Here are sources of all the quotes used in Through God’s Eyes: Finding Peace and Purpose in a Troubled World.  This section is for last names from A-F.

IMPORTANT POINTS

• When an original source can’t be found, I list a book or website that contains the quote in question. Such sources are often unreliable, so I consider them simply as placeholders until the original source—or at least the earliest known appearance of the quote—is identified.

• Virtually all quotes in the book are presented verbatim as they appeared in the original sources. In rare instances, I’ve used popular or modern paraphrasings of original quotes.

• A misattributed quote often takes on a life of its own. Even if it bears little or no resemblance to the attributed source, it is worth including (with appropriate historical notes) if it offers insight and value. I did my best to honor the authenticity of every quote, but I am ultimately more concerned with content than authorship.

FOR EASE OF READING

• If the first word in a quote was not the start of a sentence, it has been capitalized anyway.

• If the last word in a quote was not the end of sentence, a period has been added anyway.

• Certain centuries-old quotes have been “updated” using modernized language and punctuation.

• When the author of the book listed is the person being quoted, I did not include the author’s name.

I NEED YOUR HELP

• This post will be updated frequently because identifying who said what, when, and where is a never-ending project.

• Any corrections (no matter how minor), new information, or better sources would be greatly appreciated. Let me emphasize that: I want to make this listing as perfect as possible, so your suggestions are expected and welcomed. You can contact me here.

Just as the plough furrows the earth deeply, purifying it of weeds and thistles, so suffering and tribulation free man from the petty affairs of this worldly life until he arrives at a state of complete detachment.
Abdu’l-Bahá
Paris Talks: Addresses Given by Abdul-Baha in 1911, Baha’i Publishing Trust, 2006, page 231

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.
Diane Ackerman
• Confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail
Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Schaef, HarperCollins, revised and updated edition, November 2, 2004, page 11

Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.
A Course in Miracles
Introduction

There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 2, Section 5: “The Correction for Lack of Love”

Only infinite patience can produce immediate effects.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 5, Section 9: “Time and Eternity”

The ego always seeks to divide and separate. The Holy Spirit always seeks to unify and heal.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 7, Section 4: “The Recognition of Truth”

There is no order of difficulty in miracles.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 7, Section 11: “The State of Grace”

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 16, Section 3: “Illusion and Reality of Love”

If you knew Who walks beside you on this way, which you have chosen, fear would be impossible.
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 18, Section 3: “Light in the Dream”

Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness.
A Course in Miracles
Article: “Your Brother’s Sinlessness”

No one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict.
A Course in Miracles
Manual for Teachers: “What Are the Characteristics of God’s Teachers?”

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.
Douglas Adams
Lentwise: Spiritual Essentials for Real Life by Paula Gooder, Church House Publishing, January 1, 2005, page 19

A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can possibly befall us.
Joseph Addison
The Guardian by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, Desilver, Thomas & Co., 1837, Google eBook, page 183

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.
Joseph Addison
The Spectator, Volume III by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, printed for J. and R. Tonson, 1726, Google eBook, page 218

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honour is a private station.
Joseph Addison
The Miscellaneous Works, printed for T. Walker, 1773, Google eBook, page 156

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
Joseph Addison
Mother India: Monthly Review of Culture, Volume 31, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1979, page 373

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
Joseph Addison
A Mind and Heart for Wellness by Louise Giroux, Wood Lake Publishing Inc., March 1, 1998, page 222

All the great and true spiritual masters offer their devotees a tangible spiritual realization of a greater reality, and a destiny greater than merely mortal, material existence. Divine realization itself—perfect happiness itself, complete awakening from the dream of mortal, limited existence—is the greatest of all human destinies, and the destiny for which every heart longs.
Adi Da Samraj
About Adidam and Adi Da website

For it is only face to face with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other that the god hidden in me will consent to appear.
Felix Adler
An Ethical Philosophy of Life Presented in its Main Outlines, D. Appleton and Company, 1918, page 225

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
Aeschylus
Fragment 385
Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett, Little, Brown and company, 1897, Google eBook, page 696

When a match has equal partners then I fear not.
Aeschylus
Prometheus Bound
Exploring Psychology, Seventh Edition, in Modules by David G. Myers, Worth Publishers, seventh edition, October 24, 2007, page 637

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
Aeschylus
My Search for Meaning by Viola M. Jaynes, FriesenPress, 2011, page 229

God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
Aeschylus
Context: A Commentary on the Interaction of Religion and Culture by Martin E. Marty, Volumes 38-39, Claretian Publications, 2006, page 16

Truth is the vital breath of Beauty; Beauty the outward form of Truth.
Grace Aguilar
The Vale of Cedars, J. M. Dent, 1902, Google eBook, page 312

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.
Akhenaton
Unto Thee I Grant, edited by Sri Ramatherio, Slusser Press, April 20, 2011, by page 85

Casteth he his eye towards the clouds, findeth he not the heavens full of his wonders? looketh he down to the earth, doth not the worm proclaim, “Less than omnipotence could not have formed me!”
Akhenaton
Unto Thee I Grant, edited by Sri Ramatherio, Slusser Press, April 20, 2011, by page 86

To suffer, is a necessity entailed upon thy nature, wouldst thou that miracles should protect thee from its lessons? or shalt thou repine, because it happeneth unto thee, when lo! it happeneth unto all? Suffering is the golden cross upon which the rose of the Soul unfoldeth.
Akhenaton
Unto Thee I Grant, edited by Sri Ramatherio, Slusser Press, April 20, 2011, by page 91

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them: but I can look up, and see their beauty; believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott
Work: A Story of Experience, Roberts Brothers, 1873, page 261

Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.
Alan Alda
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, Random House Digital, September 9, 2008, page 18

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. . . . What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.
Alan Alda
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, Random House Digital, September 9, 2008, pages 21-22

There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle.
Robert Alden
Mephibosheth: Transformation by a Covenant Love by Elias Yemane, Tate Publishing, September 1, 2007, page 15

Give all you are, all you have, nothing more is asked of you but also nothing less.
Mirra Alfassa (The Mother)
The Mother: Questions and Answers, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1973, page 13

He who does not desert his principles when threatened with the loss of every earthly thing, even to the loss of reputation and life, is the man of power.
James Allen
Mind is the Master: The Complete James Allen Treasury, Tarcher, December 24, 2009, page 60

All failures are apparent, not real. Every slip, every fall, every return to selfishness is a lesson learned, an experience gained, from which a golden grain of wisdom is extracted.
James Allen
Mind is the Master: The Complete James Allen Treasury, Tarcher, December 24, 2009, page 63

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
James Allen
Mind is the Master: The Complete James Allen Treasury, Tarcher, December 24, 2009, page 159

Mourning is not forgetting. . . . It is an undoing. Every minute tie has to be untied and something permanent and valuable recovered and assimilated from the knot.
Margery Allingham
The Tiger in the Smoke, Doubleday, 1952, page 33

Whenever conscience speaks with a divided, uncertain, and disputed voice, it is not yet the voice of God. Descend still deeper into yourself, until you hear nothing but a clear and undivided voice, a voice which does away with doubt and brings with it persuasion, light, and serenity.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Amiel’s Journal, Macmillan and Co., 1885, page 14

The man who has no inner life is a slave of his surroundings, as the barometer is the obedient servant of the air at rest, and the weathercock the humble servant of the air in motion.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Amiel’s Journal, Macmillan and Co., 1885, page 172

Every sort of mastery is an increase of one’s freedom.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, compiled and arranged by Larry Chang, Gnosophia Publishers, September 30, 2006, page 659
• Although this quote is listed on many websites, this is the only book in which I could find it. I am still hoping to source it to Amiel’s journals.

Mistakes are natural. Mistakes are how we learn. When we stop making mistakes, we stop learning and growing. But repeating the same mistake over and over is not continuous learning—it’s not paying attention.
Wally “Famous” Amos
Watermelon Magic: Seeds of Wisdom, Slices of Life by Wally Amos and Stu Glauberman, Simon and Schuster, April 8, 2008

My narrative:
As Indian saint Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi noted, offering God anything other than your love is like showing a candle to the sun.
• In Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart, edited by Janine Canan, Random House Digital, Inc., May 20, 2004, Amma’s poem, “Giver of Everything,” supports this statement:

God is the giver of everything
and does not need or want
anything form us.

God is a giver,
who gives like the sun.
The sun does not need light
from a candle.

• As for the “offering God anything other than your love” part, the following quote by Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is on numerous websites:

Offering anything other than our love is like showing a candle to the sun.

It is so. It cannot be otherwise.
Inscription on the ruins of a fifteenth-century cathedral in Amsterdam
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, Simon and Schuster, October 5, 2004, page 74

Everything is in God’s hands, and you are His tool to be used by Him as He pleases. Try to grasp the significance of “all is His”, and you will immediately feel free from all burdens. What will be the result of your surrender to Him? None will seem alien, all will be your very own, your Self.
Anandamayi Ma
Life and Teaching of Sri Anandamayi Ma, by Alexander Lipski, Motilal Banarsidass Publications, 1977, page 51

You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you too.
Shrii Shrii Anandamurti
My Baba by Naveen Joshi, AuthorHouse, December 4, 2009, page 87
• Shrii Shrii Anandamurti was affectionately called Baba by his disciples

My narrative:
As inspirational author and speaker Andy Andrews playfully reminds us, we are either in a crisis, coming out of a crisis, or heading for a crisis.
In Mastering the Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success, Thomas Nelson Inc, April 15, 2008, Google eBook, page 70, Andrews writes:

It occurs to me that as you read this, you might be going through the worst time in your life. If that’s the case, know that it’s normal. We are all either in a crisis, coming out of a crisis, or headed for a crisis. It’s just part of being on this planet.

If life teaches us anything, it may be that it’s necessary to suffer some defeats. Look at a diamond: It is the result of extreme pressure. Less pressure, it is crystal; less than that, it’s coal; and less than that, it is fossilized leaves or just plain dirt.
Maya Angelou
Conversations with Maya Angelou, edited by Jeffrey M. Elliot, University Press of Mississippi, 1989, page 96

When trust removes fear, faith flows in.
Ann-Margret
I believe this quote appeared in Guideposts magazine and was sent out as a Daily Guideposts e-mail

It is easy to say no. To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.
Jean Anouilh
Antigone, Samuel French, Inc., 1974, page 52

We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck . . . and the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down.
Jean Anouilh
From Anouilh’s play, The Rehearsal, which is included in Five Plays, Hill and Wang, first edition, September 28, 1990, page 232

You are spiritually whole, complete and perfect, and your success and happiness in life will be in direct proportion to your ability to accept this truth about yourself.
Dr. Robert Anthony
Beyond Positive Thinking: A No-Nonsense Formula for Getting the Results You Want, Morgan James Publishing, LLC, August 3, 2004, page 30

A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what a ship is for.
Thomas Aquinas
How We Grieve: Relearning the World by Thomas Attig, Oxford University Press, November 4, 2010, page 25:
• Although this quote is listed on many websites, I have not been able to source it directly to Aquinas’ own writings

God is not in need of anything, but all things are in need of Him.
Marcianus Aristides
New Testament Words in Today’s Language by Wayne A. Detzler, Victor Books, December 1, 1986, page 145

The soul never thinks without an image.
Aristotle
De Anima, Book III, translated by R. D. Hicks, Cosimo, Inc., December 31, 2008, page 91

Friendship is a thing most necessary to life, since without friends no one would choose to live, though possessed of all other advantages.
Aristotle
Iolaus: An Anthology of Friendship by Edward Carpenter, Kessinger Publishing, May 15, 2006, page 56
• The following literal translation can be found in The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, George Bell and Sons, 1889, page 202: “[Friendship] is most necessary for life: for without friends no one would choose to live, even if he had all other goods.”

Where your talents and the world’s needs cross, there lies your vocation.
Aristotle
Making a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love by Barbara J. Winter, Bantam, revised edition, August 25, 2009, page 127
• Although this quote is listed on many websites, I have not been able to source it directly to Aristotle’s own writings

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
Aristotle
The Problem Behind All Problems by Michael Hansbury, Readworthy, January 1, 2009, page 126
• This is a modern paraphrasing of the following passage from Aristotle’s The Nichomachean Ethics as presented in Works, Volume 7, printed for the translator, by R. Wilks, 1811, Google eBook, page 314:

At the same time, however, even in these the beauty of good conduct shines forth, when a man bears many and great misfortunes easily, not through an insensibility of pain, but in consequence of being generous and magnanimous.

• Here is a second translation of the same passage, from Lectures in the Lyceum or Aristotle’s Ethics for English Readers, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897, Google eBook, page 47:

Nevertheless even under these the force of nobility shines out, when a man bears calmly many great disasters, not from insensibility, but because he is generous and of a great soul.

Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from his or her neck saying, “Make me feel important!” Never forget this message when working with people.
Mary Kay Ash
The Mary Kay Way: Timeless Principles from America’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur, with Yvonne Pendleton, John Wiley & Sons, July 8, 2008, page vii

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
Arthur Ashe
Congressional Record, V. 148, Pt. 1, January 23, 2002 to February 13, 2002, Government Printing Office, page 63

There is no such thing as can’t, only won’t. If you’re qualified, all it takes is a burning desire to accomplish, to make a change. Go forward, go backward. Whatever it takes! But you can’t blame other people or society in general. It all comes from your mind. When we do the impossible we realize we are special people.
Jan Ashford
21st Century Issues in America: An Introduction to Public Administration by James E. Pittman, AuthorHouse, September 22, 2009, page 287

One who has finally learned that it is in the nature of objects to come and go without ceasing, rests in detachment and is no longer subject to suffering.
Ashtavakra Gita
Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, compiled and arranged by Larry Chang, Gnosophia Publishers, September 30, 2006, page 222
• Although this quote is listed on a handful of websites, this is the only book in which I could find it. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

The spirit of man is an inward flame; a lamp the world blows upon, but never puts out.
Margot Asquith
An Autobiography, George H. Doran Company, 1922, Google eBook, page 69

Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
W. H. Auden
Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher, Penguin, March 30, 2010, Chapter 3

Healing . . . is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing Nature.
W. H. Auden
Poem: “The Art of Healing”
Collected Poems, edited by Edward Mendelson, Modern Library, February 13, 2007, page 836

God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them.
Rev. John Hill Aughey
Spiritual Gems of the Ages, Elm Street Printing Company, 1886, page 30

Men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, and pass themselves by.
Saint Augustine
The Confessions of St. Augustine, J. H. Parker, 1838, Google eBook, page 190

Faith is to believe what as yet you see not, of which faith the reward is to see what you believe.
Saint Augustine
The Confessions of St. Augustine, J. H. Parker, 1838, Google eBook, page 346

Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet.
Saint Augustine
The Confessions, Hendrickson Publishers, August 15, 2005, page 152

Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special regard to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.
Saint Augustine
The Works of Aurelius Augustine: A New Translation, Volume 9, edited by Rev. Marcus Dods, T. and T. CLark, 1873, “On Christian Doctrine,” page 24

Love, and do what you will.
Saint Augustine
Homily 7 on the First Epistle of John, no. 8

God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed.
Saint Augustine
The Idea of Catholicism: An Introduction to the Thought and Worship of the Church by Walter J. Burghardt and William F. Lynch, Meridian Books, 1964, page 20

Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
Saint Augustine
Finding God’s Will: Seek Him, Know Him, Take the Next Step by Gregg Matte, Gospel Light Publications, December 29, 2010, Google eBook, page 252

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.
Saint Augustine
The Treasury, Volume 11, G. J. Palmer and Sons, 1908, Google eBook, page 364

Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue.
Saint Augustine
Survival Notes for Graduates: Inspiration for the Ultimate Journey by Robert Stofel, Paulist Press, April 1, 2004, page 159
• In The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarshipedited by Kim S. Cameron and Gretchen M. Spreitzer, Oxford University Press, August 22, 2011, page 260, this quote is presented as:

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues: hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

Though defensive violence will always be “a sad necessity” in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men.
Saint Augustine
The Millennium Book of Cryptograms by Rene Cartry, Trafford Publishing, May 1, 2003, page 56
• Although this quote is on countless websites, I could find it in just this one book

Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.
Saint Augustine
• Although this quote is on countless websites, I could not find a book that included this exact phrasing

True, whole prayer is nothing but love.
Saint Augustine
Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster, HarperCollins, August 14, 1992, Google eBook, page 255

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
Saint Augustine
Who They Really Were: Preaching on Biblical Personalities by John R. Bodo, CSS Publishing, January 1, 2000, Google eBook, page 85
• According to Wikiquote, this quote is commonly attributed to Saint Augustine but it has not been sourced to his actual writings

He who is filled with love is filled with God himself.
Saint Augustine
The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations by Martin H. Manser, Westminster John Knox Press, June 1, 2001, page 236
• According to Wikiquote, this quote is commonly attributed to Saint Augustine but it has not been sourced to his actual writings

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
Saint Augustine
The Third Testament by John Eklund, iUniverse, 2010, page 121
• According to Wikiquote, this quote is commonly attributed to Saint Augustine but it has not been sourced to his actual writings

Then there are those who give without any remembrance of what they have done. They are like the vine that has brought forth a cluster of grapes, and having once borne its delicious fruit, seeks nothing more. As the horse that runs its race, the hound that tracks its game, and the bee that hives its honey, so should a man be when he has done an act of kindness—not seeking reward, not proclaiming his virtues, but passing on to the next act, as the vine passes on to bear another cluster of summer grapes.
Marcus Aurelius
This selection (which I have not personally confirmed) from Two Suns Rising: A Collection of Sacred Writings, edited by Jonathan Star, Book Sales, 1996, is a more modern translation of the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 5:6, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, page 145:

One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favor conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he think of the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced graves, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.

Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?
Marcus Aurelius
This selection from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle, New World Library, August 19, 2004, page 179, is a more modern translation of the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 5:8, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, pages 146-147:

That which happens to [or, suits] every man is fixed in a manner for him suitably to his destiny.

Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear.
Marcus Aurelius
This is the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 5:18, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, page 154.


The one thing worth living for is to keep one’s soul pure.
Marcus Aurelius
This selection from Wisdom Through the Ages: Book Two, edited by Helen Granat, Trafford Publishing, 2003, page 119, appears to be a more modern translation of the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 6:30, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, pages 171-172:

Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Strive to continue to be such as philosophy wished to make thee. Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life. There is only one fruit of this terrene life, a pious disposition and social acts.

True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: “You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise.” And everything is turned to one’s advantage when he greets a situation like this: “You are the very thing I was looking for.” Truly, whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art—and this art we call “life” is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing. What then could be strange or arduous, when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend?
Marcus Auerlius
This selection (which I have not personally confirmed) from Two Suns Rising: A Collection of Sacred Writings, edited by Jonathan Star, Book Sales, 1996, is a more modern translation of the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 7:68, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, pages 201-202:

It is in thy power to live free from all compulsion in the greatest tranquility of mind, even if all the world cry out against thee as much as they choose, and even if wild beasts tear in pieces the members of this kneaded matter which has grown around thee. For what hinders the mind in the midst of all this from maintaining itself in tranquility and in a just judgment of all surrounding things and in a ready use of the objects which are presented to it, so that the judgment may say to the thing which falls under its observation; This thou art in substance [reality], though in men’s opinion thou mayst appear to be of a different kind; and the use shall say to that which falls under the hand: Thou art the thing that I was seeking; for to me that which presents itself is always a material for virtue both rational and political, and in a word for the exercise of art which belongs to man or god. For everything which happens has a relationship either to god or man, and is neither new nor difficult to handle, but usual and apt matter to work on.

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
Marcus Aurelius
This selection from Priests for the Third Millennium by Timothy Michael Dolan, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2000, page 118, appears to be a more modern translation of the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 11:18, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, page 280:

It is not men’s acts which disturb us, for those acts have their foundation in men’s ruling principles, but it is our own opinions which disturb us. Take away these opinions then, and resolve to dismiss thy judgment about an act as if it were something grievous, and thy anger is gone.

Everything you wish to eventually achieve, you can have right now, if you don’t refuse it to yourself. And this means taking no notice of the past, trusting the future to providence, and living now in union with faith and justice.
Marcus Aurelius
This selection from The Spiritual Teachings of Marcus Aurelius by Mark Forstater, Harper Perennial, June 5, 2001, page 187, is a more modern translation of the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 12:1, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, page 289:

All those things at which thou wishest to arrive by a circuitous road, thous canst have now, if thou does not refuse them to thyself. And this means, if thou will take no notice of all the past, and trust the future to providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and justice.

To them that ask, where have you seen the Gods, or how do you know for certain there are Gods, that you are so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I ever seen my own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.
Marcus Aurelius
This selection from The Reflecting Pond by Liane Cordes, Hazelden Publishing, December 4, 1980, page 130, is a more modern translation of the literal translation of Aurelius’ Meditation 12:28, found in Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, Comelius H. Shaver, 1882, Google eBook, pages 300-301:

To those who ask, Where hast thou seen the gods or how dost thou comprehend that they exist and so worshippest them, I answer, in the first place, they may be seen even with the eyes; in the second place neither have I seen even my own soul and yet I honor it.

• A footnote on page 300 explains that the phrase, “seen even with the eyes,” may be explained by the Stoic doctrine that the universe is a god (Meditation 4:23) and that the celestial bodies are gods (Meditation 8:19).

Start learning to love God by loving those whom you cannot love.
Meher Baba
Treasury of Spiritual Wisdom: A Collection of 10,000 Inspirational Quotations by Andy Zubko, Motilal Banarsidass Publications, January 1, 2000, page 311

A day dawns, quite like other days; in it a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.
Maltbie D. Babcock
The Unitarian Register, Volume 98, American Unitarian Association, 1919, Google eBook, page 89

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell Publishing, 1977; softcover edition 1989, page 71

If you learn what this world is, how it works, you automatically start getting miracles, what will be called miracles. But of course nothing is miraculous. Learn what the magician knows and it’s not magic anymore.
Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell Publishing, 1977; softcover edition 1989, page 91

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.
Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell Publishing, 1977; softcover edition 1989, page 100

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.
Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell Publishing, 1977; softcover edition 1989, page 120

Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell Publishing, 1977; softcover edition 1989, page 144

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.
Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell Publishing, 1977; softcover edition 1989, page 159

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Dell Publishing, 1977; softcover edition 1989, page 177

Your highest right knows all futures. Listen to its whisper and find that the prize ahead is your own greatest happiness.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

The less you know about the game, and the less you remember you’re a player, the more senseless living becomes.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

Every turn in your life, every time you decide, you become parent to all your alternate selves who follow.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers
• This quote also appears in One, Dell, October 2, 1989, page 79 as:

Every turn in our lives, every time we decide, we become parents to all our alternate selves who follow.

Look into your fears, dare them to do their worst and cut them down when they try. If you don’t, they’ll clone themselves, mushroom till they surround you, choke the road to the life you want. Every turn you fear is empty air, dressed to look like jagged hell.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

Anger is always fear, and fear is always fear of loss.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

Clouds don’t worry about falling into the sea because they can’t (a) fall or (b) drown. But they are free to believe they can, and they may fear if they wish.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

How others deal with gifts you’ve given is not your decision, but theirs.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

When you live by the highest you know, the outcome of the game doesn’t matter. However it comes out, it came out right.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

Whatever inspires, also guides and protects.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

You don’t have to fight to live as you wish. Live as you wish and pay whatever price is required.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

If you want to meet someone who can fix any situation you don’t like, who can bring you happiness in spite of what other people say or believe, look in a mirror, then say this magic word: “Hello.”
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

Not being known doesn’t stop the truth from being true.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

To bring anything into your life, imagine that it’s already there.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers

No one can solve problems for someone whose problem is that they don’t want their problems solved.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers
• This quote also appears in One, Dell, October 2, 1989, pages 114-115 as:

No one can solve problems for someone whose problem is that they don’t want problems solved.

When you pull a propeller through compression, don’t be surprised when the engine starts.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers
• This quote also appears in Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 243 as:

When you pull a propeller through compression, don’t be surprised if the engine starts.

Shop for security over happiness and you buy it, at that price.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers
• This quote also appears in Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 244 as:

Shop for security over happiness and we buy it at that price.

You know nothing till intuition agrees.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers
• This quote also appears in >Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 244 as:

We know nothing till intuition agrees.

If it’s never your fault, you can’t take responsibility for it. If you can’t take responsibility for it, you’ll always be its victim.
Richard Bach
Messiah’s Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, book has no page numbers
• This quote also appears in Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 245 as:

If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.

No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it.
Richard Bach
One, Dell, October 2, 1989, page 115

We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture. . . . We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it to gravel, we can shape it into glory.
Richard Bach
One, Dell, October 2, 1989, page 118

There’s no disaster that can’t become a blessing, and no blessing that can’t become a disaster.
Richard Bach
One, Dell, October 2, 1989, page 121

One way to pick a future is to believe it’s inevitable.
Richard Bach
One, Dell, October 2, 1989, page 251

You have given your life to become the person you are today. Was it worth it?
Richard Bach
Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, compiled and arranged by Larry Chang, Gnosophia Publishers, September 30, 2006, page 173
• The closest version I could find in Bach’s own books was in the front matter of One, Dell, October 2, 1989

I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?

Overcome fear, behold wonder.
Richard Bach
Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 83

Do the meanings of the heart swim in the streams of our conversations, and do they matter most when they’re glimpsed through deep water, and never caught?
Richard Bach
Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 146

Running from safety is the only way to make your last word Yes!
Richard Bach
Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 196

Don’t tell me that my security comes from somebody else! Tell me I’mresponsible. Tell me security is a by-product of the gift I give of my skill and my learning and my love into the world. Tell me security comes from an idea given time and care.
Richard Bach
Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit, Delta, November 1, 1995, page 214

When a marriage comes to an end, we’re free to call it a failure. We’re also free to call it a graduation.
Richard Bach
Soul Flight: An Interview with Richard Bach by Gail Hudson of Amazon.com

It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion: for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate, and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.
Francis Bacon
Sir Francis Bacon: The Essayes or Counsels Civil and Moral, Whittaker and Co., 1851, Essay XVI: “Of Atheism,” page 81

Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
Mikhail Bakunin
According to The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, compiled by Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press, 1993, page 377, this quote is from God and the State, 1871, and reprinted in Bakunin on Anarchism, edited by Sam Dolgoff, Black Rose Books Ltd., December 1, 1980. However, I could not find this quote in either book.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.
Christina Baldwin
• Confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
James Baldwin
The Fire Next Time, Random House Digital, Inc., 1963, page 95

I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.
James Baldwin
Notes of a Native Son, Beacon Press, September 7, 1984, page 101

Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand the value of that silence and solitude whose starry plains are but the vestibule of Spiritual Worlds? . . . The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others,—existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no memory for spiritual things.
Honoré de Balzac
Seraphita , Roberts Bros., 1889, page 176

To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals— that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.
Honoré de Balzac
New Outlook, Volume 58, edited by Alfred Emanuel Smith, Outlook Publishing Company, Inc., 1898, page 272

Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.
Honoré de Balzac
Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment by Marc Gafni, Simon and Schuster, January 29, 2002, page 194

Joy has nothing to do with material things, or with a man’s outward circumstances. It is the simple fact of human experience that a man living in the lap of luxury can be wretched, and a man in the depths of poverty can overflow with joy.
William Barclay
The Letters to the Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, Saint Andrew Press, 1959, page 88

Truth can be outraged by silence quite as cruelly as by speech.
Amelia Barr
The Bow of Orange Ribbon: A Romance of New York by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr, Dodd, Mead and company, 1886, page 61

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
J. M. Barrie
Pride & Humility by Neilsons & D, Xulon Press, April 30, 2008, page 90

We are all failures—at least, all the best of us are.
J. M. Barrie
Rectorial address, May 3, 1922, St. Andrew’s University, Scotland

If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.
Lynda Barry
Wild Women Talk About Love by Varla Ventura, Conari Press, February 1, 2007, page 43

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside themselves was superior to circumstance.
Bruce Barton
The Man and the Book Nobody Knows, Bobbs-Merrill, 1959, page 24

Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want.
Bernard Baruch
Ladies’ Home Journal, Volume 64, LHJ Publishing, Inc., 1947, page 37

Men may spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.
J. Sidlow Baxter
Going Public With Your Faith: Becoming a Spiritual Influence at Work by William Carr Peel, Zondervan, September 25, 2003, page 193

We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.
Romare Bearden
Ebony, November 1975, Published by Johnson Publishing Company, page 122

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie
The Language of Letting Go: A Meditation Book and Journal for Daily Reflection, Hazelden Publishing, January 3, 2003, August 1 entry

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for the truth; and truth rewarded me.
Simone de Beauvoir
All Said and Done, Deutsch and Weidenfeld and Nicolson, May 23, 1974, page 16

The point of relationship is the added power that life gets in working with it as a channel. A good relationship gives life more power. If two people are strong together, then life has a more powerful channel than it has with two single people. It’s almost as though a third and larger channel has been formed.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Everyday Zen: Love and Work, HarperOne, first edition, March 22, 1989, pages 95-96

You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeing it.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Everyday Zen: Love and Work, HarperOne, first edition, March 22, 1989, page 151

The process of practice is to see through, not to eliminate, anything to which we are attached. We could have great financial wealth and be unattached to it, or we might have nothing and be very attached to having nothing. Usually, if we have seen through the nature of attachment, we will tend to have fewer possessions, but not necessarily.
Charlotte Joko Beck
Everyday Zen: Love and Work, HarperOne, first edition, March 22, 1989, page 188

We never lose an attachment by saying it has to go. Only as we gain awareness of its true nature does it quietly and imperceptibly wither away; like a sandcastle with waves rolling over, it just smooths out and finally—where is it? What was it?
Charlotte Joko Beck
Everyday Zen: Love and Work, HarperOne, first edition, March 22, 1989, page 188

No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
Henry Ward Beecher
Life Thoughts, Ballantyne and Company, 1858, Google eBook, page 48

Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.
Henry Ward Beecher
Life Thoughts, Ballantyne and Company, 1858, Google eBook, page 62

”I can forgive, but I cannot forget,” is only another way of saying, “I will not forgive.” A forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note—torn in two and burned up, so that it never can be shown against the man.
Henry Ward Beecher
Life Thoughts, Ballantyne and Company, 1858, Google eBook, page 67

The unthankful heart . . . discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find in every hour some heavenly blessings.
Henry Ward Beecher
Life Thoughts, Ballantyne and Company, 1858, Google eBook, page 72

Of all earthly music, that which reaches the furthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart.
Henry Ward Beecher
Life Thoughts, Ballantyne and Company, 1858, Google eBook, page 111

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. . . . Never excuse yourself to yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself; be lenient to everybody else.
Henry Ward Beecher
Letter to his son Herbert, October 18, 1878
Our Paper, Volume 10, Massachusetts Reformatory, Concord, Massachusetts, 1894, page 461

Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile initially scared me to death.
Betty Bender
From a set of pop-up cards made by Compendium, Inc.; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.
Betty Bender
From a set of pop-up cards made by Compendium, Inc.; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

We are literally God exploring God’s Self in an infinite Dance of Life.
Mellen-Thomas Benedict
Earth 2012: The Violet Age by Aurora Juliana Ariel, AEOS, Inc., June 22, 2010, page 193

To the artist is sometimes granted a sudden, transient insight which serves in this matter for experience. A flash, and where previously the brain held a dead fact, the soul grasps a living truth! At moments we are all artists.
Arnold Bennett
The Journal of Arnold Bennett, Garden City Publishing Company, 1933, page 38

The moment that any life, however good, stifles you, you may be sure it isn’t your real life.
Arthur Christopher Benson
Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, compiled and arranged by Larry Chang, Gnosophia Publishers, September 30, 2006, page 32
• Although this quote is listed on many websites, this is one of only two books in which I could find it. I am still hoping to source it to Benson’s writings.
• The closest passage I could find in Benson’s own writings was in Father Payne, Putnam, 1917, page 14, in which Benson quotes his tutor at school as saying:

The moment you feel stifled with anyone, whatever the subject is—art, books, religion, life—there is something wrong.

