Top 169 Quotes & Sayings by Peter McWilliams - Page 2

To visualize is to see what is not there, what is not real - a dream. To visualize is, in fact, to make visual lies. Visual lies, however, have a way of coming true.

Nausea is an unsolved problem of medicine and marijuana is the finest anti-nausea medication known to science.

Every time we give our word, it counts. For the most part, people give their word entirely too often. Our word is a precious commodity and should be treated as such.

The more severe the pain or illness, the more severe will be the necessary changes. These may involve breaking bad habits, or acquiring some new and better ones.

All the things you think you should have done that you didn't do, and all the things you did that you think you shouldn't have done, accept them. You did (or didn't ) do them. That's reality. That's what happened. No changing the past.

Everyone thinks they can be a writer. Most people dont understand whats involved. The real writers persevere. The ones that dont either dont have enough fortitude and they probably wouldnt succeed anyway, or they fall in love with the glamour of writing as opposed to the writing of writing.

If we learned all we needed to know in kindergarten, it was promptly drummed out of us in first grade.

Most people, once they graduate from the School of Hard Knocks, automatically enroll in the University of Adversity.

If our early lessons of acceptance were as successful as our early lessons of anger how much happier we would all be.

The ongoing successful treatment of my depression is the single most important positive step I have taken in my life, hence my enthusiasm for the subject.

Contrary to popular belief, a good number of transvestites-both male and female-are also heterosexual. Just because they want to get dressed up like the opposite sex does not necessarily mean they want to go to bed with the same sex. Some have successful heterosexual marriages & enjoy the most delightful shopping experiences.

When thought and action are combined, the results are powerful-among the most powerful forces on earth. The combination of successful communication-the sharing of thoughts-and physical action can, literally, move mountains.

Find your horse. Discover the direction the horse is going. Ride the horse in that direction.

Some people think that meditation takes time away from physical accomplishment. Taken to extremes, of course, that's true. Most people, however, find that meditation creates more time than it takes.

Guilt is anger directed at ourselves.

Marijuana is the finest anti-nausea medication known to science, and our leaders have lied about this consistently. [Arresting people for] medical marijuana is the most hideous example of government interference in the private lives of individuals. It's an outrage within an outrage within an outrage.

First, all relationships are with yourself-and sometimes they involve other people. Second, the most important relationship in your life-the one you have, like it or not, until the day you die-is with yourself.

If we're not enjoying what we've got...and even if we do get 'more,' we won't enjoy that, either.

Ultimately, censorship comes down to taste. What offends me may enlighten you. Do you want me deciding-based on my taste-what you should or should not be exposed to?

Although a lot can be learned from adversity, most of the same lessons can be learned through laughter and joy.

Running from fear only strengthens fear-you are demonstrating that fear has power over you. Fear must be faced and gone through.

For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction... A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three - the mind, the body, and the emotions. If one doesn't get you, the others are waiting in the wings.

Acceptance is such an important commodity, some have called it "the first law of personal growth".

Under this law (Controlled Substances Act) a bureaucrat-usually not elected-decides whether or not a substance is dangerous and how dangerous that substance is. There's no more messing around with legislatures, presidents, or other bothersome formalities. When MDMA (ecstasy) was made illegal in 1986, no elected official voted on that. It was done "in house." People are now in jail because they did something that an administrator declared was wrong.

Our thoughts create our reality-not instantly, necessarily, as in "Poof! There it is" - but eventually. Where we put our focus - our inner and outer vision - is the direction we tend to go. That's our desire, our intention.

Most of what's around us we take for granted. We ignore it. Appreciation-spending time looking for the good-helps us overcome one of the primary limitations to enjoying the wealth we already have: ignoreance.

No matter what you do, no matter how stupid, dumb or damaging you judge it to be, there is a lesson to be learned from it. No matter what happens to you, no matter how unfair, inequitable or wrong, there's something you can take from the situation and use for your advancement.

There are many misconceptions about depression-mostly negative. Unfortunately, because depressed people think negatively about depression and its treatment, they don't get help, which allows the depression to worsen, which leads to more negative thinking, which produces a vicious cycle of suffering.

