Quote collection
450 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Who I believed myself to be was a hopeless case. I would wake up in the mornings and notice I was still alive and breathing and hate God, hate myself, hate life, and contemplate ways of killing myself."
"If I say, if I talk about, 'I want to be enlightened...' it implies a future. And there isn't any."
"If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life"
"An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering."
"Inquiry appears to be a process of thinking, but actually it's a way to undo thinking. Thoughts lose their power over us when we realize that they simply appear in the mind. They're not personal. Through The Work, instead of escaping or suppressing our thoughts, we learn to meet them with unconditional love and understanding."
"Look at your life without the thought "Something terrible is going to happen.""
"The whole planet is waiting for someone to do it first"
"I'll tell you that for me, one when someone used to say something that was true, one way I knew it was true was that I immediately felt defensive. I blocked it off, and I went to war with them in my mind and suffered all that goes with it. And they were only saying what was true."
"Once we begin to question our thoughts, our partners-alive, dead or divorced-are always our greatest teachers. There's no mistake about the person you're with; he or she is the perfect teacher for you, whether or not the relationship works out, and once you enter inquiry, you come to see that clearly."
"There is no peace in the world until you find peace within yourself in this moment."
"The mind at war with itself does war with any other mind, and that produces war in the world - all of it."
"Identify your painful thought, question it, and wake yourself up. No one else can."
"But when you think you're supposed to do something with it and imagine that you're the doer, that's pure delusion. Just follow your passion. Do what you love. Inquire, and have a happy life while you're doing it."
"I love to not defend ever and to open my mind and take in what can always add to me, not take away from me."
"Defense is the first act of war."
"Some children are afraid to die because their parents are afraid to die. My own children have come to understand that it's totally okay with me if they die. They don't have to live for my sake."
"I really believe I'm right. So, tell me, where am I wrong?"
"I can just talk about my world, and people relate to it because it's so familiar to them. It's them, it's not me. They're hearing themselves."
"They say, "Katie, you're wrong." And if I say, "How dare you say that? I have studied and studied." Or, "I am an expert in" whatever area we're talking about. Or, "No, you are wrong! And I think you're rude!" Or anything like that, and if we don't say it out loud, maybe we think it, but that's stressful. The moment I've defended, in any way, I've started the war."
"It's only our story that keeps us from knowing that we always have everything we need."