Dan Millman famous quotes

Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness--if you had little time left to live--you would waste precious little of it! Well, I'm telling you...you do have a terminal illness: It's called birth. You don't have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason--or you will never be at all.
-- Dan Millman

#Monday #Time #Years

everyone tells you what's good for you. they don't want you to find your own answers. they want you to believe theirs.
-- Dan Millman

#Believe #Lovely #Answers

Faith means living with uncertainty - feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark.
-- Dan Millman

#Faith #Letting Go #Spiritual

The seasons do not push one another; neither do clouds race the wind across the sky. All things happen in their own good time.
-- Dan Millman

#Wind #Sky #Clouds

When we feel stuck, going nowhere-even starting to slip backward-we may actually be backing up to get a running start.
-- Dan Millman

#Running #Courage #May

When you release your expectations that the world should fulfill you, your disappointments vanish.
-- Dan Millman

#Disappointment #Expectations #World

There is no path to Happiness. Happiness is the path. There is no path to Love. Love is the path. There is no path to Peace. Peace is the path.
-- Dan Millman

#Love #Happiness #Love Is

Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.
-- Dan Millman

#Inspirational #Motivational #Fear

Every positive change - every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness - involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception.
-- Dan Millman

#Ladders #Levels #Energy

A warrior does not give up what he loves, he finds the love in what he does
-- Dan Millman

#Giving Up #Warrior #Doe

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.
-- Dan Millman

#Happiness #World #Reason

Your fears are not walls, but hurdles. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it.
-- Dan Millman

#Courage #Wall #Conquer

I learned that we can do anything, but we can't do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.
-- Dan Millman

#Motivational #Basketball #Spiritual

The universe does not judge us; it only provides consequences and lessons and opportunities to balance and learn through the law of cause and effect. Compassion is the recognition that we are each doing the best we can within the limits of our current beliefs and capacities.
-- Dan Millman

#Opportunity #Compassion #Law

Stress happens when your mind resists what is...The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.
-- Dan Millman

#Stress #Mind #Resistance

If you want a kinder world, then behave with kindness; if you want a peaceful world, make peace within.
-- Dan Millman

#Kindness #Peaceful #World

You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability--to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.
-- Dan Millman

#Heart #Cutting #Warrior

There are no ordinary moments.
-- Dan Millman

#Life #Wisdom #Philosophy

Everything you'll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body.
-- Dan Millman

#Thinking #Cells #Secret

If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever.
-- Dan Millman

#Heart #Forever #Suffering

Find the heart of it. Make the complex simple, and you can achieve mastery.
-- Dan Millman

#Heart #Simple #Mastery

In the real world, those of us who are most productive, successful, and satisfied focus not on fixing feelings or manipulating thoughts, but on what needs to be done-and then doing it-no matter what thoughts or feelings arise.
-- Dan Millman

#Real #Successful #Focus

Simplicity has power. Founding our life on constructive, positive behavior is the simplest, most direct, and powerful approach I've ever found-simple, but not easy.
-- Dan Millman

#Life #Powerful #Simple

A Zen student asked his roshi the most important element of Zen.The roshi replied, "Attention." "Yes, thank you," the student replied. "But can you tell me the second most important element?"And the roshi replied, "Attention."
-- Dan Millman

#Spiritual #Important #Attention

You don't have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.
-- Dan Millman

#Depression

I had lost my mind and fallen into my heart.
-- Dan Millman

#Heart #Mind #Lost

When we know deep down that we're acting with integrity despite impulses to do otherwise, we feel gates of higher energy and inspiration open inside of us.
-- Dan Millman

#Integrity #Inspiration #Acting

When you become fully responisble for your life, you can become fully human; once you become human, you may discover what it mens to be a warrior.
-- Dan Millman

#Warrior #May #Humans

Unless the desire to change remains strong, body and mind tend to return to old, familiar patterns. It takes time-from three to six months-for old habits to become obsolete. By the end of that time, you'll have adapted to a new pattern. In a sense, you'll have found a new way of life.
-- Dan Millman