In whatever way people are devoted to Me, in that measure I manifest Myself to them.
Bhagavad Gita 4:11
God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda, Self-Realization Fellowship, 1995; hardcover edition 2005, Chapter 4, “The Supreme Science of Knowing God,” Verse 11, page 452

The sages call that man wise whose pursuits are all without selfish plan or longings for results, and whose activities are purified by the fire of wisdom.
Bhagavad Gita 4:19
God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda, Self-Realization Fellowship, 1995; hardcover edition 2005, Chapter 4, “The Supreme Science of Knowing God,” Verse 19, page 471

My narrative:
In the Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s definitive guide to the science of Self-realization, devotion is referred to as shraddha, the natural inclination of the heart quality to turn toward its Source in faith and surrender.
Bhagavad Gita 17:1
God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda, Self-Realization Fellowship, 1995; hardcover edition 2005, Chapter 17, “Three Kinds of Faith,” Verse 1, page 987, states:

Many men, ignorant of scriptural injunctions, prohibitions, and rituals, nevertheless possess great faith, or devotion (shraddha)—the natural inclination of the heart toward righteousness—and thus lead deeply religious lives.

But they for whom I am the supreme goal, who do all work renouncing self for me and meditate on me with single-hearted devotion, these I will swiftly rescue from the fragment’s cycle of birth and death, for their consciousness has entered into me.
Bhagavad Gita 12:6-7
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, second edition, May 17, 2007, pages 207-208

Still your mind in me, still yourself in me, and without doubt you shall be united with me, Lord of Love, dwelling in your heart.
Bhagavad Gita 12:8
God Makes the Rivers to Flow: An Anthology of the World’s Sacred Poetry and Prose by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, fourth edition, December 1, 2009, page 111

Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice. Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results, because there follows immediate peace.
Bhagavad Gita 12:12
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, second edition, May 17, 2007, page 208

If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive.
Bhagavad Gita
The Peace Bible: Words from the Great Traditions, edited by Steven Scholl, Kalimat Press, 2002, page 23
Although this quote is widely attributed to the Bhagavad Gita, I cannot find it in the Bhagavad Gita itself. It was used in Alan Cohen’s Daily Quotes e-mail, July 31, 2012.

My narrative:
To paraphrase the Bhagavad Gita, the holiest of ancient Hindu scriptures, the eternal soul cannot be burned by fire, drowned by water, or pierced by any weapon.
• In The Living Age, Volume 114, by Eliakim Littell and Robert S. Littell, Littell, Son and Co., 1872, page 82, it states:

. . . in the Bhagavad-Gita . . . Krishna says, “Immortality and death, being and not being, am I, O Arjuna” He is everything, its source, its goal, father and mother of this world, whence all things and beings come, whither all return. The soul is immutable, impenetrable, incombustible, can neither be pierced by darts, nor burned by fire, nor drowned by water, nor dried by wind.

If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you, every moment becomes a prayer.
Frank Bianco
A Treasury Of Inspirational Thoughts by S.P. Sharma, Pustak Mahal, January 1, 2002, Google eBook, page 109

Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Bible passage: Exodus 23:20
King James Version

Be still, and know that I am God.
Bible passage: Psalms 46:10
King James Version

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
Bible passage: Ecclesiastes 9:10
King James Version

Ye have not, because ye ask not.
Bible passage: James 4:2
King James Version

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Bible passage: Isaiah 55:8-9
King James Version

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Bible passage: Psalms 118:24
King James Version

If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Bible passage: 1 John 4:12
King James Version

An honest answer is like a kiss of friendship.
Bible passage: Proverbs 24:26
New Living Translation

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
Bible passage: Philippians 4:8
New American Standard Bible

And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
Bible passage: Romans 8:28
New English Translation

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
Ambrose Bierce
Songs of the Dragonfly: Begging for Enlightenment by Duston Anderten, Trafford Publishing, November 1, 2003, page 18

Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up, depends on the stuff he’s made of.
Josh Billings
Forbes, Volumes 10-11, Forbes Inc., October 14, 1922, Google eBook, page 28

Forgetfulness of self is remembrance of God.
Bayazid al-Bistami
The Simple Feeling of Being: Embracing Your True Nature by Ken Wilber, edited by Mark Palmer, Shambhala Publications, July 13, 2004, page 158

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.
William Blake
The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, Anchor, March 5, 1997, page 39

Where others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the sons of God shouting for joy.
William Blake
Complete Writings of Oscar Wilde: The House of Pomegranates. De Profundis., Nottingham Society, 1905, page 161

We say we waste time, but that is impossible. We waste ourselves.
Alice Bloch
It’s All About You: Live the Life You Crave by Mary Goulet and Heather Reider, Simon and Schuster, October 9, 2007, page 50

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.
Amy Bloom
God’s Guest List: Welcoming Those Who Influence Our Lives by Debbie Macomber, Simon and Schuster, July 26, 2011, page 200

The moment you place your happiness in the fulfillment of any want or wish, that is, outside yourself, outside the Way, in anything but the thing as it is, as it is becoming, at that moment your balance is lost and you fall straight from Heaven to Hell.
Reginald Horace Blyth
Zen and Zen Classics, Volume 1, Hokuseido Press, 1970, page 57

All know the way, few actually walk it.
Bodhidharma
The Wisdom of the Zen Masters by Irmgard Schloegl, New Directions Publishing, March 1, 1976, page 12

I am but a finger pointing at the moon. Don’t look at me; look at the moon.
Bodhidharma
This translation is but one of many that express the same idea. I have not found a credible source for it other than miscellaneous blogs.

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
Paul Boese
The Forgiveness Formula: How to Let Go of Your Pain and Move On With Your Life by Kathleen Griffin, Da Capo Press, August 23, 2004, page 48
• This quote was first published in the February 19, 1967 issue of Quote: The Weekly Digest, (Vol. 53, No. 8, p. 146), published by Droke House, Inc.

My narrative:
Medieval Roman philosopher Boethius wrote in Consolation of Philosophy that the wheel of life, which represents the mercurial nature of fortune, is always in motion. The only changeless portion is the wheel’s center where God presides, offering you protection from the vagaries of life on earth.
• Wikipedia states:

“The Boethian Wheel” is a model for Boethius’ belief that history is a wheel, that Boethius uses frequently in the Consolation; it remained very popular throughout the Middle Ages, and is still often seen today. As the wheel turns those that have power and wealth will turn to dust; men may rise from poverty and hunger to greatness, while those who are great may fall with the turn of the wheel. It was represented in the Middle Ages in many” relics of art depicting the rise and fall of man. Descriptions of “The Boethian Wheel” can be found in the literature of the Middle Ages from the “Romance of the Rose” to Chaucer.

Helping someone else takes you out of your head—where fear and doubt dwell—and puts you back into your heart. You’ll discover . . . that you are part of a larger family that needs you.
Ariane de Bonvoisin
Guideposts, October 2009, page 77

Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.
Louis Eugene Boone
Insights on Leadership, Volume 3: Executives by Russ Volckmann, page 17

Time is the substance of which I am made. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which mangles me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges: A Personal Anthology, Grove Press, January 14, 1994, “A New Refutation of Time,” page 64

No Winter lasts forever, no Spring skips its turn.
Hal Borland
Sundial of the Seasons, Lippincott, 1964, page 49

Praying men must be strong in hope, and faith, and prayer.
E. M. Bounds
E. M. Bounds on Prayer, Hendrickson Publishers, June 30, 2006, page 205

Our praying, to be strong, must be buttressed by holy living. The life of faith perfects the prayer of faith.
E. M. Bounds
E. M. Bounds on Prayer, Hendrickson Publishers, June 30, 2006, page 238

Security is a false god; begin making sacrifices to it and you are lost.
Paul Bowles
Travels, HarperCollins, August 30, 2011, page 220

Self-denial is a kind of holy association with God; and by making him your partner interests him in all your happiness.
Robert Boyle
A Dictionary of Thoughts, edited by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Co., 1908, Google eBook, page 513

If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
The Journey Called You: A Roadmap to Self-Discovery and Acceptanceby Julie Fuimano, Nurturing Your Success Publications, 2005, page 162

The Quantum Hologram has always been here; it is everywhere all the time; and it appears to have what Western scientists are now calling “intelligence.” Except for the language, this field sounds very similar to what the ancients called God.
Gregg Braden
Adapted from remarks from the essay, “Oneness and the Quantum Hologram“; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

As Western science would put it, coherent human emotion, which occurs when what we are thinking, feeling, and expressing are all in alignment, produces a chemical change in our bodies, and that chemical change has quantum effects that extend beyond our bodies and bring about changes in our physical world (and now it’s no longer a “miracle”).
Gregg Braden
Adapted from remarks from the essay, “Oneness and the Quantum Hologram“; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

Ego is to the true self what a flashlight is to a spotlight.
John Bradshaw
Bradshaw On: The Family: a New Way of Creating Solid Self-Esteem by John Bradshaw, HCI, November 1, 1996, page 249

We need more than love to make love last.
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 19

Knowing how to keep our excitement for another person alive is not different from knowing how to keep alive our excitement for life.
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 33

Love is for people who know who they are.
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 53

Joy is a nutrient of love: it makes love grow.
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 61

Four of the most loving words in the world are : “Tell me about it.”
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 90

Love is for those who understand that it is now or never.
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 166

If we have the self-confidence and the wisdom to be the friend of our partner’s growth, then growth is no threat. If we set ourselves against it, we invite tragedy.
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 178

The value of a relationship lies in the joy it affords, not in its longevity. . . . The ending of a relationship does not mean that someone has failed. It means only that someone has changed, perhaps for the better.
Nathaniel Branden
The Romantic Love Question & Answer Book, coauthored by E. Devers Branden, J.P. Tarcher, 1982, page 206

When something is missing in your life, it usually turns out to be someone.
Robert Brault
Originally posted on Brault’s blog on February 12, 2010; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.
Bertolt Brecht
Success Intelligence: Essential Lessons and Practices from the World’s Leading Coaching Program on Authentic Success by Robert Holden, Hay House, Inc., May 6, 2008, page 109

From the perspective of a healer, illness is the result of imbalance. Imbalance is a result of forgetting who you are. Forgetting who you are creates thoughts and actions that lead to an unhealthy lifestyle and eventually to illness. . . . Illness can thus be understood as a lesson you have given yourself to help you remember who you are.
Barbara Ann Brennan
Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field, Random House Digital, Inc., May 1, 1988, Introduction





If you want to put yourself on the map, publish your own map.
Ashleigh Brilliant
Pot-shot epigram #651 from Ashleigh Brilliant’s website; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail



A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.
David Brinkley
The Heart of a Mother: Life Lessons That My Mother Taught Me by Patrick K. Lombule, AuthorHouse, August 19, 2009, page 28

Ego has a voracious appetite, the more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.
Nathaniel Bronner, Jr.
Who Stole My Soul?: A Dialogue with the Devil on the Meaning of Lifeby Vishwa Prakash, BookPros, LLC, November 1, 2009, page 119

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you.
Rupert Brooke
The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, IndyPublish, July 11, 2008, hardcover, “Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire,” page 18

If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth, we must still march on.
Rev. Stopford A. Brooke
Christ in Modern Life: Sermons Preached in St. James’ Chapel, York Street, St. James’ Square, London, 1882, Google eBook, page 235

O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks!
Phillips Brooks
Twenty Sermons: Fourth Series, Volume 4, E.P. Dutton, 1894, Google eBook, page 330

The true way to be humble is not to stoop till you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that shall show you what the real smallness of your greatest greatness is.
Phillips Brooks
Sermons, E.P. Dutton, 1888, Google eBook, page 340

Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger; which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is the child of God.
Phillips Brooks
Addresses, Mershon, 1900, Google eBook, page 76

Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God’s Paradise.
Phillips Brooks
Herald of Gospel Liberty: General Convention of the Christian Church, Volume 107, Issues 1-26, Christian Pub. Association, 1915, Google eBook, page 619

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.
Phillips Brooks
Machinists’ Monthly Journal, Official Organ of the International Association of Machinists, Volumes 44-45, 1932, page 368

I do not pray for a lighter load, but for a stronger back.
Phillips Brooks
Prayer in America: A Spiritual History of Our Nation by James P. Moore, Jr., Random House Digital, Inc., September 18, 2007, Google eBook, page 201

The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.
Phillips Brooks
Success by Orison Swett Marden, W. A. Wilde & company, 1897, Google eBook, page 140

That in order to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him, we must at first apply to Him with some diligence: but that after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty.
Brother Lawrence
The Practice of the Presence of God, and the Spiritual Maxims, Cosimo, Inc., December 31, 2006, Google eBook, page 7

There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God.
Brother Lawrence
The Practice of the Presence of God, and the Spiritual Maxims, Cosimo, Inc., December 31, 2006, Google eBook, page 26

Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave Him not alone. You would think it rude to leave a friend alone who came to visit you; why, then, must God be neglected?
Brother Lawrence
The Practice of the Presence of God, and the Spiritual Maxims, Cosimo, Inc., December 31, 2006, Google eBook, page 33

The best proof of love is trust.
Dr. Joyce Brothers
Good Housekeeping, Volume 181, Hearst Corp., 1975, page 45

My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants.
Joseph Brotherton
A Homiletical Commentary on the Book of Esther by Rev. William Burrows, Dickinson, 1881, Google eBook, page 213

Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The Parent You Want to Be: Who You Are Matters More Than What You Do by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott, Zondervan, September 18, 2007, page 113

The best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Life’s Little Instruction Book: 511 Suggestions, Observations, and Reminders on How to Live a Happy and Rewarding Life, Rutledge Hill Press, May 1, 1991
• I have been unable to track down the correct page number

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.
Rita Mae Brown
A Restored Vessel: A Guide to Overcoming Trauma by Nicole C. Barber, Xulon Press, 2008, page 29

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Aurora Leigh, Oxford University Press, USA, Reissue edition, October 15, 2008, Book VII, page 246

She knows Omnipotence hath heard her prayer,
And cries, “It shall be done, sometime, somewhere.”
Ophelia G. Browning
Heart throbs, Chapple Pub. Co., 1911, Google eBook, page 359

We have been too content with allocating the high places of spirituality to the few names of a far-off past, and with assigning the muddy depths to humanity in general. We forget our own divine nature. For we too can approach Jesus, become Buddha-like or win the wisdom of a Plato.
Paul Brunton
The Secret Path: A Technique of Spiritual Self-Discovery for the Modern World, Rider, 1969, page 40

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan
The Second Battle: or, The New Declaration of Independence, W.B. Conkey Company, 1900, Google eBook, page 109

I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight—when you can explain to me the mystery of the watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.
William Jennings Bryan
Id: The True You by Mark Batterson, Xulon Press, 2004, page 186

Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness; a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.
William Cullen Bryant
Delivered at a banquet given by the press of New York, December 15, 1851
Famous American Statesmen and Orators, Past and Present, compiled by Alexander Kelly McClure and Byron Andrews, F. F. Lovell Pub. Co., 1902, page 63