Prison is a crash course in the darker side of life. Few survive it without becoming a different person: more cynical, jaded, fearful, angry. Its hard to trust again, hard to believe, easy to hate a system that destroyed your life behind the pompous pretense of saving you from yourself, for your own good.

If we aren't actively pursuing what we want, we don't really want it.

For writing, getting off our buts means getting on our butts-putting it into a chair and not moving from the chair for a set period of time.

That's what depression had wrought inside me: one, vast, barren rock garden-without the garden

there is nothing to be done. only accept it... and hurt.

Pettiness seems to go hand in hand with vindictiveness. The smaller the person, the larger the need for revenge. This may account for the fact that some consensual crimes have stiffer penalties than do most crimes with innocent victims.

Drugs, gambling, and prostitution are the Big Three underground 'moneymakers' in consensual crime. There would be, however, significant boosts to the economy if the stigma attached to the other consensual crimes were eliminated through legalization.

We can do anything we want. The next time you hear yourself saying, to another-and especially yourself-I Can't, take a deep breath and say instead, My resources are otherwise engaged.

You're asking the government to control individual morality. This is a government that can't buy a toilet seat for under $600.

Anger begins as an inner twinge. We sense something long before it blossoms (explodes?) into an emotional tirade. If we listen to this twinge -- and follow its advice -- the emotional outburst (or in burst) is not needed.

You can have anything in life you really want - but you can't have everything in life you really want. Decide.

Send the light of your own loving ahead of you. When you get there, the loving will have prepared a place for you. Be kind, gentle, and enjoy the journey.

For the most part, most people most often choose comfort - the familiar, the time-honored, the well-worn but well-known. After a lifetime of choosing between comfort and risk, we are left with the life we currently have.

Pain (any pain-emotional, physical, mental) has a message. Once we get the pains message, and follow its advice, the pain goes away.

I am the representative of all the sick people and what they are doing to me is only the worst case right now, but there will be others. I am living on borrowed time anyway. I owe this part of my life to luck and modern medical science. But I can't imagine what the rest of it will be like if they won't let me use medical marijuana.

When we put things off until some future-probably mythical-Laterland, we drag the past into the future. The burden of yesterday's incompletions is a heavy load to carry. Don't carry it.

The part of us that feels anger and depression is the same part that feels peace and love. If you refuse to feel the anger and the pain of a loss, you will not be able to feel anything else until that area heals. In other words, stay out of your own way. Let yourself feel bad if you want to feel bad. Feel joy, too. Healing is taking place. Give yourself the gift of healing.

In order to truly master the comfort zone, we must learn to love it.

I must conquer my loneliness alone. I must be happy with myself or I have nothing to offer you. Two halves have little choice but to join; and yes, they do make a whole. But two wholes when they coincide... that is beauty. That is love.

I'd have a nervous breakdown except that I've been through this too many times to be nervous.

Depression is an illness that robs one of the meaning of life. Heal the illness. As the depression heals, enthusiasm, well-being, and a sense of life's purpose will return.

The state, frankly, could care less. Historically, the state has been able to use any religious point of view for its own ends. . . . The examples of government misusing religion are endless.

Laughter is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we're not well, laughter helps us get well. If we are well, laughter helps us stay that way.

Whenever something good happens, write it down. Buy a special notebook . . . and use it to list all the good in your life.

..Since depression is a genetic biological illness, like diabetes, or low thyroid, it wasn't lack of character, laziness, or something I could "snap out of"-it would be like trying to snap out of a toothache.

The only difference between 'fear' and 'excitement' is what we label it.

Heroes became heroes flaws and all gives us hope. "You mean I don't have to be perfect to fulfill my Dream, to make a contribution?" Hardly. It takes commitment, courage, and passion to live a dream and make a contribution. Heroes had these qualities along with their flaws.

Because people are afraid of fear, they give up acre after acre of their own life.

If you were arrested for being kind to yourself..would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Positive thoughts: joy, happiness, fulfillment, achievement, worthiness, have positive results: enthusiasm, calm, well-being, ease, energy, love.

The comfort zone takes our greatest aspirations and turns them into excuses for not bothering to aspire.

This is our true wealth: the riches we take with us, the joy we carry inside, the support we learn to give ourselves, and the self-loving that flows as a natural by-product of that support.