Top 65 Quotes & Sayings by Morrie Schwartz

We have a sense that we should be like the mythical cowboy... able to take on and conquer anything and live in the world without the need for other people.

The little things, I can obey. But the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone - or any society - determine those for you.

We're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going.

It's not too late to develop new friendships or reconnect with people.

After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and the life you have left.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.

Learn how to live and you'll know how to die; learn how to die, and you'll know how to live.

It's not to late to... ask yourself if you really are the person you want to be, and if not, who you do want to be.

Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.

When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.

Grieve and mourn for yourself not once or twice, but again and again.

Everything that gets born dies.

The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.

Dying is only one thing to be sad over... Living unhappily is something else.

This is how you start to get respect: by offering something that you have.

One hundred and ten years from now no one who is here now will be alive.

So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things.

What tipped the scales was that psychology involved working with rats.

I'd always been interested in psychology.

Although you may be old or sick, it's not too late to take stock and ask yourself if you really are the person you want to be, and if not, who you do want to be.

Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did we would do things differently. Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, "Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?

Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?

We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said." Love is the only rational act.

If we can remember the feeling of love we once had, we can die without ever going away.

I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with.

And, in addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live every day when you don't know what's going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you'll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you'll be sexy-and you believe them! It's such nonsense.

There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like. In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.

It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.

Keep your heart open for as long as you can, as wide as you can, for others and especially for yourself.

Acceptance is not a talent you either have or don't have. It's a learned response. My meditation teacher made a great point about the difference between a reaction and a response: You may not have control over your initial reaction to something, but you can decide what your response will be. You don't have to be at the mercy of your emotions, and acceptance can be your first step toward empowerment . . . For me, acceptance has been the cornerstone to my having an emotionally healthy response to my illness.

Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back

My contention is that as long as you have other faculties-the emotional, psychological, intuitive faculties-you haven't lost yourself or even diminished yourself. Don't be ashamed when you're physically limited or dysfunctional; don't think that you're any less because of your condition. In fact, I feel I am even more myself than I was before I got this illness because I have been able to transcend many of the psychological and emotional limitations I had before I developed ALS.

All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.

Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it.

There is no experience like having children...If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.

What is it about silence that makes people uneasy?

Once you learn how to die you learn how to live.

Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another

When you learn to die, you learn to live.

The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.

The truth is, part of me is every age. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.

Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others.

We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives.

Build a little community of those you love and who love you

In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive. And at the end of life, we need others to survive. But here's the secret, in between, we need others as well.

For me, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them.

If you don’t have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all.

Life is like a wrestling match- we struggle to fight but we never know that the only side that wins is the one with great love in it.

If the culture doesn't work, don't buy it.

You don't understand. You're not a wave. You're part of the ocean.

The tension of opposites: Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.

Be compassionate, and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much a better place.

People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.

As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel.

Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time–then you might not be as ambitious as you are.

What's wrong with being number two?

These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. There were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship. Money is no substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have.

All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I'm not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I'm going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I'm going to experience them as well.

We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country…. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. MORE IS GOOD. MORE IS GOOD. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.