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.
Martin Buber
The Legend of the Baal-Shem, Princeton University Press, April 17, 1995, page 36

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
Buddha
A Cup of Buddha by Thomas D. Craig, O Books, May 27, 2011, page 73

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.
Buddha
A Cup of Buddha by Thomas D. Craig, O Books, May 27, 2011, page 74

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.
Buddha
The Dhammapada by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, April 13, 2007, page 45

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Buddha
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn by Richard Wesley Hamming, Taylor & Francis, 1997, Google eBook, page 13

In the search for truth there are certain questions that are not important. Of what material is the universe constructed? Is the universe eternal? Are there limits or not to the universe? . . . If a man were to postpone his search and practice for Enlightenment until such questions were solved, he would die before he found the path.
Buddha
Treasury of Spiritual Wisdom: A Collection of 10,000 Inspirational Quotations by Andy Zubko, Motilal Banarsidass Publications, January 1, 2000, page 410

Love is beauty and beauty is truth, and that is why in the beauty of a flower we can see the truth of the universe.
Buddha
Visions from Earth by James R. Miller, Trafford Publishing, 2004, page 99

In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate.
Buddha
The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present in the Life You Have by Mark Nepo, Conari Press, October 1, 2011, page 413

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act upon them?
Buddha
Compelling Conversations: Questions and Quotations on Timeless Topics, written, compiled, and edited by Eric H. Roth and Toni Aberson, Chimayo Press, October 29, 2010, page 50

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha
The Subtlety of Emotions by Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, MIT Press, October 1, 2001, page 471

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
Buddha
The Authentic Heart: An Eightfold Path to Midlife Love by John Amodeo, John Wiley and Sons, January 22, 2001, page 240

If you endeavor to embrace the Way through much learning, the Way will not be understood. If you observe the Way with simplicity of heart, great indeed is this Way.
Buddha
Zen for Americans by Sōen Shaku, Dorset Press, 1906, page 8

There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.
Buddha
The Buddha’s Way of Happiness: Healing Sorrow, Transforming Negative Emotion, and Finding Well-Being in the Present Moment by Thomas Bien, New Harbinger Publications, January 1, 2011, page xiii

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Buddha
Walking the Path: The Cree to the Celtic by Shirley Laboucane, O Books, 2012, page 23

On life’s journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.
Buddha
Spiritual Quest of a Baby Yogi: Journey Through Islam, Christianity, and Beyond by Dev Prana, iUniverse, December 16, 2010, page 27

The wind cannot shake a mountain. Neither praise nor blame moves the wise man.
Buddha
The World in a Phrase: A History of Aphorisms by James Geary, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, October 17, 2006, page 34

If it is not truthful and not helpful, don’t say it.
If it is truthful and not helpful, don’t say it.
If it is not truthful and helpful, don’t say it.
If it is truthful and helpful, wait for the right time.
Buddha
Inspiration Peak website

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
Buddha
This quote has been attributed to various sources, including Thai monk Achann Chaa of Wat Po Pong (1918-1992); Charles Reade (1814-1884); Patrick Overton; a mysterious character named Frank Outlaw; and “Elizabeth C.,” who purportedly wrote it and e-mailed it to her lupus support group in 1998 and later claimed credit for it in July 2003. However, it seems clear that the quote is a derivation of the following quote by Buddha:

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love,
Born out of concern for all beings . . .
As the shadow follows the body,
as we think, so we become.

Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western Worldby Lama Surya Das, Random House Digital, Inc., June 15, 1998, Google eBook, page 130

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.
Buddha
The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz, Rodale, February 16, 2010, page 130

Nowhere! Not in the sky, Nor in the midst of the sea, Nor deep in the mountains, Can you hide from your own mischief.
Buddha
Freeing the Buddha: Diversity on a Sacred Path—Large Scale Concernsby Brian Ruhe, Motilal Banarsidass Publications, 2005, page 457

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.
Buddha
The Artist’s Way at Work: Riding the Dragon by Mark Bryan, Julia Cameron and Catherine Allen, HarperCollins, May 19, 1999, page 27

If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.
Buddha
Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation by Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, Shambhala Publications, March 6, 2001, page 10

There is only one time when it is essential to awaken. That time is now.
Buddha
Exodus III: Great Joy and Glory to the Most High as You by Orest Bedrij, Xlibris Corporation, September 6, 2011, page 173

When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.
Buddha
Silver Linings: Meditations on Finding Joy and Beauty in Unexpected Places by Mina Parker, Conari Press, September 1, 2008, page 32

Just as a tree, though cut down, can grow again and again if its roots are undamaged and strong, in the same way if the roots of craving are not wholly uprooted sorrows will come again and again.
Buddha
The Dhammapada: The Path of Perfection, translated by Juan Mascaro, Penguin Classics, May 30, 1973, page 83

The followers of the Way are like dry straw, and must be protected against the fires of desire. One must put distance between oneself and the object of his desire.
Buddha
Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu: The Parallel Sayings by Richard Hooper, Sanctuary Publications, Inc., September 25, 2008, page 37

Even loss and betrayal can bring us awakening.
Buddha
Buddha’s Little Instruction Book, edited by Jack Kornfield, Bantam, May 1, 1994, page 4

Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.
Buddha
The Healing Power of the Deep Heart: A Guide to Healing Disharmony and Disease by Anne Bertolet Rice, Wheatmark, Inc., 2009, page 71

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.
Buddha
Awaken Your Power!: The Secret of Life Revealed—How Your Thoughts Create Your Reality by Joe Rapisarda, Balboa Press, Noemberv 2, 2011, page 141

My narrative:
Buddha stated that the core message of his teaching was, “Nothing should be clung to as me or mine.” Indian guru Nisargadatta Maharaj sagely added that enlightenment was also reachable through the mindset of “Everything should be clung to as me or mine.”
• In Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spirituality at the End of an Age by John David Ebert, Council Oak Books, 1999, page 136, Ebert writes:

If you read the writings of Gautama Buddha, he basically says, “in the path to enlightenment, nothing should be clung to as me or mine.”

• In I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, The Acorn Press, Second American Edition, August 7, 2012, page 79, Nisargadatta is quoted as saying:

Everything is me, everything is mine.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Frederick Buechner
Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Harper & Row, March 14, 1973, page 95

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
Frederick Buechner
Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads by Roy H. Williams, Bard Press, September 25, 1999, page 115
• This quote is commonly attributed to Maya Angelou and Bonnie Jean Wasmund among others. Indeed, Angelou did include a longer version of this quote in a longer quote, but Williams’ book is the earliest usage of this quote that I can find.

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.
Lois McMaster Bujold
A Civil Campaign, Baen, September 15, 1999, page 293

When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words, than thy words without a heart.
John Bunyan
The Complete Works of John Bunyan, Bradley, Garretson and Co., 1871, page 80

There is work that is work, and there is play that is play; there is play that is work, and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness.
Gelett Burgess
Theosophical outlook, Volume 4 by Theosophical Society in America, Blavatsky Lodge of Theosophists, 1919, page 383

O would some power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
Robert Burns
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 39 by Mark P. Zanna, Academic Press, May 14, 2007, page 8
• What Burns actually wrote is:
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
• Strangely enough, these famous lines by Burns were written in response to an insect. The name of the poem they appear in is: To a Louse: On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church. According to the World Burns Club website:

It was one Sunday while sitting behind a young ‘lady’ in the church, that he noticed a head louse roaming over its domain in the bows and ribbons of her hat, and I assume her hair. Poor woman, little did she know that she would, with her head companion, be the subject of one of Burns’ poems, on how we see ourselves, and how we think other people see us.

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
John Burroughs
Saturday Review, Volume 29, Saturday Review Co., 1946, page 36

Why do some people always see beautiful skies and grass and lovely flowers and incredible human beings while others are hard-pressed to find anything or any place that is beautiful?
Leo Buscaglia
Living, Loving and Learning, Ballantine Books, October 12, 1985, page 124

To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken, because the greatest risk in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.
Leo Buscaglia
Living, Loving and Learning, Ballantine Books, October 12, 1985, page 202

Love is always open arms. With arms open you allow love to come and go as it wills, freely, for it’ll do so anyway. If you close your arms about love you’ll find you are left only holding yourself.
Leo Buscaglia
Love: What Life Is All About, Ballantine Books, August 27, 1996, page 65

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it kindles the great.
Roger de Bussy-Rabutin
Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, edited by Susan Ratcliffe, Oxford University Press, October 5, 2006
• There is some sort of connection between Bussy-Rabutin’s quote and François de La Rochefoucauld’s Maxim no. 276, which is literally translated as:

Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle, and blow in a fire.

Reflections, or, Sentences and Moral Maxims, S. Low, Son, and Marston, 1871, page 35
Bussy-Rabutin and La Rochefoucauld were contemporaries in 17th-century France.

Don’t go through life, grow through life.
Eric Butterworth
Realizing Your Potential by Gary McGuire, Epitome Books, 2009, page 105

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Edmund Burke
Reflections on the revolution in France, and on the proceedings of certain Societies in London Relative to That Event, Seeley, 1872, Google eBook, page 158

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
Robert Byrne
The Problem Behind All Problems by Michael Hansbury, Readworthy, January 1, 2009, page 102

There is no instinct like that of the heart.
Lord Byron
A Dictionary of Thoughts, edited by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Co., 1908, Google eBook, page 222

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.
Julius Caesar
Distant Voices: Listening to the Leadership Lessons of the Past: Military Commentaries of Julius Caesar by Michael B. Colegrove, iUniverse, October 24, 2007, page 276

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.
John Calvin
A Dictionary of Thoughts, edited by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Co., 1908, Google eBook, page 84

We must be willing to give up the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living, Joseph Campbell Foundation, Google eBook

I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.
Joseph Campbell
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, Random House Digital, Inc., June 1, 1991, page 150

Integrity has no need of rules.
Albert Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Random House Digital, Inc., 1955, “The Absurd Man,” page 66

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?
Albert Camus
Lyrical and Critical Essays, Vintage Books, 1970, page 101

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
Lyrical and Critical Essays, Vintage Books, 1970, “Return to Tipasa,” page 169

Whatever keeps you from your work is your work.
Albert Camus
Laura by Larry Watson, Simon and Schuster, June 26, 2001, page 256

Nothing is true that forces me to exclude.
Albert Camus
Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, compiled and arranged by Larry Chang, Gnosophia Publishers, September 30, 2006, page 531
• Although this quote is listed on a handful of websites, I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.
Sandra Carey
Those Who Can, Teach by Kevin Ryan and James Michael Cooper, Cengage Learning, 2006, page 272

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.
Thomas Carlyle
The London Quarterly Review, Volume 50 by John Telford and Benjamin Aquila Barber, J.A. Sharp, 1878, Google eBook, page 316

My narrative:
Motivational pioneer Dale Carnegie observed that when you have identified and accepted the worst that can happen in a given situation, you have nothing more to lose, which automatically means that you have everything to gain.
• In How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, Simon and Schuster, October 5, 2004, page 16, Carnegie writes:

When we have accepted the worst, we have nothing more to lose. And that automatically means—we have everything to gain!

When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at all, but our hate is turning our own days and nights into a hellish turmoil.
Dale Carnegie
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, Simon and Schuster, October 5, 2004, pages 111-112

Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever-widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdoms we’ve learned and create something.
Liz Carpenter
Better All the Time, Texas A&M University Press, 1993, page 259

Intuition comes very close to clairvoyance; it appears to be the extrasensory perception of reality.
Alexis Carrel
Reflections on Life, Hawthorn Books, 1953, page 153

Those who do not love feel superior to everyone else.
Those who love feel equal to everyone else.
Those who love much gladly take the lower place.
Carlo Carretto
In Search of the Beyond, Orbis Books, 1976, page 152

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.
Jim Carrey
Make the Best of the Rest of Your Life by Geri O’Neill, DoctorZed Publishing, October 1, 2010, page 24

My narrative:
Romantic partners view each other like Jim Carrey’s character in Bruce Almighty learned to do. He had taken his girlfriend for granted but when God asks him if he wants her back, he selflessly replies, “I want her to meet someone who will see her always as I do now, through your eyes.”
• Quotes on IMDb from the 2003 movie, Bruce Almighty

A warrior acknowledges his pain but he doesn’t indulge in it.
Carlos Castenada
Tales of Power, Washington Square Press, January 1, 1991, page 289

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
Carlos Castaneda
Journey to Ixtlan, Simon and Schuster, February 1, 1991, page 184

Where there is great love there are always miracles.
Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Random House Digital, Inc., August 24, 2011, Google eBook, page 50

Miracles . . . rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Random House Digital, Inc., August 24, 2011, Google eBook, page 50

All the way to heaven is heaven.
St. Catherine of Siena
Heroes and Saints: More Stories of People Who Made a Difference by Max LeRoy Christensen, Westminster John Knox Press, April 15, 1997, page 45

God speaks to all individuals through what happens to them moment by moment.
Jean-Pierre de Caussade
You Are Not Your Illness: Seven Principles for Meeting the Challenge by Linda Noble Topf with Hal Zina Bennett, Simon and Schuster, May 8, 1995, page 30
• This quote appears to be a modern paraphrasing of the following passage from de Caussade’s book, Abandonment to Divine Providence, Ignatius Press, October 1, 2011, Google eBook, page 55:

We can only be well instructed by the words which God utters expressly for us. . . . That which instructs us is what happens from one moment to another.

The more and more each is impelled by that which is intuitive, or the relying upon the soul force within, the greater, the farther, the deeper, the broader, the more constructive may be the result.
Edgar Cayce
The Psychic Sense: How to Awaken Your Sixth Sense to Solve Life’s Problems and Seize Opportunities by Edgar Cayce with John Van Auken, ARE Press, May 1, 2006, Google eBook, page 101

There are two kinds of suffering: the suffering that leads to more suffering and the suffering that leads to the end of suffering. If you are not willing to face the second kind of suffering, you will surely continue to experience the first.
Ajahn Chah
A Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation of Achaan Chah by Jack Kornfield and Paul Breiter, Quest Books, September 1, 1985, page 33
• Achaan is an alternative spelling of Ajahn

You say, “But He has not answered.” He has, He is so near to you that His silence is the answer. His silence is big with terrific meaning that you cannot understand yet, but presently you will.
Oswald Chambers
If You Will Ask: Reflections on the Power of Prayer, Discovery House Publishers, January 1, 1994, page 45

We impoverish God in our minds when we say there must be answers to our prayers on the material plane; the biggest answers to our prayers are in the realm of the unseen.
Oswald Chambers
The Book of Positive Quotations, compiled and arranged by John Cook, Fairview Press, October 25, 2007, page 204

It is not so true that “prayer changes things” as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man’s disposition.
Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest, Discovery House, 1993, page 28

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.
Coco Chanel
The Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World’s Most Elegant Woman by Karen Karbo, Globe Pequot, March 1, 2011, page 79
• This quote is also commonly attributed to Dr. Laura Schlessinger

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach, Hachette Digital, Inc., November 15, 1995, Google eBook, page 25

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common—this is my symphony.
William Henry Channing
Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers by Arthur Brisbane, Albertson Publishing Co., 1906, Google eBook, page 18
• This quote by Channing grew in popularity after Arthur Brisbane, one of the best-known newspaper editors of the twentieth century, commented on it in his syndicated editorial column in the Hearst newspapers. However, Brisbane had expertly trimmed and rearranged Channing’s original words, which came from an April 15, 1841 letter to Margaret Fuller:

My scheme of life is so simple that it needs still sunshine, like a harvest field. To be a workingman, poor, humble; to perform without show or shunning menial services; to live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable; and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to have an oratory in my own heart, and present spotless sacrifices of dignified kindness in the temple of humanity; to spread no opinions glaringly out like show-plants, and yet leave the garden gate ever open for the chosen friend and the chance acquaintance; to make no pretenses to greatness; to seek no notoriety; to attempt no wide influence; to have no ambitious projects; to let my writings be the daily bubbling spring flowing through constancy, swelled by experiences, into the full, deep river of wisdom; to listen to stars and buds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; . . . in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony. A pretty dream? A sober prophecy!

