Hugh Prather famous quotes

When we recognize that nothing has to go right for us to be happy, that people do not have to behave for us to love them, our walk home can be surprisingly simple. We have enormous power not to manipulate the world, but to be happy and to know peace.
-- Hugh Prather

#Happiness #Home #Simple

Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.
-- Hugh Prather

#Positivity

It is enough that I am of value to somebody today.
-- Hugh Prather

#Acceptance #Today #Enough

There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen.
-- Hugh Prather

#Action #Things Happen

Happiness is a present attitude and not a future condition.
-- Hugh Prather

#Happiness #Attitude

My trouble is I analyze life instead of live it.
-- Hugh Prather

#Trouble

Problems assault us to the degree they preoccupy us. The key to release, rest, and inner freedom is not the elimination of all external difficulties. It is letting go of our pattern of reactions to those difficulties.
-- Hugh Prather

#Letting Go #Keys #Patterns

Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble.
-- Hugh Prather

#Honesty #Stupid #Moving

I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.
-- Hugh Prather

#Betrayal #Fear #Mistake

The fatal mistake is waiting for life's circumstances to be right before we begin. Simply begin with your heart, look deeply into it and trust what you feel. Practice knowing and you will know.
-- Hugh Prather

#Mistake #Heart #Practice

It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.
-- Hugh Prather

#Fear #Thinking #Light

Unless I accept my faults, I will most certainly doubt my virtues.
-- Hugh Prather

#Acceptance #Doubt #Faults

There are only three things you need to let go of judging, controlling, and being right. Release these three and you will have the whole mind and twinkly heart of a child.
-- Hugh Prather

#Letting Go #Children #Heart

An argument is always about what has been made more important than the relationship.
-- Hugh Prather

#Relationship #Important #Argument

All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.
-- Hugh Prather

#Simple #Complicated #Made

Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behavior, trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be.
-- Hugh Prather

#Risk #Trying #Want

Support your friends - even in their mistakes. But be clear, however, that it is the friend and not the mistake you are supporting.
-- Hugh Prather

#Friendship #Mistake #Support

Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.
-- Hugh Prather

#Change #Life Changing #Live Life

I like a man with faults, especially when he knows it. To err is human
-- Hugh Prather

#Men #Faults #Humans

When I have listened to my mistakes, I have grown.
-- Hugh Prather

#Mistake #My Mistakes

To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them.
-- Hugh Prather

#Frustration #Rewards #Mindfulness

Every moment that I am centered in the future I suffer a temporary loss of this life.
-- Hugh Prather

#Loss #Suffering #Moments

Peace, or freedom from conflict, is the absolute core of happiness. It is in learning to watch our sense of peace that we avoid unhappiness. All forms of misery are heralded by a frame of mind that must become immediately recognizable if we are ever to gain mastery in happiness...Take the time to look in your heart and be clear. Walk through life being clear. Practice doing each thing in peace.
-- Hugh Prather

#Peace #Passion #Heart

A messy mortal is my friend. Come walk with me in the mud.
-- Hugh Prather

#Mud #Messy #Walk With Me

Moods should be heard but never danced to.
-- Hugh Prather

#Depression #Mental Illness #Mood

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.
-- Hugh Prather

#Writing #Desire

Some people will like me and some won't. So I might as well be myself, and then at least I'll know that the people who like me, like me.
-- Hugh Prather

#Creativity #People #Might

Many books on communication are strong on theory but impractical on application. Marshall Rosenberg's instant classic is the stand-out exception. It is clear and compelling in its logic and flat-out inspiring in its inviting exposition of usable techniques and strategies. If this book is read by enough people, the world will transform.
-- Hugh Prather

#Strong #Book #Communication

To avail yourself of His certain wisdom, ask of Him whatever questions you have. But do not entreat Him, for that will never be necessary.
-- Hugh Prather

#Certain

True humor is fun - it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together.
-- Hugh Prather

#Fun #Humor #Kids

I am responsible for what I see. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt. I could see peace instead of THIS. The past is over it can touch me not. This instant is the only time there is. Today I will judge nothing that occurs. I am not the victim of the world I see. I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. I am determined to see things differently. I am never upset for the reason I think. Forgiveness is the key to happiness. All that I give I give to myself.
-- Hugh Prather