#Strong #Old Habits #Mind

Masters of one art have mastered all because they have mastered themselves. With dominion over both mind and muscle, they demonstrate power, serenity, and spirit. They not only have talent for their sport, they have an expanded capacity for life. The experts shine in the competitive arena; the masters shine everywhere.
-- Dan Millman

#Sports #Art #Shining

The warrior is Here, Now.
-- Dan Millman

#Warrior

Be happy now, without reason - or you never will be at all.
-- Dan Millman

#Reason

I have an almost religious zeal... not for technology per se, but for the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up.
-- Dan Millman

#Mother #Religious #Technology

Embrace the higher truth that everything comes to pass exactly as it should. Find peace and wisdom by accepting what is.
-- Dan Millman

#Finding Peace #Embrace #Accepting

Life has three rules: Paradox, Humor, and Change. - Paradox: Life is a mystery; don't waste your time trying to figure it out. - Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure - Change: Know that nothing ever stays the same.
-- Dan Millman

#Trying #Three #Waste

The time is now, the place is here. Stay in the present. You can do nothing to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as you plan or hope for.
-- Dan Millman

#Change #Past #Plans

Unless someone truly has the power to say no, they never truly have the power to say yes.
-- Dan Millman

#Advocacy

. . . Action always happens in the present, because it is an expression of the body, which can only exist in the here and now. But the mind is like a phantom that lives only in the past or future. It's only power over you is to draw your attention our of the present.
-- Dan Millman

#Past #Expression #Over You

Process transforms any journey into a series of small steps, taken one by one, to reach any goal. Process transcends time, teaches patience, rests on a solid foundation of careful preparation, and embodies trust in our unfolding potential.
-- Dan Millman

#Taken #Journey #Goal

Thoughts naturally arise. The point of meditation is not to banish thoughts but to make peace with them by realizing their lack of substance.
-- Dan Millman

#Meditation #Substance #Realizing

You are a dynamic whole greater than the sum of your parts. By integrating your body, mind, and emotions through training, you reshape your life.
-- Dan Millman

#Training #Mind #Body

The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.
-- Dan Millman

#Life #Wisdom #Philosophy

Managing your money does not depend upon becoming wealthy or declaring vows of poverty. Rather, it is about creating stability and sufficiency - a balanced flow of monetary energy through your life.
-- Dan Millman

#Creating #Flow #Poverty

Moderation? It's mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It's the devil's dilemma. It's neither doing nor not doing. It's the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It's for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation...is lukewarm tea, the devil's own brew.
-- Dan Millman

#Courage #Fear #Laughter

To be authentic literally means to be your own author.
-- Dan Millman

#Mean

Ultimately, fear of failure generates a vicious circle that creates what is most feared. To break this cycle, you need to make peace with failure. It isn't enough to merely tolerate it; you need to appreciate the failure and use it ...
-- Dan Millman

#Circles #Appreciate #Needs

Our sense of self-worth is the single most important determinant of the health, abundance, and joy we allow into our lives.
-- Dan Millman

#Self Worth #Joy #Important

As poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore reminds us, "We cannot cross the sea merely by staring at the water." Simplicity has power. And living on purpose comes to this: Just do it. How much simpler can we get?
-- Dan Millman

#Sea #Water #Simplicity

It's better to make a mistake with the full force of your being than to timidly avoid mistakes with a trembling spirit. Responsibility means recognizing both pleasure and price, action and consequence, then making a choice.
-- Dan Millman

#Mistake #Mean #Responsibility

Better never begin; once begun, better finish.
-- Dan Millman

Faith is our direct link to universal wisdom, reminding us that we know more than we have heard or read or studied that we have only to look, listen, and trust the love and wisdom of the Universal Spirit working through us all.
-- Dan Millman

#Words Of Wisdom #Looks #Links

Energy follows thought; we move toward, but not beyond, what we can imagine. What we assume, expect, or believe creates and colors our experience. By expanding our deepest beliefs about what is possible, we change our experience of life.
-- Dan Millman