Memoir of William Henry Channing by Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1886, page 166

Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.
Edwin Hubbell Chapin
A Dictionary of Thoughts, edited by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Co., 1908, Google eBook, page 4

Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
Edwin Hubbell Chapin
The Sacred Art of Forgiveness: Forgiving Ourselves and Others through God’s Grace by Marcia Ford, SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2006, page 142

Someday when men have conquered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, they will harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“The Evolution of Chastity,” 1934 essay
A Moer Perfect Union: Holistic Worldviews and the Transformation of American Culture After World War II by Linda Sargent Wood, Oxford University Press, September 23, 2010, page 258

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Pierre Teillhard de Chardin
Fifty Self-Help Classics by Tom Butler-Bowdon, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, March 1, 2003, page 121

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though limits to our abilities do not exist.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Think Like a Winner! by Dr. Walter Doyle Staples, Pelican Publishing, 1991, page 83

You are as old as God and as young as the morning.
Hilda Charlton
Alan Cohen’s website; Hilda Charlton was Cohen’s mentor 

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.
Stuart Chase
Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violini, Weiser Books, October 1, 2009, page 132
• Wikiquote attributes this quote to Chase but without a source

Reality divided by reason always leaves a remainder. After everything has been said about the universe, after the entire world has been transformed on the basis of scientific knowledge into a hierarchical structure of ever-widening systems, we are still left with a profound sense of mystery. . . . This luminous experience of the impenetrable mystery is common to all the scientists, philosophers, and mystics of the highest rank. The scientist calls it the mystery of Nature. The philosopher calls it the mystery of Being. The mystic calls it the mystery of the Spirit.
Haridas Chaudhuri
Being, Evolution, and Immortality: An Outline of Integral Philosophy, Theosophical Publishing House, August 1, 1974
• Numerous sources state that the above quote is from this book. I have yet to confirm that.

The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrevocable.
Philip Lord Chesterfield
The Beauties of Chesterfield: Consisting of Selections from His Works, C. Ewer, 1828, Google eBook, page 245

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
G. K. Chesterton
Orthodoxy, John Lane Company, 1909, page 72

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
G. K. Chesterton
Original source: The Illustrated London News, April 29, 1922
Generally Speaking, Books for Libraries Press, 1968, “On Holland,” page 137

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
G. K. Chesterton
Essay: “The Maxims of Maxim,” Daily News, February 25, 1905
In Defense of Sainty: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton, selected by Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, and Aidan Mackey, Ignatius Press, October 1, 2011, page 90

Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all.
G. K. Chesterton
Wisdom from World Religions: Pathways Toward Heaven on Earth by John Templeton, Templeton Foundation Press, March 1, 2002, Google eBook, page 200
• The closest passage I could find in Chesterton’s own writings is the Introduction he wrote for Charles Dickens’ novel, Hard Times. Even so, the passage below is only vaguely related to the above quote:

Real conviction and real charity are much nearer than people suppose. Dickens was capable of loving all men; but he refused to love all opinions. The modern humanitarian can love all opinions, but he cannot love all men; he seems sometimes, in the ecstasy of his humanitarianism, even to hate them all. He can love all opinions, including the opinion that men are unlovable.

Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Introduction by G. K. Chesterton, J. M. Dent, 1912, page vii

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.
G. K. Chesterton
Miracles Abound: When We Open Our Hearts to God by Antoinette Bosco, Twenty-Third Publications, 2004, page 60

Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face.
Lydia M. Child
Letters from New York, C.S. Francis, 1843, Google eBook, Letter XXXIX dated April 27, 1843, page 267
This quote is often attributed to Saint Jerome

Prefer a loss to a dishonest gain; the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time.
Chilon of Sparta
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, translated by Robert Drew Hicks, Harvard University Press, original translation 1925; this edition 1970, page 71

When the power of love
Replaces the love of power,
Man will have a new name: God.
Sri Chinmoy
The Garland of Nation-Souls: Complete Talks at the United Nations, HCI, 1995, page 116

To my extreme happiness,
My Lord has come to tell me
That from now on
I must stand apart from my actions,
Divine and undivine.
He alone is the Doer;
I am a mere observer.
Sri Chinmoy
This quote is reportedly from Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, a series of aphorisms by Sri Chinmoy

We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.
Pema Chödrön
When Things Fall Apart, Shambhala, September 17, 2002, hardcover, page 21

Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on.
Frédéric Chopin
Forbes, Volumes 10-11, Forbes Inc., January 6, 1923, Google eBook, page 365

It is not difficult to find God. It is impossible to avoid God. There is nowhere (now here) where God is not.
Deepak Chopra
Twitter tweet, November 15, 2009, confirmed by the author via Twitter

However good or bad you feel about your relationship, the person you are with at this moment is the “right” person, because he or she is a mirror of who you are inside.
Deepak Chopra
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing, Random House Digital, Inc., January 12, 1998, page 4

The reason that ego and love are not compatible comes down to this: you cannot take your ego into the unknown, where love wants to lead. If you follow love, your life will become uncertain, and the ego craves certainty.
Deepak Chopra
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing, Random House Digital, Inc., January 12, 1998, page 116

As you ascend, your love will turn to ecstasy. . . . Ecstasy is the final stage of intimacy with yourself.
Deepak Chopra
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing, Random House Digital, Inc., January 12, 1998, page 273

You will be in love when you know that you are love.
Deepak Chopra
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing, Random House Digital, Inc., January 12, 1998, page 306

Love is based not on how you act or feel but on your level of awareness.
Deepak Chopra
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing, Random House Digital, Inc., January 12, 1998, page 307

Loving another person is not separate from loving God. One is a single wave, the other is the ocean.
Deepak Chopra
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing, Random House Digital, Inc., January 12, 1998, page 307

Forgiveness is born of increased awareness. The more you can see, the easier it is to forgive.
Deepak Chopra
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing, Random House Digital, Inc., January 12, 1998, page 311

When you struggle against this moment, you’re actually struggling against the entire universe.
Deepak Chopra
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams, New World Library / Amber-Allen Publishing, November 9, 1994, page 32

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty . . . in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.
Deepak Chopra
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams, New World Library / Amber-Allen Publishing, November 9, 1994, page 51

Your soul is the part of you that is universal and individual at the same time, and it is a reflection of all other souls.
Deepak Chopra
The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence, Three Rivers Press, August 12, 2004, page 86

Love is the ultimate force at the heart of the universe.
Deepak Chopra
The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence, Three Rivers Press, August 12, 2004, page 267

Self-knowledge is an anchor that makes unpredictability tolerable.
Deepak Chopra
Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old, Random House Digital, Inc., December 27, 1994, page 78

The quality of one’s life depends on the quality of attention. Whatever you pay attention to will grow more important in your life. There is no limit to the kinds of changes that awareness can produce.
Deepak Chopra
Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old, Random House Digital, Inc., December 27, 1994, page 95

The essence of love isn’t a feeling—it is a state of being. Or to be more exact, it is the state in which you are in contact with Being.
Deepak Chopra
Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old, Harmony Books, 1998, page 329

My narrative:
It is your intuition that is your lifeline to Spirit, to the ever-alert, ever-present observer within you. Deepak Chopra describes this “observer in the midst of observation” as “the timeless factor in every time-bound experience.”
• In The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons in Creating the Life You Want, Random House Digital, Inc., December 26, 1995, page 39, Chopra writes:

In all these cases, you will immediately sense an awareness that is alert, awake, uninvolved, silent, yet intensely alive. What have you actually done? You have interrupted the act of observation to catch a glimpse of the observer. This trick gives insight into an absolute certainty of your existence, for beyond all observation lies the unchanging observer. This seer is the timeless factor in every time-bound experience, and this seer is you.

There is a force of love present everywhere, and it can be trusted to bring your own life into order and peace.
Deepak Chopra
The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons in Creating the Life You Want, Random House Digital, Inc., December 26, 1995, page 61
• The actual passage from the book is: “What is the basis of the mind’s new viewpoint? Simply that there is a force of love present everywhere, that it can be trusted to bring your own life into order and peace.” The construction of the sentence made it awkward to use it as a standalone quote, so for the sake of readability, I changed “that it can be trusted” to “and it can be trusted.”

Maps are useless where you’re going, because the territory ahead is constantly shifting. You might as well try to map flowing water.
Deepak Chopra
The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons in Creating the Life You Want, Random House Digital, Inc., December 26, 1995, page 82

Desire is what leads you through life until the time comes when you desire a higher life. So do not be ashamed that you want so much, but do not fool yourself into thinking that what you want today will be enough tomorrow.
Deepak Chopra
The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons in Creating the Life You Want, Random House Digital, Inc., December 26, 1995, page 131

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It’s very important to be aware of them every time they come up.
Deepak Chopra
Ignite Your Life!: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Anrea Woolf, Morgan James Publishing, March 1, 2011, Google eBook, page 98
• I am still hoping to source this to Chopra’s own writings

A person desperately searching for love is like a fish desperately searching for water.
Deepak Chopra
The Way of the Wizard: Twenty Spiritual Lessons in Creating the Life You Want, Random House Digital, Inc., December 26, 1995, page 60
• This passage actually reads: “A person desperately searching for love,” Merlin said, “reminds me of a fish desperately searching for water.”
• It seems clear that Chopra based Merlin’s comment on the first line of a Kabir poem from Songs of Kabir, translated by Rabindranath Tagore, Macmillan, 1916, Google eBook, page 91

I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.

My narrative:
Alternative medicine pioneer Deepak Chopra describes the conscious energy field that sustains us as “literally an expression of the mind of God.”
• I believe I heard Chopra say this in a talk, but I cannot recall the details

Everyone has a special purpose, a special talent or gift to give to others, and it is your duty to discover what it is. Your special talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with your talent is your gift to God.
Gautama Chopra
Child of the Dawn: A Magical Journey to Awakening, Amber-Allen Publishing, 1996, page 150

Confucius said, “Men cannot see their reflection in running water but only in still water. Only that which is still in itself can still the seekers of stillness.” . . . If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe.
Chuang Tzu
Quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, compiled and arranged by Larry Chang, Gnosophia Publishers, September 30, 2006, page 647, as follows:

Men cannot see their reflection in running water, but only in still water. Only that which is itself still can still the seekers of stillness. . . . If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe.

• Although Wisdom for the Soul includes this as one quote, it appears to be made up of two separate quotes.
A passage in Chuang Tsu: Inner Chapters, Amber Lotus, January 1, 2000, page 95, reads: “Confucius said, “Men cannot see their reflection in running water but only in still water. Only that which is still in itself can still the seekers of stillness. . . . ” (I used this wording and punctuation for the first half of the quote rather than what is printed in Wisdom for the Soul)
• The second half of the quote is sourced to Chuang Tzu in Creative Power of Silence by Swami Paramananda, Kessinger Publishing, May 15, 2006, page 27
• Alternate spellings of Chuang Tzu include, among others, Chuang Tsu, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, and Zhuang Zhou

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Winston Churchill
Alchemy of the Heart: How to Give and Receive More Love by Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Patricia R. Spadaro, Summit University Press, November 1, 2000, page 88

Success is not final; failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis by Jerry White, Macmillan, April 29, 2008, page 111

It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.
Winston Churchill
Uncertain Science . . . Uncertain World by Henry N. Pollack, Cambridge University Press, February 13, 2003, page 171

If you’re going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill
The Emotional Struggle by Brandon Ryan, AuthorHouse, November 30, 2007, Google eBook, page 93

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
Cicero
The Subtlety of Emotions by Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, MIT Press, October 1, 2001, page 427
• Wikiquote sources this quote to Pro Plancio

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.
Frank A. Clark
Achieve Anything in Just One Year: Be Inspired Daily to Live Your Dreams and Accomplish Your Goals by Jason Harvey, Amazing Life Press, 2010, page 194

You meet someone and you’re sure you were lovers in a past life. After two weeks with them, you realize why you haven’t kept in touch for the last two thousand years.
Al Cleathen
Men Are Slobs, Women Are Neat: And Other Gender Lies That Damage Relationships by Kimberly Alyn, Bob Phillips, Harvest House Publishers, January 15, 2010, page 25

Fear is the fire that melts Icarian wings.
Florence Earle Coates
Poem: “The Unconquered Air”
The Unconquered Air and Other Poems, c1913, page 4

What we do from joy expresses love; what we do from fear calls for love.
Alan Cohen
A Daily Dose of Sanity: A Five-Minute Soul Recharge for Every Day of the Year, Hay House, Inc., February 15, 2010, Google eBook, page 14

Our well-being is dependent on our giving love. It is not about what comes back; it is about what goes out.
Alan Cohen
Dare to Be Yourself: How to Quit Being an Extra in Other People’s Movies and Become the Star of Your Own, Random House Digital, Inc., June 14, 1994, page 192

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
Alan Cohen
365 Prescriptions for the Soul: Daily Messages of Inspiration, Hope, and Love by Dr. Bernie Siegel, ReadHowYouWant.com, September 4, 2010, page 336

If you give more power and attention to your destiny rather than your history, doors will open in amazing ways.
Alan Cohen
Relax Into Wealth: How to Get More by Doing Less, Penguin, December 28, 2006, Google eBook
• The passage in the book starts, “If, on the other hand, you give more power and attention . . .” I omitted “on the other hand” and did not substitute an ellipsis for it, both for the sake of appearance and because I believe that this quote was offered in Cohen’s daily e-mail without “on the other hand” included

Love attracts love, and when you cultivate love from the inside out, the universe will deliver it from the outside in.
Alan Cohen
Cohen’s October 2007 newsletterGood Enough to Be True, excerpted from Don’t Get Lucky, Get Smart: Why Your Love Life Sucks–and What You Can Do About It 

Gratitude, like faith, is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it grows.
Alan Cohen
A Bang Into Gentleness: A Psychic’s Journey Through Spiritual Transformations by Heather Clockedile, AuthorHouse, August 20, 2009, page 172
• I am still hoping to source this to Cohen’s own writings

Sometimes when things seem to be going wrong, they are going right for reasons you are yet to understand.
Alan Cohen
Daily Quotes e-mail, June 26, 2010

Unworthiness is simply a case of mistaken identity.
Alan Cohen
Daily Quotes e-mail, July 29, 2010

What is genius but the mind, heart, and art of God shining to the world through an open window?
Alan Cohen
Daily Quotes e-mail, October 8, 2010

Everything will change when your desire to move on exceeds your desire to hold on.
Alan Cohen
Daily Quotes e-mail, October 22, 2010

You only live once—but it’s forever.
Alan Cohen
Daily Quotes e-mail, October 28, 2010

The ego is simultaneously enamored with its self-appointed magnitude and terrified at its real ineptness.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Love is heaven and fear is hell. Where you place your attention is where you live.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Forget everything you have learned and you will remember everything you have forgotten.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Let a benevolent universe have its way, and you will recognize a bigger plan than you understood when you looked through the eyes of fear.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Knowledge is power, but wisdom is peace.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

There are two kinds of people: Those who believe their lives are determined by forces outside themselves, and those who believe that their lives are determined by a Force inside themselves.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

The turning point of life is when you recognize the relationship between consciousness and results.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

The only reason the same thing keeps happening is that you keep focusing on what happened.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

The best time to practice being rich is when you’re feeling poor.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Prayer is not a substitute for action. Action is not a substitute for prayer.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Use pain as a stepping stone, not a campground.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

