Selected mindset quotes

1. A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.

2. To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

3. It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

4. A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

5. 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.

6. If you do not believe you can do it then you have no chance at all.

7. In order to keep an open mind, I am trying to avoid learning anything.

8. If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.

9. It's hard to face tomorrow, but it's easier than facing no tomorrow.

10. I am eagerly awaiting my next disappointment.

11. Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

12. I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.

13. I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again.

14. The turning point in my career came with the realization that Black should play to win instead of just steering for equality.

15. Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.

16. Faith is a state of mind that can be conditioned through self-discipline. Faith will accomplish.

17. The spirit of the individual is determined by his dominating thought habits.

18. Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.

19. Know the difference between a catastrophe and an inconvenience. - To realize that it's just an inconvenience, that it is not a catastrophe, but just an unpleasantness, is part of coming into your own, part of waking up.

20. In combat, spontaneity rules; rote performance of technique perishes.

21. It is true that the mental aspect of kung-fu is the desired end; however, to achieve this end, technical skill must come first.

22. The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.

23. The mind is like a fertile garden in which anything that is planted, flowers or weeds, will grow.

24. The possession of anything begins in the mind.

25. If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.

26. There are things I can't force. I must adjust. There are times when the greatest change needed is a change of my viewpoint.

27. An unbending and absolute acceptance of any idea is a sure sign of a small mind, no matter the greatness of intellect possesed by the one accepting that idea.

28. An individual's self-concept is the core of his personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life.

29. Freedom begins between the ears.

30. The things we hate about ourselves aren't more real than things we like about ourselves.

31. An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.

32. The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

33. To some, freedom means the opportunity to do what they want to do; to most it means not to do what they do not want to do. It is perhaps true that those who can grow will feel free under any condition.

34. You must try to generate happiness within yourself. If you aren't happy in one place, chances are you won't be happy anyplace.

35. Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.

36. The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.

37. Youth is a quality, not a matter of circumstances.

38. Rather than continuing to seek the truth, simply let go of your views.

39. Life is too short to have anything but delusional notions about yourself.

40. Man is free; but not unless he believes he is[.]

41. Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you're dressed for it.

42. I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?

43. Slump? I ain't in no slump! I just ain't hitting.

44. Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy is to forget the right way and forget that the going is easy.

45. Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.

46. Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

47. To be positive at all times is to ignore all that is important, sacred or valuable. To be negative at all times is to be threatened by ridiculousness and instant discredibility.

48. Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject. They light up with their passion an exclusive world in which they recognize their climate. There is a universe of jealousy, of ambition, of selfishness or generosity. A universe - in other words a metaphysic and an attitude of mind.

49. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do so you will be certain to see something you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore around it, and before you know it,something worth thinking about to occupy your mind.

50. I'm getting a wrinkle above my eyebrow and I love that you know.

51. I think it's a mistake to ever look for hope outside of one's self. One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cuts his finger off, within a week you're climbing over corpses of children bombed in a subway. What hope can there be if that is so? I tried to die near the end of the war. The same dream returned each night until I dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill. I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible ... but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one's life in one's arms.

52. On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

53. Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point. (181)

54. Say you just can't live that negative way You know what I mean Make way for the positive day Cause it's a new day.

55. Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality.

56. A good martial artist does not become tense but ready. Not thinking yet not dreaming, ready for whatever may come. A martial artist has to take responsibility for himself and face the consequences of his own doing. To have no technique, there is no opponent, because the word 'I' does not exist. When the opponent expands I contract and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, 'I' do not hit, 'It' hits all by itself.

57. Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless - like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

58. Emptiness the starting point. - In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. My friend, drop all you preconceived and fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is useful? Because it is empty.

59. Jeet Kune Do uses no way as way. The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.

60. The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky, - No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat - the sky Will cave in on him by and by.

61. The truth seems to be that propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates only into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients. The gifted propagandist brings to a boil ideas and passions already simmering in the minds of his hearers. he echoes their innermost feelings. Where opinion is not coerced, people can be made to believe only in what they already 'know.'

62. It is your mind that creates this world.

63. People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.

64. Slavery is a state of mind that fails to acknowledge the slave's own power.

65. Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, 'even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.' You will be right.

66. If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right. (See: Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.)

67. Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right. (See: If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.)

68. I understand that fear is my friend, but not always. Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.

69. As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 - 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.

70. What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.

71. There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

72. Focused on our good, focused on our abundance we naturally attract more of the same. This is spiritual law. Our consciousness is creative. What we focus on, we empower and enlarge. Good multiplies when focused upon. Negativity multiplies when focused upon. The choice is ours: Which do we want more of?

73. I must work on my mind. For now I realise: Everyone of us has a heaven inside.

74. 'The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb.' (1969)

75. If you do not look at things on a large scale it will be difficult for you to master strategy. If you learn and attain this strategy you will never lose even to twenty or thirty enemies. More than anything to start with you must set your heart on strategy and earnestly stick to the Way. You will come to be able to actually beat men in fights, and to be able to win with your eye. Also by training you will be able to freely control your own body, conquer men with your body, and with sufficient training you will be able to beat ten men with your spirit.

76. The gaze should be large and broad. This is the twofold gaze 'Perception and Sight'. Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. It is important in strategy to know the enemy's sword and not to be distracted by insignificant movements of his sword. You must study this. The gaze is the same for single combat and for large-scale combat.

77. Generally, I dislike fixedness in both long swords and hands. Fixedness means a dead hand. Pliability is a living hand. You must bear this in mind.

78. What I learned at a very early age was that I was responsible for my life. And as I became more spiritually conscious, I learned that we all are responsible for ourselves, that you create your own reality by the way you think and therefore act. You cannot blame apartheid, your parents, your circumstances, because you are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything.

79. In [his] mind, madness. Thousands of competing contradictory impossible visions that make no sense all because they can't all fit together but they do fit together, he makes them fit together, this way today, that way tomorrow, as they're needed. As if he can make a new idea-machine inside his head for every new problem he faces. As if he conceives of a new universe to live in, every hour a new one, often hopelessly wrong and he ends up making mistakes and bad judgments, but sometimes so perfectly right that it opens things up like a miracle and I look through his eyes and see the world his new way and it changes everything. Madness, and then illumination. We knew everything there was to know before... Now we discover that there are so many ways of knowing the same things that we'll never find them all.

80. Fear not the future, weep not for the past.

81. Convince yourself that everything is alright. 'Cos it already is. ~ 'For Nancy ('Cos It Already Is)'

82. 'My stories run up and bite me in the leg- I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.'

83. I can only say that whatever my life and work have been, I'm not envious of anyone- and this is my biggest satisfaction.

84. How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

85. It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world -- that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves!

86. Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.

87. It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all to prudent.

88. Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. ... I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I'm looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic.

89. The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.

90. I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them.I don't care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.

91. Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.

92. The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination.

93. Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front -

94. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will to live.

95. A man's mind will very generally refuse to make itself up until it be driven and compelled by emergency.

96. Hope is a waking dream.

97. Possession of anything begins in the mind.

98. What IS is more important than WHAT SHOULD BE. To many people are looking at 'what is' from a position of thinking 'what should be.'

99. I'm a moron because I don't want to lie in a gutter puking over myself...yeah right.

100. Funny is an attitude.