#Believe #Moving #Color

I'd always believed that a life of quality, enjoyment, and wisdom were my human birthright and would be automatically bestowed upon me as time passed. I never suspected that I would have to learn how to live - that there were specific disciplines and ways of seeing the world I had to master before I could awaken to a simple, happy, uncomplicated life.
-- Dan Millman

#Simple #Discipline #Quality

Dream big. Start small and then connect the dots
-- Dan Millman

#Dream #Dots #Bigs

Aim not to win or succeed, but for excellence in the moment.
-- Dan Millman

#Winning #Excellence #Succeed

This planet is a divine school, and daily life a classroom. Our choice of teachers depends on what we need to learn.
-- Dan Millman

#Teacher #School #Choices

To rid yourself of old patterns, focus all your energy not on struggling with the old, but on building the new.
-- Dan Millman

#Struggle #Focus #Energy

If you want peace of mind I suggest you resign as general manager of the universe.
-- Dan Millman

#Mind #Peace Of Mind #Want

Before you can see the Light, you have to deal with the darkness.
-- Dan Millman

#Light #Darkness #Deals

It is better for you to take responsibility for your life as it is, instead of blaming others, or circumstances, for your predicament. As your eyes open, you'll see that your state of health, happiness, and every circumstance of your life has been, in large part, arranged by you - consciously or unconsciously.
-- Dan Millman

#Eye #Responsibility #Blame

Sometimes sorrow, sometimes joy. But beneath it all remember the innate perfection of your life unfolding. That is the secret of unreasonable happiness.
-- Dan Millman

#Perfection #Joy #Secret

If you desire to dig a well to reach water, your efforts are more fruitful if you dig one 100-foot-deep hole than if you dig ten holes each 10 feet deep.
-- Dan Millman

#Feet #Water #Effort

Conscious evolution begins as we take responsibility for clearing our own obstructions.
-- Dan Millman

#Responsibility #Evolution #Conscious

The quality of your moments produces the quality of your life. So, as thoughts come and go and the waves of mind rush on, Carpe punctum-Seize this moment. It deserves your full attention, for it will not pass your way again.
-- Dan Millman

#Mind #Quality #Attention

The world's a puzzle; no need to make sense out of it." - Socrates
-- Dan Millman

#Needs #World #Make Sense

There are times to let things happen, and times to make things happen. Now is that time. You will either make things happen, watch what happens, or wonder what happened.
-- Dan Millman

#Watches #Wonder #Things Happen

When you begin your transcendental training, focusing your best efforts, without attachment to outcomes, you will understand the peaceful warrior's way.
-- Dan Millman

#Attitude #Warrior #Attachment

Don't wait until you die to learn the warrior's way. Do it now, each night, just before you drift off to sleep. As you review your day, consider these two questions of courage and love. Learn from each day, so that each day you can show a little more courage and a little more love. Then, as incidents occur, you may rise to the occasion and look back at the end of your life and feel good about the way you lived.
-- Dan Millman

#Courage #Sleep #Warrior

Coming to appreciate your worth can, in some cases, dramatically improve your circumstances by changing the choices you make and the actions you take. And as you begin to treat yourself with more respect, other people begin to do the same, since we subconsciously "train" others how to treat us through messages we send through body language, tone of voice, and other subtle cues and behaviors. Discovering your innate worth and living from that place allows you to make more constructive choices-to choose the higher roads of life
-- Dan Millman

#Voice #People #Appreciate

Life comes at us in waves. We can't predict or control those waves, but we can learn to surf
-- Dan Millman

#Surf #Wave

While some of us act without thinking, too many of us think without acting.
-- Dan Millman

#Thinking #Acting

Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.
-- Dan Millman

#Life #Pain #Attitude

Every athletic career, no matter how modest or lofty, is a journey.
-- Dan Millman

#Success #Sports #Journey

We discover our character through decisions under pressure.
-- Dan Millman

#Character #Decision #Pressure

If you face just one opponent, and you doubt yourself, you're out-numbered
-- Dan Millman

#Doubt #Opponents #Faces

...when you resist what happens, your mind begins to race; the same thoughts that impinge upon you are actually created by you.
-- Dan Millman

