a book is important. By trying too hard to read a book that, for our age and understanding, is beyond us, we may tire of it. Then, even after, we'll avoid it and deny ourselves the delights it holds.

70. I've always maintained that you can't just coast, if you do, you go backwards. It's just a slow way of liquidating... Let's do anything to get some action, you see?

71. If I were a fatalist, or a mystic, which I decidedly am not, it might be appropriate to say I believe in my lucky star. But I reject 'luck' - I feel every person creates his own 'determinism' by discovering his best aptitudes and following them undeviatingly.

72. This proves that you're not infallible... Well, nobody is. Whoever thinks they're infallible is gonna really fall into a big hole some day. I've fallen into holes and I will watch out for them now, and I don't fall in as deep as I used to. But, I mean, I've been in some big holes - but I climbed out.

73. There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the fatalist, always disconcerting to very young people, who cannot feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy of storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain.

74. 'For washed in life's river, My bright mane forever Shall shine like the gold As Iguard o'er the fold.'

75. 'Impromptu: The Suckers' from Collected Poems 1921-1931 (1934)

76. True Charity, a plant divinely nurs'd.

77. Where fall the tears of love the rose appears, And where the ground is bright with friendship's tears, Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue, Spring glittering with the cheerful drops like dew.

78. 'Aren't there any grownups at all?' 'I don't think so.' The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him. In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. 'No grownups!'

79. Now in all of us, however constituted, but to a degree the greater in proportion as we are intense and sensitive and subject to diversified temptations, and to the greatest possible degree if we are decidedly psychopathic, does the normal evolution of character chiefly consist in the straightening out and unifying of the inner self. The higher and the lower feelings, the useful and the erring impulses, begin by being a comparative chaos within us - they must end by forming a stable system of functions in right subordination. Unhappiness is apt to characterize the period of order-making and struggle.

80. I have made a fiasco of my life, but I have had the right material to work with.

81. I have long known of Mr. Shaw, read his plays and prefaces, and loved him. I admire heroic effort. Accomplishment I love. What I am about to say is no invention, and I am putting it down for whatever it may be worth to the historian of literature and for the student of influences of men on men, and because it is true and must therefore be made known. As a boy, charging pell-mell through literature, reading everything I could lay hands on in the Public Library of Fresno, I found many men to whom I felt deeply grateful - especially Guy de Maupassant, Jack London, and H. L. Mencken - but the first man to whom I felt definitely related was George Bernard Shaw. This is a presumptuous or fatuous thing to mention, perhaps, but even so it must be mentioned.

82. Everything is changed - for you. But it is still the same, too. The loneliness you feel has come to you because you are no longer a child. But the whole world has always been full of that loneliness. The loneliness does not come from the War. The War did not make it. It was the loneliness that made the War.

83. I was an old man by the time I took that walk to the Public Library in San Francisco, because the years between birth and twenty are the years in which the soul travels farthest and swiftest.

84. Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!

85. Three years she grew in sun and shower, Then Nature said, 'A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This Child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A Lady of my own.'

86. Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear.

87. More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress.

88. Now grows together that belongs together.

89. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.

90. You know a lot of geniuses, y'know. You should meet some stupid people once in a while, y'know, you could learn something.

91. I know what you want. You want a story that won't suprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality. (p. 381)

92. The engaged mind stays sharp and retains tremendous capacity.

93. These changes are part of what keeps me interested and excited. Life won't let me keep coming at it from the same angle.

94. Nourish your middle by accepting what cannot be avoided: that's perfection.

95. You can't cling to the past. Too many different things are coming into the world.

96. The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

97. Our losses should frequently be put on the credit side.

98. My approach is I'm coming from a place where it's okay to take chances or maybe it's a good thing to fall on your face.

99. It is the process that is godliness, not so much the end result. A godly man will involve himself in the process of being godly. For godliness is not so much a place we are going as it is the going itself.

100. The uncomfortable moments in a person's life make great stories down the road.