Top 190 Quotes & Sayings by Dan Millman - Page 3

Better never begin; once begun, better finish.

To see where something leads, it's best to wait until you've reached the end.

Autumn leaves shower like gold, like rainbows, as the winds of change begin to blow, signaling the later days of autumn.

Life is the only real teacher. It offers many experiences....But the lessons of experience are hidden.

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

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.

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.

Avoid fragmentation: Find your focus and seek simplicity. Purposeful living calls for elegant efficiency and economy of effort-expanding the minimum time and energy necessary to achieve desired goals.

My parents were only one part of my lineage. I also met a number of mentors, one of whom I nicknamed "Socrates" after the ancient Greek, and wrote about in my first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior. That book emerged in 1980, as a result of travels around the world and decades of preparation, eventually leading to 15 other books written over the years, culminating in my newest offering, The Four Purposes of Life.

Your fears are not walls, but hurdles.

As a peaceful warrior, I would choose when, where and how I would behave. With that commitment, I began to live the life of a warrior.

Choice means saying no to one thing so you can say yes to another.

A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.When we feel stuck, going nowhere -- even starting to slipbackward -- we may actually be backing up to get a runningstart.

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

The warrior acts, the fool reacts.

I had lost my mind and fallen into my heart.

Freedom from mental distraction equals power.

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

The first step to change,... is accepting your reality right now. Honoring your process. Compassionate self-awareness leads to change; harsh self-criticism only holds the pattern in place, creating a stubborn and defensive Basic Self. Be gentle with yourself as you would with a child. Be gentle but firm. Give yourself the space to grow. But remember that the timing is in god's hands, not yours. page~147

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

Like this gas tank, you are overflowing with preconceptions, full of useless knowledge. You hold many facts and opinions, yet know little of yourself. Before you can learn, you'll have to first empty your tank.

The only laws are paradox, humor and change.

My life has been less like a light switch suddenly turning on, and more like a dimmer switch slowly turned up, over time, more in some moments than others.

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.

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

Your greatest fear is death and your deepest craving is survival. You want Forever, you desire Eternity. In your deluded belief that you are this 'mind' or 'spirit' or 'soul', you find the escape clause in your contract with mortality. Perhaps as 'mind' you can wing free of the body when it dies, hmm?

When you lose your mind, you'll come to your senses.

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.

Stay present. You'll always have time to worry later on if you want to.

A flash of enlightenment offers a preview of coming attractions, but when it fades, you will see more clearly what separates you from that state - your compulsive habits, outmoded beliefs, false associations, and other mental structures. Just when our lives are starting to get better, we may feel like things are getting worse - because for the first time we see clearly what needs to be done.

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.

Here and now...breathe and relax...in battle and in life

Don't be like the preacher who thought about praying while making love with his life and thought about love while praying.

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.

The warrior is Here, Now.

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

If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary.

The birth of the mind is the death of the senses

My parents, like others of "The Greatest Generation" who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, wanted to provide the best possible life for their children. My mother and father both attended college but dropped out to earn a living during the Depression, working the rest of their lives at blue-collar work.

Dad, once an aspiring architect, drove his own catering truck to feed factory workers in downtown Los Angeles, and mom, with a Mensa IQ and mathematical gifts, served as a bookkeeper and worked in a grocery store while pursuing her calling in music: playing piano and composing songs. Perhaps in a way, part of my drive was to complete their unfulfilled ambitions and dreams, but in my own way.

When running up a hill, it is all right to give up as many times as you wish-as long as your feet keep on moving.

Book ideas are like planes, lined up to approach the runway. Some never leave the gate, but others move quickly to the front of the line. It was like that with The Four Purposes. Honestly, I cannot remember the moment I had the idea for the book; perhaps because it emerged like a green shoot emerging from the soil of my subconscious. But it seemed important enough to begin the flow of words that eventually shaped themselves into this new book.

While you fear missing a meal, you aren't fully aware of the meals you do eat.

People love miracle stories and dramatic moments of transcendence or transformation, and may then pursue their own dramatic "awakenings."

Sports and sex and movies are not inherently bad - But for you they're addictions, not enjoyments. You use them to distract you from what you know you should do. Break free!

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.

Someday, in the moment of death, your whole life will pass before you. In a few fractions of a second-because time no longer applies-you will see many incidents from your life in order to learn. You will review your life with two questions in your consciousness: Could I have shown a little more courage in these moments? Could I have shown a little more love? You will see where you let fear stop you from expressing who you are, how you feel, or what you need. You will see whether you were able to expand into these moments, just a little, to show love, or whether you contracted.

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.

Our practices - our most spiritual practices - are hanging laundry on the line, raising children, building strong relationships, practicing kindness as much as we can, striving for excellence in the workplace, and developing deeper self-knowledge. I wrote The Four Purposes of Life to assist in these endeavors.

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.

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

The light will disturb us when we're comfortable, and comfort us when we're disturbed. We turn to spirit for help when our foundations are shaking only to find out that it is spirit who is shaking them!

you can live a whole life time never being awake.

Consciousness is not in the body; the body is in consciousness. And you are that consciousness.

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.

Sometimes I look back and think, "How did I write that? The book is smarter than I am!" I have never written strategically, but rather, followed the dictates of my muse.

If we lose touch with our heart's wisdom, then no method avails; if we love, then nothing else is necessary.

Meditation is a valuable exercise, but eventually you have to open up your eyes and look around.

Action is stronger than subjectivity. No matter what you feel or think, you can still act.

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.