Great Throughts Treasury

"In this world within, your world, you are the most important figure. There is a place that no one else can fill There is an influence that no one else can impart. There is a life that no one else can live quite as well as you can live it. What you do with your life within, in terms of self-realization, self-awareness, self-denial and self-expression, is the greatest challenge that can come to you."

"What is more interesting than the person who is being himself?"

"The happy, self-unfolded people are those who, with a will to believe in the world and the life within, have found that the secret of really getting the most out of life is to make the most of the qualities that are innately their own."

"The successful person is simply one who does his best with the things he can do better than anyone else."

"The full circle of spiritual truth will be completed only when we realize that, but for a destiny not fully understood, we might actually have been born in the other person’s faith."

"You will to believe that because you are an individual expression of God there is purpose, real and meaningful in your life, and you will to believe that to achieve this purpose you are also equipped with the talent and potential necessary for its achievement. Will to believe it!... It is the originality in each of us and not our uniformity which gives life its deepest meaning."

"Who lives better than the one who is true to his own inner light?"

"You are a distinctive and individual expression of a Creative Force. You are not a blueprint or a carbon copy or a ditto of anyone past, present or future. You are you and there is no one quite like you in the world."

"We catch on to the truth and technique of expectation in those rare moments when we are stirred by an awareness of a guidance seemingly higher and greater than our own, when for a little while we are taken over by a force and an intelligence above and beyond those commonly felt. Confident and free, filled with wonder and ready acceptance, we permit ourselves to be taken over by our unquestioning self."

"I asked an endurance swimmer, "How is it possible for you to swim for twenty hours? What kind of mental attitude do you have?" She said, "I believe that the water is a friend. It wants to help me. It does not fight against me and I do not fight against it. We are working together." I often think of that when I am in the 'swim' of life. The waves and currents and the tides hit us all at times, and it is not always easy to say, "The water is friendly." It requires an act of faith, a volitional act; it means work, but most of all it requires a will to believe. the more we use this will, the more it becomes a part of us and the more natural becomes its application."

"Great secret: Whenever I?m learning something difficult, I keep expectations low, and aspirations high."

"Success, or failure, very often arrives on wings that seem mysterious to us."

"The beginning [of a journey] is a terrible time to plan. It's the moment of greatest ignorance. In self-directed education, a lot of the value comes from exploiting opportunities that arise well out to sea, once I've seen some things and begun the learning process."