#Letting Go #Hurt #Giving Up

Perfectionism is slow death.
-- Hugh Prather

#Perfectionism

Don't fight a fact, deal with it.
-- Hugh Prather

#Fighting #Facts #Live By

I don't need a "reason" to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now.
-- Hugh Prather

#Needs #Reason #Reasons To Be Happy

There were seventy-five people in the lobby and only a seven-year-old girl was finding out what it felt like to sit on the Marble Floor
-- Hugh Prather

#Girl #Years #People

perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown.
-- Hugh Prather

#Life #Mistake #Want

No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves
-- Hugh Prather

#Talking #Matter

Because the results are unpredictable, no effort of mine is doomed to failure.
-- Hugh Prather

#Effort #Results #Unpredictable

Boredom or discontent is useful to me when I acknowledge it and see clearly my assumption that there's something else I would rather be doing. In this way boredom can act as an invitation to freedom by opening me to new options and thoughts. For example, if I can't change the activity, can I look at it more honestly?
-- Hugh Prather

#Boredom #Example #Looks

Within me is the potential to commit every evil act I see being committed by other men, and unless I feel this potential, I can at any moment be controlled by these same urges. I am free from these urges only if I recognize when I am feeling them, and while feeling them and acknowledging them to be me, choose not to follow them. Only in this way can I begin to regain the disowned parts of me. And only in this way can I know what it is I am criticizing in others.
-- Hugh Prather

#Men #Evil #Feelings

It's this simple: If I never try anything, I never learn anything. If I never take a risk, I stay where I am.
-- Hugh Prather

#Simple #Risk #Trying

I can not 'make my mark' for all time - those concepts are mutually exclusive. 'Lasting effect' is a self-contradictory term. Meaning does not exist in the future and neither do I. Nothing will have meaning 'ultimately.' Nothing will even mean tomorrow what it did today. Meaning changes with the context. My meaningfulness is here. It is enough that I am of value to someone today. It is enough that I make a difference now.
-- Hugh Prather

#Time #Mean #Self

Love, the magician, knows this little trick whereby two people walk in different directions yet always remain side by side....
-- Hugh Prather

#Love You #Two #People

Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes and I am left the same. The more things change the more I am the same. I am what I started with, and when it is all over I will be all that is left of me.
-- Hugh Prather

#Change #Life Changing #Live Life

It's not that "today is the first day of the rest of my life," but that now is all there is of my life.
-- Hugh Prather

#Life #Today #Firsts

Letting go is freedom. When you find yourself in a useless battle, you merely walk off the battlefield.
-- Hugh Prather

#Letting Go #Finding Yourself #Battle

If your reaction to your partner's fear-or any other form of distress- is disdain or irritation, you do not want oneness or even friendship with your partner at that moment.
-- Hugh Prather

#Letting Go #Oneness #Irritation

Our job this day is to become part of the answer to the world's immense and protracted suffering rather than continuing our ancient task of being part of the difficulty.
-- Hugh Prather

#Jobs #Compassion #Suffering

I talk because I feel, and I talk to you because I want you to know how I feel.
-- Hugh Prather

#Want #Feels #I Want You

There is no place love is not.
-- Hugh Prather

#Love #Marriage #Love Is

Today I acknowledge that I am not in position to judge what mistakes anyone is making or what lessons anyone needs to learn. I don’t know how far someone has come or when that person will have a breakthrough, I simply don’t know what other people should be doing. But when I think I do know, I clearly am not doing what I should be doing, which is taking responsibility for my own life.
-- Hugh Prather

#Mistake #Responsibility #Thinking

Boredom is useful to me when I notice it and think: Oh I'm bored; there must be something else I want to be doing... boredom acts as an initiator of originality by pushing me into new activities or new thoughts.
-- Hugh Prather

#Thinking #Bored #Want

Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser?
-- Hugh Prather

#Doe #Wiser

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.
-- Hugh Prather

#Believe #Consistency #Doubt

But it's morning. Within my hands is another day. Another day to listen and love and walk and glory. I am here for another day.
-- Hugh Prather

#Morning #Hands #And Love

I'd rather be happy than right.
-- Hugh Prather

#Happiness

The ego, as a collection of our past experiences, is continually offering miserable lines of thought. It's as if there were a stream with little fish swimming by, and when we hook one of them there is a judgment. The ego is constantly judging everybody and everything. It has its constant little chit chat about things that can happen in the future, things about the past, too, and these are the little fish that swim by. And what we learn to do-this is why it takes work-is to not reach out and grab a fish.
-- Hugh Prather