#Race #Mind

Surrender means accepting this moment, this body, and this life with open arms. Surrender involves getting out of your own way and living in accord with a higher will, expressed as the wisdom of the heart. Far more than passive acceptance, surrender uses every challenge as a means of spiritual growth and expanded awareness.
-- Dan Millman

#Spiritual #Heart #Mean

In life, stress happens when you resist what arises.
-- Dan Millman

#Stress #Arise

You get no more and no less than what you believe you deserve.
-- Dan Millman

#Believe #Deserve

Looking back we see with great clarity, and what once appeared as difficulties now reveal themselves as blessings.
-- Dan Millman

#Blessing #Clarity #Difficulty

Remember that life develops what it demands - the toughest path creates the strongest warrior. Pray not for a lighter load, but for stronger shoulders.
-- Dan Millman

#Warrior #Stronger #Demand

The hours of your life are the most valuable currency you will ever have. How will you spend them?
-- Dan Millman

#Hours #Currency #Valuable

Anybody can be happy when things are going well, and I've learned that. But when things aren't going well it draws out the inner warrior in us to radiate that and bring whatever happiness we can to the situation.
-- Dan Millman

#Warrior #Mma

Fear is like a little garden spider that makes us jump back or the poor lost bee on the steering wheel that we blame for our automobile wreck. The problem in fear is our response - the way we treat animals or insects that frighten us. . . . Fear is also the universal scapegoat we blame when we take flight from intimacy or shrink up inside ourselves in a thousand little ways.
-- Dan Millman

#Fear #Animal #Garden

Peaceful warriors have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water clears. They remain unmoving until the right time, so the right action arises by itself. They do not seek fulfillment, but wait with open arms to welcome all things.
-- Dan Millman

#Patience #Warrior #Water

Wisdom is the use of knowledge
-- Dan Millman

#Use

The secret of change consists in concentrating one's energy to create the new, and not to fight against the old.
-- Dan Millman

#Fighting #Secret #Energy

Freedom from mental distraction equals power. Body mind masters eventually come to the realization that this and every moment, on or off the field, is the moment of truth.
-- Dan Millman

#Mind #Realization #Body

I kind of got more interested in writing after I turned in my last college essay and nobody was going to tell me what kind of academic papers to write anymore. I could write whatever I wanted, and I realized that I actually liked it when I could choose what I would write.
-- Dan Millman

#Writing #College #Paper

Carry your groceries, garden, and do other activities that keep you moving. You will add more years to your life and more life to your years.
-- Dan Millman

#Moving #Garden #Years

Faith does not rely on knowing anything with certainty. It requires only the courage to accept that whatever happens is for the highest good.
-- Dan Millman

#Knowing #Doe #Accepting

Ships are safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for. So set sail on the stormy sea of love. You're going to get soaked at times, but at least you'll know you're alive.
-- Dan Millman

#Love You #Sea #Alive

Refine your senses a little more each day; stretch them...your awareness will pierce deeply into your body and into the world.
-- Dan Millman

#Each Day #World #Body

Although motivation comes and goes, you can always rely on your will.
-- Dan Millman

#Motivation #Comes And Goes #Rely

Freedom from mental distraction equals power.
-- Dan Millman

#Distraction

Your body is malleable; you can sculpt it over time with daily habits of diet and exercise. The law of accommodation reminds us that the body may change slowly, but it will change.
-- Dan Millman

#Exercise #Law #Body

Personal and collective awakening are one and the same - when a raindrop joins the sea, the sea also merges with the raindrop.
-- Dan Millman

#Sea #Raindrops #Awakening

We are here to live moment by moment, and each moment brings a task, a challenge, a goal. It's good to have big goals, but we need to connect the dots between where we are and where we are going, one day, one moment at a time.
-- Dan Millman

#Sea #Goal #Challenges

A jet plane cannot mow the lawn, but it can fly to distant destinations. Don't worry so much about what you can't do; just do what you can as only you can do it.
-- Dan Millman

#Worry #Jet Planes #Lawns

Babe Ruth was the home-run king of his time, but also the strikeout king.
-- Dan Millman

#Running #Kings #Home