One moment of true forgiveness can erase years of guilt, pain, or fear.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

You change the past when you change the way you see it.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Celebrate another’s gain as your own, and yours will soon follow.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

When you touch a moment of pure love, you touch all the love that has ever been given and received, and you have access to it.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Life is eager to prove your limits false.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

If you need it, you can’t have it. Claim it, and it’s yours.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Your greatest contribution to helping other people live their destiny is for you to live your own.
Alan Cohen
I believe this quote was from Cohen’s daily e-mail but I no longer have the original. I am still hoping to source it more definitively

What comes from the heart goes to the heart.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, Chapman and Hall, 1856, page xlv

How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, edited by Robert Andrews, Columbia University Press, 1989, page 310

No man can purchase his virtue too dear; for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much, as when we have parted with our all to keep it.
Charles Caleb Colton
Lacon; or Many Things in Few Words; Addressed to Those Who Think, Volume 1, M. Sherman, 1828, page 30

The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
Charles Caleb Colton
Lacon; or Many Things in Few Words; Addressed to Those Who Think, Volume 1, M. Sherman, 1828, page 32

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.
Confucius
Armour Plated by Jill Devine, iUniverse, 2003, page 64

He who is in harmony with Nature hits the mark without effort and apprehends the truth without thinking.
Confucius
Inleiding Comparatieve Filosofie II: Culturen in Het Licht Van Een Comparatief Model by Ulrich Libbrecht, Uitgeverij Van Gorcum, December 19, 1999, page 169

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.
Confucius
Thoughts for Meaningful Life by Pano George Karkanis, AuthorHouse, January 7, 2009, page 69

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Confucius
Work: The World in Photographs by Ferdinand Protzman, National Geographic Books, April 15, 2008, page 91

To be wronged or robbed is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
Confucius
The Anger Management Sourcebook by Glenn R. Schiraldi and Melissa Hallmark Kerr, McGraw-Hill Professional, June 12, 2002, page 138

Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river.
Cyril Connolly
The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus, Harper & Brothers, 1945, page 103

Facing it—always facing it—that’s the way to get through. Face it!
Joseph Conrad
It’s All in Your Head: Thinking Your Way To Happiness by Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine, HarperCollins, April 1, 2007, page 177

Intelligence complicates; wisdom simplifies.
Mason Cooley
The Big Book of Small Business: You Don’t Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants by Tom Gegax, HarperCollins, February 6, 2007, Google eBook, page 289

My narrative:
Affirmations were popularized by Émile Coué, a French pharmacist and self-trained psychologist whose book, Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion, was published in 1920. Known as the “Father of Autosuggestion,” Coué instructed his patients to repeat the following affirmation twenty times, three times a day: “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” Coué observed that “whatever we think becomes true for us.”
• The first quote can be found in How To Practice Suggestion And Autosuggestion, Health Research Books, March 1, 2003, page 126
• The second quote can be found in The Method and Practice of Autosuggestion, DoctorZed Publishing, June 13, 2011, Google eBook

Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.
Norman Cousins
Human Options, Penguin Group, August 1, 1986, page 62

The greatest force in the human body is the natural drive of the body to heal itself—but that force is not independent of the belief system, which can translate expectations into physiological change.
Norman Cousins
Human Options, Penguin Group, August 1, 1986, page 205

Belief becomes biology.
Norman Cousins
Head First: The Biology of Hope, Thorndike Press, 1990, page 369

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be a saint.
Norman Cousins
Saturday Review, Volume 40, Part 4, Saturday Review Associates, 1957, page 20
• This quote is commonly attributed to Albert Schweitzer. However, in the May 18, 1957, Saturday Review article, A Declaration of Conscience, it appears that Norman Cousins, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, originated the line while writing about Schweitzer.
• Schweitzer’s impassioned essay against nuclear weapons, A Declaration of Conscience, was broadcast worldwide on April 24, 1957, from Oslo, Norway, under the auspices of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. It was first published in the Saturday Review in the May 18, 1957 article noted above.

Until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”
Stephen R. Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon and Schuster, November 2, 2004, page 72

To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.
Stephen R. Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Free Press, revised edition, November 9, 2004, page 258

The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are.
Stephen R. Covey
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Personal Workbook, Simon and Schuster, December 23, 2003, page 154

Anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is an unconscious commitment to the unimportant.
Stephen R. Covey
First Things First by Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill, Simon and Schuster, January 17, 1996, page 32

Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
William Cowper
The Task, printed for bookseller Thomas Dobson, 1787, Google eBook, page 154

We are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger.
William Cowper
The Works of Cowper and Thomson, J. Grigg, 1832, page 225

Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Dinah Maria Craik
A Life for a Life, 1859, Google eBook, page 84

A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.
Crazy Horse
Encyclopedia of Social Work, Volume 1 by Terry Mizrahi, Oxford University Press, 2008, page 427

Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.
Oliver Cromwell
Golden Thoughts on Mother, Home and Heaven, Bradley, Garretson, 1882, Google eBook, page 363
• This quote has been attributed to William Butler Yeats, but Yeats was no more than seventeen at the time this book was published. The quote has also been attributed to Charles Lamb (1775-1834), but given the plethora of books published before 1900 that attribute it to Cromwell (1599-1658), I’m going with Cromwell.

People need loving the most when they deserve it the least.
Mary C. Crowley
Think Mink!, F. H. Revell Co., 1976, page 23

To be enjoyable, a relationship must become more complex. To become more complex, the partners must discover new potentialities in themselves and in each other. To discover these, they must invest attention in each other—so that they can learn what thoughts and feelings, what dreams reside in their partner’s mind. This in itself is a never-ending process, a lifetime’s task. After one begins to really know another person, then many joint adventures become possible: traveling together, reading the same books, raising children, making and realizing plans all become more enjoyable and more meaningful.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper Perennial, first edition, February 1, 1991, page 103

Be thankful that God’s answers are wiser than your answers.
William Culbertson
The Book of Positive Quotations, compiled and arranged by John Cook, Fairview Press, October 25, 2007, page 206

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
E.E. Cummings
Becoming an Invitational Leader: A New Approach to Professional and Personal Success by William W. Purkey and Betty L. Siegel, Humanics Publishing Group, September 1, 2002, Google eBook, page 152

Every time I’ve done something that doesn’t feel right, it’s ended up not being right.
Mario Cuomo
In God’s Care: Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery by Karen Casey, Hazelden Publishing, July 1, 1996, Google eBook, page 7

True enlightenment is nothing but the nature of one’s own self being fully realized.
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
• Although this quote is listed on many websites, I am still hoping to source it more definitively

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
Doctor Chopra Says: Medical Facts and Myths Everyone Should Knowby Sanjiv Chopra, Alan Lotvin, and David Fisher, Macmillan, December 21, 2010, page 429

A man who dares waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin: A New Life by John Bowlby, W. W. Norton & Company, October 1, 1992, page 174
• Although the passage from this book includes a comma after the word “time,” I am not including the comma because it strikes me as an error in judgment to have used it

Any life truly lived is a risky business, and if one puts up too many fences against the risks one ends by shutting out life itself.
Kenneth S. Davis
Dwight D. Eisenhower: Soldier of Democracy, Konecky & Konecky, 1945, page 56

The very foundation of the spiritual life is humility. Without humility the cup of one’s consciousness is so filled with “I, I, I” that there is no room for “Thou, Thou, Thou.”
Sri Daya Mata
Finding the Joy Within You by Sri Daya Mata, 1990; hardcover edition 2008, “Death: Mystery Portal to a Better Land,” page 143

Humbly seeking the will of God does not imply idleness or lack of initiative and action: God helps him who helps himself. It means rather to surrender to God, that He may use you as His instrument to do good on earth according to His divine will.
Sri Daya Mata
Only Love, Self-Realization Fellowship, 1976; hardcover edition 2006, “The Only Way to Happiness,” page 145

Your willingness to do your part opens the floodgates of God’s blessings.
Sri Daya Mata
Self-Realization magazine, Self-Realization Fellowship, Winter 2002, back-page letter

Cultivate the desire to do for others as you would do for your own loved ones. Expand the little cup of your love into an ocean of love divine for all beings.
Sri Daya Mata
Self-Realization magazine, Self-Realization Fellowship, Winter 2006, “Christmas in the Spirit of Yoga,” page 25

It is only when you go deep within, in meditation, that you suddenly realize how completely you had forgotten what you really are. You will be astonished to find what a tremendous gap there is beyond ordinary consciousness, which is of the world, and that consciousness in which you feel that just behind the restless mind, just behind the limited physical awareness, is a vast realm of divine awareness, of divine bliss.
Sri Daya Mata
Self-Realization magazine, Self-Realization Fellowship, Spring 2009, “Pranayama: Bridge to Divine Consciousness,” page 20

The essence of spirituality is to love God supremely and to love all souls as a part of Him.
Sri Daya Mata
Christmas 2006 letter to Self-Realization Fellowship devotees

If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give them that you aren’t even giving to yourself.
Barbara De Angelis
Real Moments for Lovers: The Enlightened Guide for Discovering Total Passion and True Intimacy, Random House Digital, Inc., January 2, 1997, Google eBook

I knew that everything that was happening to me was up to God, that He was the only healer. I felt safe, knowing I was surrounded by the overarching mantle of His perfect care. Whatever God brought to me, I wanted. Even if I retained all of the mobility of a flower pot, it didn’t matter. “I” was still the same, the vehicle of expression had changed, that’s all. A flower pot can still hold a beautiful flower.
Roger Delano
Self-Realization magazine, Self-Realization Fellowship, Fall 1999, “A Healing Gift,” pages 70-71

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
Agnes de Mille
The Young Actor’s Workbook by Judith Roberts Seto, Grove Press, January 18, 1994, page 274

True stillness comes naturally through moments of solitude where we allow our minds to settle. Just as water seeks its own level, the mind will gravitate toward the holy. Muddy water will become clear if allowed to stand undisturbed, and so too will the mind become clear if it is allowed to be still.
Deng Ming-Dao
365 Tao: Daily Meditations, HarperCollins, July 17, 1992, page 4

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.
René Descartes
Herald of Gospel Liberty, Volume 102, Issues 1-26 by General Convention of the Christian Church, Christian Pub. Association, 1910, Google eBook, page 144

Like water, which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.
Indra Devi
The Woman’s Book of Soul: Meditations for Courage, Confidence, and Spirit by Sue Patton Thoele, Conari Press, March 1, 2000, page 78

Each relationship you have with another person reflects the relationship you have with yourself.
Alice Deville
1998 Moon Sign Book, Llewellyn Publications, August 1, 1997, page 114

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
Peter DeVries
Let Me Count the Ways, Little, Brown & Company, 1965, page 307

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
Charles Dickens
A Dictionary of Thoughts, edited by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Co., 1908, Google eBook, page 222

That Love is all there is
Is all we know of Love.
Emily Dickinson
Thematic Patterns Of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry by Neeru Tandon and Anjana Trevedi, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, April 1, 2008, page 69

Character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.
Joan Didion
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction, Random House Digital, Inc., October 17, 2006, page 111

The mind fits the world and shapes it as a river fits and shapes its own banks.
Annie Dillard
Living by Fiction, HarperCollins, 1988, Google eBook, page 15

Medicine is dealing with what’s wrong with you. Healing is dealing with what’s right with you.
Ingrid Dilley
Verbally used in Dilley’s Renewing Life curriculum; confirmed and approved by the author via a phone call

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.
Benjamin Disraeli
The Power Principle: Influence With Honor by Blaine Lee, Simon and Schuster, June 4, 1998, page 153

Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
Benjamin Disraeli
Coningsby Or the New Generation, Echo Library, August 28, 2007, page 89

If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results.
Jack Dixon
Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times: Unlocking the Genius of Creative Collaboration by Lisa K. Gundry and Laurie LaMantia, Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2001, page 26

When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.
John Donne
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions: Together with Death’s Duel, Echo Library, July 21, 208, page 97

People who give are given to.
Mike Dooley
From Dooley’s daily Notes from the Universe e-mail. September 9, 2010

Nothing is ever lost. Not time; for what seems to have passed, lives on in the wisdom of future decisions. Not money; for what seems to have been spent, was only invested. And not love; for what seems to have vanished, has only moved so close you must look within your heart to see it.
Mike Dooley
This quote was from Dooley’s daily Notes from the Universe e-mail. I no longer have the original, but according to this website, it was sent on or around December 18, 2008

One of the goals of authentic spiritual work is to embrace our inner divinity and embody a sense of the transcendent. To the extent that we can do this, we diminish any potential conflict between God’s will and our own.
Dr. Larry Dossey
Adapted from my 9/13/10 interview with the author on intercessory prayer; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

Scores of experiments have verified that our thoughts and prayers do have an impact at a distance, but without the transfer of any known form of physical energy. Because mind and consciousness are nonlocal, which means they’re everywhere in space and time, there’s no reason for anything to go anywhere or for anything to be sent because it’s already there.
Dr. Larry Dossey
Adapted from my 9/13/10 interview with the author on intercessory prayer; confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

My brother asked the birds to forgive him; that sounds senseless, but it is right; for all is like an ocean, all is flowing and bending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth. It may be senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but birds would be happier at your side—a little happier anyway— and children and all animals, if you were nobler than you are now.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers Karamazov, Plain Label Books, 1950, page 831

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The 3rd Alternative: Solving Life’s Most Difficult Problems by Stephen R. Covey, Simon and Schuster, October 4, 2011, page 167

Why always, “not yet”? Do flowers in spring say, “Not yet”?
Norman Douglas
An Almanac, Chatto & Windus, in association with M. Secker & Warburg, 1945, page 59

Security can only be achieved through constant change, through the wise discarding of old ideas that have outlived their usefulness, and through the adapting of others to current facts.
William O. Douglas
Evolution and the Common Law by Allan C. Hutchinson, Cambridge University Press, 2005, page 268
• This book lists the original source of Douglas’ quote as:
W. Douglas, Stare Decisis, 49 Colum. L. Rev. 735 (1949)
• State decisis is a legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions.
• “Colum. L. Rev.” refers to the Columbia Law Review

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.
Frederick Douglass
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Harvard University Press, April 15, 2009, Google eBook, page 42

To say my fate is not tied to your fate is like saying, “Your end of the boat is sinking.”
Hugh Downs
• Although this quote is listed on many websites, I am still hoping to source it more definitively

It is more important to do the right thing than to do things right.
Peter Drucker
Leadership: Personal Development and Career Success by Cliff Ricketts and John C. Ricketts, Cengage Learning, May 18, 2010, page 110

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.
Henry Drummond
The Greatest Thing in the World, Branden Books, June 1, 1936, page 31

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Charles Du Bos
Approximations, 1922
• I have been unable to track down the correct page number

I wasn’t concerned about the hardships, because I always felt I was doing what I had to do, what I wanted to do and what I was destined to do.
Katherine Dunham
My Soul Looks Back, ‘Less I Forget: A Collection of Quotations by People of Color, edited by Dorothy Winbush Riley, HarperCollins 1993, page 96
• Dunham apparently said this in “American Visions” in February 1987. I suspect that “American Visions” was a regular feature on PBS.