#Swimming #Past #Offering

Life is also a mixture of unsolved problems, ambiguous victories and vague defeats-with very few moments of clear peace.
-- Hugh Prather

#Victory #Mixtures #Problem

Why choose to be right instead of happy when there is no way to be right?
-- Hugh Prather

#Way

Stands must be taken. If I am to respect myself I have to search myself for what I believe is right and take a stand on what I find. Otherwise, I have not gathered together what I have been given; I have not embraced what I have learned; I lack my own conviction.
-- Hugh Prather

#Believe #Taken #Together

Forgive and be happy. That is the ancient secret?the only wisdom ever to be attained.
-- Hugh Prather

#Secret #Forgiving #Ancient

If the ocean was pure mind and I was a wave, I would be in terror if Itried to distinguish myself fromthe water that produced me.What is a wave without water, and what is a mind without God?
-- Hugh Prather

#Ocean #Water #Mind

It seems that the truth is needed today is always a lie by tomorrow.
-- Hugh Prather

#Lying #Today #Tomorrow

If I work toward an end, meantime I am confined to a process.
-- Hugh Prather

#Ends #Process

If my attention is wandering, there is somewhere it wants to go, so obviously it does not want to be where I am holding it in the name of some self-styled obligation.
-- Hugh Prather

#Self #Names #Doe

Negative feedback is better that none. I would rather have a man hate me than overlook me. As long as he hates me I make a difference.
-- Hugh Prather

#Hate #Cocky #Men

I live now and only now, and I will do what I want to do this moment and not what I decided was best for me yesterday.
-- Hugh Prather

#Yesterday #Want #Moments

By approaching my problems with "What might make things a little better?" rather than "What is the solution?" I avoid setting myself up for certain frustration. My experience has shown me that I am not going to solve anything in one stroke; at best I am only going to chip away at it.
-- Hugh Prather

#Frustration #Might #Littles

Most words evolved as a description of the outside world, hence their inadequacy to describe what is going on inside me.
-- Hugh Prather

#World #Description #Inadequacy

I can't be found in myself; I discover myself in others. That much is clear. And I suspect that I also love and care for myself in others.
-- Hugh Prather

#Volunteer #Care #Found

When someone disagrees with me, I do not have to immediately start revising what I just said. People don't want me to always agree with them. They can sense this is phony. They can sense I am trying to control them: I am agreeing with them to make them like me. They feel; "I don't want to exist to like you. I DON'T exist to like you."
-- Hugh Prather

#People #Trying #Want

Very seldom will a person give up on himself. He continues to have hope because he knows he has the potential for change. He tries again - not just to exist, but to bring about those changes in himself that will make life worth living. Yet people are very quick to give up on friends, and especially on their spouses, to declare them hopeless, and to either walk away or do nothing more than resign themselves to a bad situation.
-- Hugh Prather

#Change #Giving Up #People

What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.
-- Hugh Prather

#Trying #Energy #Absurd

The first step of letting go: To remove what obstructs your experience of wholeness and peace, you must first look at the obstruction.
-- Hugh Prather

#Letting Go #Steps #Looks

Today I don't want to live for, I want to live.
-- Hugh Prather

#Want #Today

Don't strive for love, be it.
-- Hugh Prather

#Love Is #Strive

Fears, indecision, and frustration feed on words. Without words they usually stop. . . . Words are at times good for looking back, but they are confining when I need to act in the present.
-- Hugh Prather

#Frustration #Needs #Indecision

We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.
-- Hugh Prather

#People #Feelings #Misunderstood

'Fault' means failure to meet a standard. Whose? Mine.
-- Hugh Prather

#Failure #Mean #Faults

We become what we look at most.
-- Hugh Prather

#Looks

Letting people in is largely a matter of not expending the energy to keep them out.
-- Hugh Prather

#People #Energy #Matter

Whenever we condemn, we cloak the world in pain.
-- Hugh Prather

#Inspirational #Pain #World

Next time I will ..." "From now on I will ..." - What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow?
-- Hugh Prather

#Thinking #Today #Next