Hugh Prather

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“Whenever we condemn, we cloak the world in pain.”

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

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

“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.”

“To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and 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.”

“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?”

“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.”