If one does not wish bonds broken, he should make them elastic and thereby strengthen them.
Charles Jean Jacques Joseph Ardant du Picq
Battle Studies: Ancient and Modern Battle, The Macmillan Company, 1921, Google eBook, page 22

All that you fight weakens you. All that you are for empowers you.
Wayne Dyer
Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life, HarperCollins, June 7, 2001, page 52

You can never get enough of what you don’t want.
Wayne Dyer
Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life, HarperCollins, June 7, 2001, page 108

Prosperity in the form of wealth works exactly the same as everything else. You will see it coming into your life when you are unattached to needing it.
Wayne Dyer
Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life, HarperCollins, June 7, 2001, page 202

When you judge another person, you do not define him or her, you define yourself.
Wayne Dyer
You’ll See It When You Believe It: The Way to Your Personal Transformation, HarperCollins, August 21, 2001, Google eBook, page 33

There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love, there is only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.
Wayne Dyer
You’ll See It When You Believe It: The Way to Your Personal Transformation, HarperCollins, August 21, 2001, Google eBook, page 148

You cannot fail, you can only produce results!
Wayne Dyer
Wisdom of the Ages: 60 Days to Enlightenment, HarperCollins, April 30, 2002, page 154

Forgiveness is an act of self-love.
Wayne Dyer
Everyday Wisdom, Hay House, Inc., March 1, 2005, page 16

Authentic empowerment is the knowing that you are on purpose, doing God’s work, peacefully and harmoniously.
Wayne Dyer
Everyday Wisdom, Hay House, Inc., March 1, 2005, page 115

The choice is up to you: It can either be “Good morning, God!” or “Good God, morning.”
Wayne Dyer
Everyday Wisdom, Hay House, Inc., March 1, 2005, page 177

Forgiveness is humanity’s highest achievement because it shows true enlightenment in action.
Wayne Dyer
Everyday Wisdom, Hay House, Inc., March 1, 2005, page 284

Judgment means that you view the world as you are, rather than as itis.
Wayne Dyer
Everyday Wisdom, Hay House, Inc., March 1, 2005, page 285

The elevator to success is out of order today. You’re going to have to take the stairway, one step at a time.
Wayne Dyer
Everyday Wisdom for Success, Easyread Large Edition, ReadHowYouWant.com, December 11, 2009, page 66

Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.
Wayne Dyer
The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way, Hay House, Inc., October 1, 2010, page 185

There are no failed relationships. Every person who enters and exits your life does so in a mutual sharing of life’s divine lessons.
Wayne Dyer
Your Sacred Self: Making the Decision to Be Free, HarperCollins, June 5, 2001, page 47

Present-moment living, getting in touch with your “now,” is at the heart of effective living. When you think about it, there really is no other moment you can ever live. Now is all there is, and the future is just another present moment to live when it arrives.
Wayne Dyer
Your Erroneous Zones, HarperCollins, September 30, 1993, page 28

Self-worth comes from one thing—thinking that you are worthy.
Wayne Dyer
How to Create Inner Beauty: The Secret Revealed by Stephanie Lintz, Vantage Press, Inc., May 1, 2007, page 95

We are Divine enough to ask and we are important enough to receive.
Wayne Dyer
365 Prescriptions for the Soul: Daily Messages of Inspiration, Hope, and Love by Dr. Bernie S Siegel, ReadHowYouWant.com, September 4, 2010, page 647

Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into.
Wayne Dyer
Real Prosperity: Using the Power of Intuition to Create Financial and Spiritual Abundance by Lynn A. Robinson, Andrews McMeel Publishing, September 1, 2004, page 138

You can’t get sick enough to make another person healthy. You can’t get sad enough to make another person happy. You can’t get poor enough to help one person on the planet get rich. You can’t get hungry enough to feed one starving child.
Wayne Dyer
• Dyer has made similar statements in a number of places, including this Tweet. Numerous websites also list these statements, as do a handful of books. The best way to describe this quote is that it’s an amalgam of Dyer’s comments from a number of different sources.
• Oprah has made similar statements. On this website, she states:

Unhealthy sacrifice is often perpetuated by an erroneous fear that your happiness is selfish. If you believe this fear, then too much happiness will feel wrong, bad, illegal, blasphemous and harmful to others. Is this really true? Here’s what I believe: You can’t get depressed enough to make somebody happy; you can’t get ill enough to make someone else well; you can’t get poor enough to make somebody rich; and you can’t betray your heart to save someone else.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
Wayne Dyer
Robert Collier’s The Secret of the Ages: A Modern Day Interpretation of a Self-Help Classic by Karen McCreadie, Infinite Ideas, May 15, 2010, page 112

When you move from ego to spirit, you go from striving to arriving.
Wayne Dyer
• I believe I heard Dyer say this. The closest thing I can find to it in his books are:
Your Sacred Self: Making the Decision to Be Free, HarperCollins, June 5, 2001, page 288, and
Wisdom of the Ages: 60 Days to Enlightenment, HarperCollins, April 30, 2002, page 212

A belief system is nothing more than a thought you’ve thought over and over again.
Wayne Dyer
• Although this quote is listed on many websites, I am still hoping to source it more definitively

My narrative:
The Universe, as a clever observer so poetically noted, is “one song”—uni (one) verse (song)—and every atom sings from the same songbook.
• This word play has been referenced by many authors, including Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra

My narrative:
Gradually, it dawns on you that luck has nothing to do with it. You are in sync with life’s rhythms and, as Wayne Dyer put it, “collaborating with fate.”
• In The Power of Intention: Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way, Hay House, Inc., October 1, 2010, page 16, Dyer writes:

For example, when I write, I open myself to the possibilities of universal Spirit and my own individual thoughts collaborating with fate to produce a helpful, insightful book.

Courage is the price which life exacts for granting peace.
Amelia Earhart
Amelia, My Courageous Sister: Biography of Amelia Earhart by Muriel Earhart Morrissey and Carol L. Osborne, Osborne Publisher, 1987, page 74

A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.
Amelia Earhart
Kindness and Joy: Expressing the Gentle Love, edited by Harold G. Koenig, Templeton Press, first edition, October 1, 2006, page 96

A physicist would remind us that the things we see “out there” are not ultimately separate from each other and from us; we perceive them as separate because of the limitations of our senses. If our eyes were sensitive to a much finer spectrum, we might see the world as a continuous field of matter and energy.
Eknath Easwaran
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, ReadHowYouWant.com, 2010, page xix

The mind looks at unity and sees diversity; it looks at what is timeless and reports transience. And in fact the percepts of its experience arediverse and transient; on this level of experience, separateness is real. Our mistake is in taking this for ultimate reality, like the dreamer thinking that nothing is real except his dream.
Eknath Easwaran
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, ReadHowYouWant.com, 2010, page xxiv

The law of karma states simply that every event is both a cause and an effect. Every act has consequences of a similar kind, which in turn have further consequences and so on; and every act, every karma, is also the consequence of some previous karma.
Eknath Easwaran
The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, second edition, May 17, 2007, page 33

We try to cling to pleasure, we try to hug joy, and all we succeed in doing is making ourselves frustrated because, whatever it promises, pleasure simply cannot last. But if I am willing to kiss the joy as it flies, I say, “Yes, this moment is beautiful. I won’t grab it. I’ll let it go.” And I live with a mind at peace and a heart untroubled. Pleasure comes and it goes. When it goes, we don’t need to cling to memories of past happiness or dwell on when it may come again.
Eknath Easwaran
Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World, Nilgiri Press, October 13, 1994, pages 109-110
• When Easwaran writes “if I am willing to kiss the joy as it flies,” he is referring to the following poem by WIlliam Blake, which he quotes on page 109:

He who binds to himself a Joy,
Doth the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

When we turn to the past in yearning, we are running away from the present. When we propel ourselves into the future in anticipation, we are running away from the present. This is the secret of what the world’s spiritual traditions call detachment: if we don’t cling to past or future, we live entirely here and now, in “Eternity’s sunrise.”
Eknath Easwaran
Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World, Nilgiri Press, October 13, 1994, page 110
• When Easwaran writes “Eternity’s sunrise,” he is referring to the following poem by WIlliam Blake, which he quotes on page 109:

He who binds to himself a Joy,
Doth the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

Detachment is not apathy or indifference. It is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachment to our opinions; we want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into others’ needs and understand how to serve them.
Eknath Easwaran
Gandhi the Man: How One Man Changed Himself to Change the World, Nilgiri Press, April 11, 2011, page 126
• This quote is commonly attributed to Gandhi himself

Whenever two good people argue over principles, they are both right.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Nanotechnology: Ethics and Society by Deb Bennett-Woods, CRC Press, April 29, 2008, page 87

The bodily food we take is changed into us, but the spiritual food we receive changes us into itself, hence love divine is not preserved in us, otherwise there would be two. Divine love preserves us in itself as one in the same.
Meister Eckhart
Works of Meister Eckhart by Franz Pfeiffer, Kessinger Publishing, 1992, page 26

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart
A Bucket of Surprises, compiled by by J. John and Mark Stibbe, Monarch Books, 2002, page 199

The external world of physics has thus become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
The Nature of the Physical World, Kessinger Publishing, May 4, 2005, page xiv

Something unknown is doing we don’t know what.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
Commenting on the nature, form, and movement of electrons
The Nature of the Physical World, Kessinger Publishing, May 4, 2005, page 291

If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.
Maria Edgeworth
Tales and Novels, Volumes 3-4, J. & J. Harper, 1832, page 150

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison
An Enemy Called Average by John L. Mason, Insight International, Inc., June 1, 1990, page 55

I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.
Thomas Edison
Conquer Your Food Addiction: The Ehrlich 8-Step Program for Permanent Weight Loss by Caryl Ehrlich, Simon and Schuster, May 27, 2003, Google eBook, page 27

As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives, Princeton University Press, May 1, 1981, Selected and Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann, page 48
• Letter dated September 19, 1932, to Queen Elisabeth of Belgium

For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 73
• Letter dated March 21, 1955, to the son of Einstein’s lifelong friend, Michele Angelo Besso, six days after Besso’s death and just four weeks before Einstein’s own death.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 120
• Aphorism in Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, East and West Library, 1954, page 26. Leo Baeck was a rabbi and philosopher who led the Jewish community in Germany during the time of Hitler.

A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 144
• Letter dated January 16, 1954, to T. Lee

The scientist is possessed by a sense of universal causation. . . . His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. . . . It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 201
• From “The Religious Spirit of Science,” published in Mein Weltbild, 1934, page 18

My narrative:
In response to a letter from a child who asked if scientists pray, iconic physicist Albert Einstein wrote that “Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man.”
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 202
• Letter dated January 24, 1936, to Phyllis Wright, a child who asked if scientists pray

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 206
• Original source: Letter dated February 12, 1950, to a distraught father who had lost his young son and had asked Einstein for some comforting words
• The following oft-quoted yet unconfirmed variation can be sourced to The New York Times (29 March 1972) and The New York Post (28 November 1972):

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

It is hard to sneak a look at God’s cards. But that he would choose to play dice with the world . . . is something I cannot believe for a single moment.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 237
• Letter dated March 21, 1942, to Cornelius Lanczos, expressing his reaction to quantum theory, which refutes relativity theory by stating that an observer can influence reality, that events do happen randomly

The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility. . . . The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 259
• Original source: “Physics in Reality,” Journal of the Franklin Institute221, No.3, March 1936, pages 349-382
• Popularly paraphrased as “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 259
• Quoted in Einstein’s obituary in Saturday Review, April 30, 1955

Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
The New Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press, February 22, 2005, page 279
• Quoted by William Miller in Life magazine, May 2, 1955

The most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile.
Albert Einstein
As quoted by Harald Anderson in the essay, Reinventing Failure: Designing Success

Most people see what is, and never see what can be.
Albert Einstein
Choices That Change Lives: 15 Ways to Find More Purpose, Meaning, and Joy by Hal Urban, Simon & Schuster, December 27, 2005, page 104
• Although this quote is attributed to Einstein on numerous websitesand a handful of books, I have been unable to confirm that it his

Whoever does not see God in every place does not see God in any place.
Rabbi Elimelech
Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art, Science, Technology, and Culture by Mel Alexenberg, Intellect Books, June 16, 2008, page 329

Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.
George Eliot
Adam Bede, Belford, Clarke, 1888, Google eBook, page 384

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot
Middlemarch, Volume 1, Diginovus, 1930, Google eBook
• I believe that this book is the source of the quote but I have been unable to verify that and identify the page number

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.
George Eliot
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers: a Cyclopædia of Quotations from the Literature of All Ages, compiled and edited by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, W.B. Ketcham, 1895, Google eBook, page 563

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot
Poem: “Little Gidding”
Four Quartets, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1943, page 59

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T. S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot and Prejudice by Christopher Ricks, page 171
• Original source: Transit of Venus by Harry Crosby, 1931, Preface, page ix (I have not verified this page number myself)

Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.
T. S. Eliot
Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley, Columbia University Press, 1964, page 166

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Jim Elliot
Getting a Clue in a Clueless World: Hope, Encouragement, and Challenge for Students by Ross Campbell and David Lambert, Zondervan, November 14, 1996, page 233

The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, selected and edited by Mary A. Jordan, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904, Essays: First Series, “Compensation,” page 9

Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, selected and edited by Mary A. Jordan, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904, Essays: First Series, “Compensation,” page 19

The good man has absolute good, which like fire turns every thing to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any harm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, selected and edited by Mary A. Jordan, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904, Essays: First Series, “Compensation,” page 19

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, selected and edited by Mary A. Jordan, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904, Essays: First Series, “Self-Reliance,” page 91

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, selected and edited by Mary A. Jordan, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904, Essays: First Series, “Friendship,” page 244

We must be our own before we can be another’s.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, selected and edited by Mary A. Jordan, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904, Essays: First Series, “Friendship,” page 249

Within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, United States Book Co., Essays: First Series, “The Over-Soul,” page 239

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, United States Book Co., Essays: First Series, “Circles,” page 283

God enters by a private door into every individual.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, United States Book Co., Essays: First Series, “Intellect,” page 291

Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, United States Book Co., Essays: First Series, “Intellect,” page 304

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, United States Book Co., Essays: First Series, “Art,” page 317

We permit all things to ourselves, and that which we call sin in others is experiment for us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1876, Essays: Second Series, “Experience,” page 68

Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1876, Essays: Second Series, “Gifts,” page 132

See only that thou work, and thou canst not escape the reward: whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought: no matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A lecture read before the Society in Amory Hall in Boston, on Sunday, March 3, 1844
Essays, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1876, Essays: Second Series, “New England Reformers,” page 227

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays and Lectures: Nature: Addresses and Lectures, Essays: First and Second Series, Representative Men, English Traits, and the Conduct of Life, Digireads.com Publishing, January 30, 2009, Google eBook, page 41
• This quote was part of “The American Scholar,” an oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge on August 31, 1837

The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Nature,” “Spirit,” page 325

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Nature,” “Prospects,” page 328

If you would lift me, you must be on higher ground.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Society and Solitude,” “Eloquence,” page 426

The days . . . come and go like muffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing; and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Society and Solitude,” “Works and Days,” page 443

Nature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the fruit of his character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Conduct of Life,” “Fate,” page 503

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Conduct of Life,” “Wealth,” page 521

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Conduct of Life,” “Worship,” page 547

What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Letters and Social Aims,” Social Aims,” page 596

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kessinger Publishing, July 31, 2006, “Letters and Social Aims,”Greatness,” page 645

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete Prose Works, Adamant Media Corporation, 2006, page 652
• This Elibron Classics Replica Edition is an unabridged facsimile of the edition published in 1891 by Ward, Lock and Company

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson in His Journals, edited by Joel Porte, Harvard University Press, 1982, November 8, 1838 entry, page 206

We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson in His Journals, edited by Joel Porte, Harvard University Press, 1982, October-November, 1841 entry, page 271

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Conduct of Life, Harvard University Press, 2003, “The Conduct of Life,” “Considerations by the Way,” page 139

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
According to Wolfgang Mieder in the book, Making a Way Out of No Way: Martin Luther King’s Sermonic Proverbial Rhetoric (page 118) the above statement was ascribed to Emerson in the Atlanta [Georgia] Constitution on May 11, 1882, and in the Decatur [Illinois] Daily Republican on May 19, 1882. Sarah Yule and Mary Keane ascribed the quote to Emerson on page 38 of the anthology, Borrowings: A Compilation of Helpful Thoughts from Great Authors, which was originally published in 1889. Yule later said that she heard Emerson make this remark during a lecture in San Francisco or Oakland in 1871, a claim that has not been substantiated.
Here is a similar passage that appears in Emerson’s Journals:
If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives or crucibles or church organs than any body else, you will find a broad hard beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson in His Journals, edited by Joel Porte, Harvard University Press, 1982, February 1855 entry, page 458

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The TranscendalistForgotten Books, from the Publisher’s Preface, page viii

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Constitution of Our Soul: Destiny’s Deliverance of Our Soul’s Rights by Kristy Kaye, Balboa Press, November 18, 2011, page 74
• Although this quote is attributed to Emerson in numerous books, I have not been able to source it directly to Emerson’s own writings

You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Forgotten Fundamentals: The Answers Are in the Box by Dan Clark, Cedar Fort, March 1, 2007, page 249
• Although this quote is attributed to Emerson in numerous books, I have not been able to source it directly to Emerson’s own writings

Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Techniques in Prayer Therapy by Joseph Murphy, Hay House, Inc., February 1, 2007, page 132
• Although this quote is attributed to Emerson in numerous books, I have not been able to source it directly to Emerson’s own writings

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Life Less Anxious: Freedom from Panic Attacks and Social Anxiety Without Drugs or Therapy by Steve Pavilanis and Patricia Alma Lee, Alpen Publishing Company, 2009, page 57
• Although this quote is attributed to Emerson in numerous books, I have not been able to source it directly to Emerson’s own writings

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The authorship of this quote is disputed. It was attributed to Emerson in Promotion of Pharmaceuticals: Issues, Trends, Options by Dev S. Pathak, Alan Escovitz, and Suzan Kucukarslan, Psychology Press, May 6, 1993, page 74, and to Henry David Thoreau, in The Life You Were Born to Live: A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose by Dan Millman, Preface, H J Kramer, February 1, 1995. According to Wikiquote, no occurrence of this quote prior to the 1990s has been located.

