Top 122 Quotes & Sayings by Hugh Prather

I must act now without knowing the results. Thus, I give my actions their only possible meaning for me.

Now I know that this energy within me is seeking more than the mate or the profession or the religion - more even than pleasure or power or meaning. It is seeking more of me; or better, it is, thank God, releasing more of me.

We are always influenced because we do not live in a vacuum together with our intentions. We are in a relationship with everything that occurs.

Discouragement, if pursued, is the exercise of an option: to turn from creative to noncreative mental activity, to turn from what is present to what is over, to turn from that which builds to that which destroys.

The way for me to live is to have no way. My only habit should be to have none. Because I did it this way before is not sufficient reason to do it this way today.

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

Tomorrow is shallow, but today is as deep as truth.

How genuine is my capacity for love if there is no one for me to love, to laugh with, to treat tenderly, to be trusted by?

Love does not exclude; it embraces. If we don't love someone outside ourselves, then very simply, we do not love ourselves.

It is only in helping someone else to awake that I awake.

If I hold back any part of me, I suppress that much energy and potential. The question I want to ask myself now is not what behavior is good or bad, but in what ways would I express myself with greater energy if I didn't hold back.

Whenever we condemn, we cloak the world in pain.

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

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.

There are people whose feelings and well-being are within our influence. We can never escape this fact.

We are the only authority on what is good for us. Once we see this, we feel an enormous peace and freedom.

I don't want to work to make money. I want to work to work.

No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves.

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.

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

Ultimately, my character is defined by the quality of my sensitivity to other people. I exist in equilibrium. I am here to the degree I am there.

My only sure reward is in my actions, not from them.

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.

Maturity is wanting nothing but what we see with the purity of our heart.

Sometimes I doubt, and sometimes I believe. I like not making myself believe when I am doubting and not making myself doubt when I am believing.

I will be what I will be - and I am now what I am. Here is where I will devote my energy.

My trouble is I analyze life instead of live it.

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.

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.

A whole mind cannot create chaos. A conflicted mind can create nothing else.

Don't fight a fact, deal with it.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

You're wrong means that I don't understand you, I'm not seeing what you're seeing- and I'm not seeing all of you there is to see. But there is nothing wrong with you. You are what you need to be, doing what you need to be doing, and although I may take steps to protect myself of others, I do not know all and therefore am literally inadequate to judge.

It is your right to be happy. This is what you were made for. And if you will not resist, happiness will find a way to pour from your heart and fill your days.

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.

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.

The components of happiness are quite simple. Happiness is gentleness, peace, concentration, simplicity, forgiveness, humor, fearlessness, trust, and now. In its true form each quality includes all the rest, for happiness is whole, and one feels whole when genuinely happy.

If a man takes off his sunglasses I can hear him better.

Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Happiness is a present attitude and not a future condition.

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.

For communication to have meaning it must have a life. It must transcend "you and me" and become "us." If I truly communicate, I see in you a life that is not me and partake of it. And you see and partake of me. In a small way we then grow out of our old selves and become something new. To have this kind of sharing I cannot enter into a conversation clutching myself. I must enter into it with loose boundaries. I must give myself to the relationship, and be willing to be what grows out of it.