Hugh Prather Quotes

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

All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.

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

I don't need a "reason" to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now.

Don't strive for love, be it.

Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser?

It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.

By approaching my problems with "What might make things a little better?" rather than "What is the solution?" I avoid setting myself up for certain frustration. My experience has shown me that I am not going to solve anything in one stroke; at best I am only going to chip away at it.

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.

What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.

I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.

Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behavior, trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be.

I talk because I feel, and I talk to you because I want you to know how I feel.

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

Today I don't want to live for, I want to live.

We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.

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

perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown.

What I want are words that reflect my heart, not my cleverness.

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

Next time I will ..." "From now on I will ..." - What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow?

There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just on thing in life, would kill off large parts of me.

Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behaviour, trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be.

Selfishness is neither good nor bad—it depends on the way we are selfish as to whether it nourishes or injures.

Perfectionism is a slow death....If everything were to turn out just as I would want it, just as I would plan, I would never experience anything new. My life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. When I make a mistake I experience something unexpected.

Today I acknowledge that I am not in position to judge what mistakes anyone is making or what lessons anyone needs to learn. I don’t know how far someone has come or when that person will have a breakthrough, I simply don’t know what other people should be doing. But when I think I do know, I clearly am not doing what I should be doing, which is taking responsibility for my own life.

It's not that "today is the first day of the rest of my life," but that now is all there is of my life.

There are no absolutes for something so relative as a human life. There are no rules for something so gentle as a heart.

I'm convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I "should be" and what i am. My anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. It seems to begin whenever I smuggle into my mind an expectation about how I or others should be. It is the tension between my desire to control the world and the recognition that I can't. "I will be what I will be" - where is the anxiety in that ? Anxiety is the recognition that I might not reach the rung on the opinion ladder I have just set for my self. I fear death most when I am about to exceed what I believe others think of me; then death threatens to cut me off from myself, because "myself" is not yet.

In order to see, I have to be willing to be seen.

Every moment that I am centered in the future I suffer a temporary loss of this life.

I sometimes wonder if the "dead" are not more present, more comfort, more here than most of the living.

Egos clash. That's the nature of egos. Treat these outbursts as sneezing fits.

What I must do is die now. I must accept the justice of death and the injustice of life. I have lived a good life - longer than many, better than most. Tony died when he was twenty. I have had thirty-two years. I couldn't ask for another day. What did I do to deserve birth? It was a gift. I am me - that is a miracle. I had no right to a single hour. And yet I have had thirty-two years. Few can choose when they will die. I choose to accept death now. As of this moment I give up my "right" to live.

I wish" assumes that I know what is the opposite of my present experience.

Boredom or discontent is useful to me when I acknowledge it and see clearly my assumption that there's something else I would rather be doing. In this way boredom can act as an invitation to freedom by opening me to new options and thoughts. For example, if I can't change the activity, can I look at it more honestly?

The tools of the mind can be wrongly used, but the mind possesses no wrong tools.

You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me.

Sometimes the only way for me to find out what it is I want to do is go ahead and do something. Then the moment I start to act, my feelings become clear.

If I had Only ... Forgotten future greatness and looked at the green things and the buildings and reached out to those around me and smelled the air and ignored the forms and the self-styled obligations and heard the rain on the roof and put my arms around my wife ... and it's not too late

To err is human- I'm uncomfortable around gods.

The number of things just outside the perimeter of my financial reach remains constant no matter how much my financial condition improves. With each increase in my income a new perimeter forms and I experience the same relative sense of lack.

I live from one tentative conclusion to the next, thinking each one is final. The only thing i know for sure is that I'am confused.

It seems that the truth is needed today is always a lie by tomorrow.

Do I avoid looking a stranger in the eyes because I don't want to make him uncomfortable, or do I turn my eyes so he can't look into me?

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

Aqueles que nos deram as contribuições mais significativas e duradouras para sermos quem somos foram os que ousaram assumir seu lugar como iguais. O mundo olha, fascinado, para o brilho ofuscante do ego, mas somente os que caminharem ao nosso lado, com amor e igualdade, atingirão nossos corações e nos transformarão.

When I get to where I can enjoy just lying on the rug picking up lint balls, I will no longer be too ambitious.

If we knew everything that was ever said about us and if at the same time we took every word at face value, we would remain friends with no one.

I also sense that I am misusing the idea of being real whenever I discover myself anxiously weight my words and actions, that is, whenever I am being careful to be "real". When I do this I am only playing a new role - the role of the "real person". Calculation does not enter into being real. Concerns with appearances does not enter into it. Being real is more of a process of letting go then it is the effort of becoming. I don't really have to become me, although at times it feels this way - I am already me. And that is both the easiest and the hardest thing for me to realise.

Today I don't want to live for, I want to live.

perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown.

It’s not that we fear the place of darkness but that we don’t think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.

It's not that we fear the place of darkness but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light

La vita è fatta di problemi irrisolti, vittorie ambigue e vaghe sconfitte, con qualche momento di autentica pace.

It makes no sense to hurry up, and so mess up, what I am doing now in order to get started on what I plan to do next. Every moment that I am centered in the future I suffer a temporary loss of this life.