It’s not only injustice that causes problems; often our vengeful response to injustice creates even greater and more enduring problems.
Robert Enright
Self-Realization magazine, Summer 2007, “Science Looks at the Healing Power of Forgiveness,” by Alice Feinstein, page 37
• Enright is the author of Forgiveness Is a Choice: A Step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope, American Psychological Association, May, 2001. His quote from Feinstein’s article is related to the following passage from page 42 of his book:

In some cases, the victim commits acts in retaliation that are greater than the original offense.

When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
Nora Ephron
Billy Crystal’s character, Harry Burns, spoke this line of dialogue in When Harry Met Sally, which Ephron wrote the screenplay for

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.
Epictetus
A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion, translated by George Long, Echo Library, August 31, 2009, page 95

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Epictetus
My Life by Anthony Fomuso, Xlibris Corporation, 2010, page 66
• This quote appears to be a paraphrasing of the following passage from A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion, translated by George Long, Echo Library, August 31, 2009, page 98:

Has any man been preferred before you at a banquet, or in being saluted, or in being invited to a consultation? If these things are good, you ought to rejoice that he has obtained them; but if bad, be not grieved because you have not obtained them. And remember that you cannot, if you do not the same things in order to obtain what is not in our own power, be considered worthy of the same (equal) things.

It is impossible for a man to begin to learn that which he thinks that he knows.
Epictetus
A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion, translated by George Long, Echo Library, August 31, 2009, page 45

He who doesn’t find a little enough, will find nothing enough.
Epicurus
Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations, edited by Hugh Percy Jones, J. Grant, 1908, page 181

It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.
Epicurus
Hope in the Age of Anxiety by Anthony Scioli and Henry B. Biller, Oxford University Press, September 3, 2009, page 167

What I spent, I had; what I kept, I lost; what I gave, I have still.
Old epitaph
Go Up Higher by James Freeman Clarke, ‪Lee & Shepard‬, ‪1877‬, Google eBook, page 235

We can live our lives either acting out of circumstances or acting out of a vision.
Werner Erhard
The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife by Marianne Williamson, Hay House, Inc., first edition, January 1, 2008, page v
This passage was excerpted on Erhard’s official website

Become peace, for that is the attractor of peace to the world.
The Essenes
This was quoted by author Gregg Braden in an interview with Miriam Knight for the January/February issue of New Connexion magazine. The interview can be found on a handful of websites. I cannot find any other source for this quote.

The buried talent is the sunken rock on which most lives strike and founder.
Frederick William Faber
Notes on Doctrinal and Spiritual Subjects, Richardson, 1866, page 343

Deep down, even the most hardened criminal is starving for the same thing that motivates the innocent baby: love and acceptance.
Lily Fairchilde
Voices from the Afterlife, Macmillan, April 15, 1998, page 114

All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than expectation.
François Fénelon
A Dictionary of Thoughts, edited by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Co., 1908, Google eBook, page 417

If we had strength and faith enough to trust ourselves entirely to God and to follow Him simply wherever He should lead us, we would have no need of any great effort of mind to reach perfection.
François Fénelon
The Best of Fenelon, edited by Harold J. Chadwick, Bridge-Logos Publishers, July 31, 2002, page 33

Faith is letting down our nets into the transparent deeps at the Divine command, not knowing what we shall draw.
François Fénelon
Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical, George G. Harrap, 1917, page 689

When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much.
Fen-Yang
The Seeker, the Search, the Sacred: Journey to the Greatness Within by Guy Finley, Weiser Books, October 1, 2011, page 14

Much of our inner turbulence reflects the fear of loss: our dependence on people, circumstances, and things not really under our control. On some level we know that death, indifference, rejection, repossession, or high tide may leave us bereft in the morning. Still, we clutch desperately at things we cannot finally hold. Nonattachment is the most realistic of attitudes. It is freedom from wishful thinking, from always wanting things to be otherwise.
Marilyn Ferguson
The Aquarian Conspiracy, J.P. Tarcher, 1987, pages 104-105

At some point early in our lives, we decide just how conscious we wish to be. We establish a threshold of awareness. We choose how stark a truth we are willing to admit into consciousness, how readily we will examine contradictions in our lives and beliefs, how deeply we wish to penetrate. Our brains can censor what we see and hear, we can filter reality to suit our level of courage. At every crossroads we make the choice again for greater or lesser awareness.
Marilyn Ferguson
The Aquarian Conspiracy, J.P. Tarcher, 1987, page 112

To the transformed self, as to the artist, success is never a place to stay, only a momentary reward. Joy is in risking, in making new.
Marilyn Ferguson
The Aquarian Conspiracy, J.P. Tarcher, 1987, page 117

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is freedom.
Marilyn Ferguson
A Bang Into Gentleness: A Psychic’s Journey Through Spiritual Transformations by Heather Clockedile, AuthorHouse, August 20, 2009, page 30

It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear . . . . It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.
Marilyn Ferguson
The Change Book: Change the Way You Think about Change by Tricia Emerson and Mary Stewart, American Society for Training and Development, March 16, 2011, page 138

The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best hearts.
Henry Fielding
Best Thoughts of Best Thinkers, edited by Hialmer Day Gould and Edward Louis Hessenmueller, Best Thoughts Publishing Company, 1904, Google eBook, page 581

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.
Henry Fielding
Encyclopedia of Wit and Wisdom, edited by Henry Hupfeld, David McKay, Publisher, 1897,Google eBook, page 608

Integrity is not something that you should have to think about, nor consider doing, but something in the heart that is already done.
Doug Firebaugh
• Confirmed and approved by the author via e-mail

Nobody has ever measured, even the poets, how much a heart can hold.
Zelda Fitzgerald
Zelda: a Biography by Nancy Milford, HarperCollins, November 3, 1983, page 367

Forgiveness is a rebirth of hope, a reorganization of thought, and a reconstruction of dreams. Once forgiving begins, dreams can be rebuilt. When forgiving is complete, meaning has been extracted from the worst of experiences and used to create a new set of moral rules and a new interpretation of life’s events.
Beverly Flanigan
Forgiving the Unforgivable: Overcoming the Bitter Legacy of Intimate Wounds by Beverly Flanigan, Wiley, June 1, 1994, page 29

A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time.
Anne Taylor Fleming
The Bells! the Bells! by Mark Stibbe, Monarch Books, January 23, 2009, page 186

One of the most difficult things to give away is kindness—it is usually returned.
Cort R. Flint
Worth Repeating: More Than 5000 Classic and Contemporary Quotesby Bob Kelly, Kregel Academic, June 1, 2003, page 196

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.
Ferdinand Foch
Strengthening the Pastor’s Soul: Developing Personal Authenticity for Pastoral Effectiveness by Rick Ezell, Kregel Publications, June 1, 1995, page 94

Experience may be hard but we claim its gifts because they are real, even though our feet bleed on its stones.
Mary Parker Follett
Creative Experience, Longmans, Green and Co., 1924, page 302

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.
Malcolm Forbes
Know Your Limits-Then Ignore Them by John Mason, Insight International, Inc., 2000, page 75

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
Malcolm Forbes
Framework for Leadership: Tools and Resources by Sergio Chiappetta and Daron Sandbergh, iUniverse, November 16, 2004, page 66

God loves me so much he will accept me just as I am, but he loves me too much to leave me that way.
Leighton Ford
Good News Is for Sharing: A Guide to Making Friends for God, D.C. Cook Publishing Company, 1977, page 37

Though outwardly a gloomy shroud,
The inner half of every cloud
Is bright and shining:
I therefore turn my clouds about
And always wear them inside out
To show the lining.
Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
Shrouds of the Night: Masks of the Milky Way and our Awesome New View of Galaxies by David Block, Ken Freeman and Google eBook, page 39
• This poem is presumably from Fowler’s book, The Wisdom of Folly, but I have been unable to find it there

The art of life is to live in the present moment, and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God Himself.
Emmet Fox
Power Through Constructive Thinking, HarperCollins, June 16, 2009, Google eBook, page 29

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
Anne Frank
Change the World, Change Your Life: Discover Your Life Purpose Through Service by Angela Perkey, Conari Press, March 1, 2010, page 96
• Although numerous books and websites source this quote to Anne Frank’s diary, I have been unable to find it there

My narrative: 
One person’s suffering cannot be compared to another’s. As Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, an individual’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Likewise, suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter the size of the suffering.
I based the above paragraph on the following excerpt from Frankl’s book:
To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.
Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, page 44

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, pages 65-66

My narrative: 
Stronger still is faith bolstered not only by action but by purpose as well. In Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl explained that prisoners whose minds were fixated on an all-consuming reason to live—reuniting with loved ones, completing unfinished work, alerting the world to atrocities—were most apt to survive.
I based the above paragraph on the following excerpt from Frankl’s book:
There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a whyto live for can bear almost any how.” I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psychotherapy. In the Nazi concentration camps, one could have witnessed that those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive. The same conclusion has since been reached by other authors of books on concentration camps, and also by psychiatric investigations into Japanese, North Korean and North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camps.
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, page 104

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
Victor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, page 105

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, page 109

In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, page 113

What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.
Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, page 118

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.
Viktor Frankl
Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press, June 1, 2006, page 131

To be thrown upon one’s own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune, for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible.
Benjamin Franklin
Thoughts That Inspire, Personal Help Publishing Company, 1910, page 65

Change occurs when one becomes what she is, not when she tries to become what she is not.
Ruth P. Freedman
Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey, Hazelden Publishing, 1982, November 25 entry

I love you not only for who you are,
but for what you are when I am with you.
I love you not only for what you have made of yourself,
but what you are making of me.
Erich Fried
• This poem is commonly attributed to Roy Croft, which is apparently a pseudonym for someone who published a twenty-eight page collection of poetry—including the poem “Love,” which is the source of this quote—with Blue Mountain Arts Press (a vanity press) in 1979. However, it appears that this quote was derived from the German-language poem “Ich liebe Dich” by Austrian poet Erich Fried.
• Here is a translation of Fried’s poem:

I love you
Not because you are as you are
Rather because I am as I am
When I can be with you.
I love you not due to all that
you make of yourself,
Rather for what you make out of me.
I love you
For the sake of my better self
That you know how to bring out…
I love you because you lay your hand on my overflowing heart
And overlook all my foolishness and weaknesses
That cannot be overlooked
And instead bring all
That is beautiful and good into the light,
That which no other looked deep enough to find,
Because you closed your ears to my wrong notes
And instead
Through reverent listening, strengthened the music in me
I love you because you help me
Build, on the foundation of my life, not a tavern,
Rather a temple
As you also help me
That my daily words are not reproach
But rather song
I love you
Because you have brought with you more for my happiness
When to it any other could have done
And you did it without a touch,
Without a word, without a sign.
You did it simply through your being you.
And that is most likely
What one understands of friendship.

• Here is a summary of the controversy from Wikipedia:

Roy Croft is a poet (or translator; see below) frequently credited with writing a poem titled “Love” and beginning “I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.” This poem, which is commonly used in wedding speeches and readings and is quoted frequently, is nearly identical in meaning to a German-language poem titled Ich liebe Dich (“I Love You”) and composed by Austrian poet Erich Fried; the main difference is that Croft’s version stops at the third-from-last line of Fried’s poem, with the effect that Fried’s poem contains two final lines for which Croft’s version has no equivalent. Croft’s version appears without further attribution in The Family Book of Best Loved Poems, edited by David L. George and published in 1952 by Doubleday & Company, Inc., then of Garden City, New York.
Little is known about the poet himself: A poet by this name had a 28-page collection published in 1979 by vanity publishers Blue Mountain Arts Press (now known as Blue Mountain Arts Inc. and specializing in “inspirational” books and greeting cards). Investigators such as Ted Nesbitt have surmised that if this Roy Croft is the same poet whose work appears in the Doubleday anthology above, his nationality was American and he lived at some time between the years 1905 and 1980. Some amateur investigators have speculated that “Roy Croft” is a pseudonym used by a translator who wanted to keep all royalties from publication (rather than sharing them with Fried’s estate) or who simply did not want to go through the trouble of obtaining a license from a foreign entity. Whatever the translator’s motive for using the Roy Croft pseudonym, the pseudonym itself may have been inspired by the early 20th century Roycroft publishing company.

Success based on anything but internal fulfillment is bound to be empty.
Dr. Martha Friedman
Assessment Strategies for Self-directed Learning by Arthur L. Costa, Corwin Press, 2004, page 150

If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I?
Erich Fromm
To Have or to Be?, Continuum International Publishing Group, September 23, 2005, page 89

Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one’s identity.
Erich Fromm
The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology, Lantern Books, July 1, 2011, page 92

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Robert Frost
The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations by Hugh Rawson and Margaret Miner, Oxford University Press, 2006, page 392

My narrative:
Architect and visionary Buckminster Fuller explained the value of mistakes through the analogy of a ship’s rudder. A ship tends to continue moving in the direction it is angled. The helmsman has to steer the ship back toward the intended destination, acting and reacting, adjusting and reorienting, in a never-ending process of course correction.
• In Your Private Sky: Discourse, Springer, July 1, 2001, Google eBook, page 294, Fuller offers a long discourse on the importance of facing and correcting mistakes
• In Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement, Simon and Schuster, December 22, 1997, Google eBook, page 74, Anthony Robbins references and comments on Fuller’s rudder analogy

If your desires be endless, your cares and fears will be so too.
Thomas Fuller
Forbes, Volume 145, Issues 1-4, Forbes, Inc., 1990, page 204

Between our birth and death we may touch understanding,
As a moth brushes a window with its wing.
Christopher Fry
Play: “The Boy with a Cart”
Our Universes by Denys Haigh Wilkinson, Columbia University Press, October 15, 1991, page 20