Meditation Motivational Quotes

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Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.
Bernard Branson
You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.
Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
She remembered who she was and the game changed.
Lalah Delia
You are your master. Only you have the master keys to open the inner locks.
Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
God is whispering in your heart, in the whole existence, just tune your ears.
Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
We can only aspire to become unshakable when we take ownership for our state of mind and how we feel about situations life hands out to us
Purnachaitanya (Looking Inward: Meditating to Survive A Changing World)
Meditation is a journey from effort to effortlessness, from activity to stillness, and from stress, anxiety and frustration to a state of peace and tranquillity.
Purnachaitanya (Looking Inward: Meditating to Survive A Changing World)
Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realise the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
DETOX your mind, body, AND your contact list.
SupaNova Slom (The Remedy: The Five-Week Power Plan to Detox Your System, Combat the Fat, and Rebuild Your Mind and Body)
Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them…digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be ‘much not many.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Lectures to My Students)
I am Not, but the Universe is my Self.
Shih-t'ou
The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.
Confucius
The worst disability in life is a bad attitude.
SupaNova Slom
Dance less in motion and more in spirit; awaken the dreamer within.
Shah Asad Rizvi
Do not Blame the world. Find a solution.
Sri Chinmoy (My Life's Soul-Journey: Daily Meditations for Ever-Increasing Spiritual Fulfillment)
Think about every good thing in your life right now. Free yourself of worrying. Let go of the anxiety, breathe. Stay positive, all is well.
Germany Kent
Why always looking for someone to blame? Blame culture has become a plague with tortuous roots and cryptic motives. Why being tempted to bring about unpleasant or distressing issues? Blamestorming springs from a lack of empathy, laziness, boredom, or uncontrollable inner wrath. Over and over, people can be dissatisfied or angry with themselves, feel ashamed, and want to find a way out of their impasse. But, in the end, one thing is for sure, they don’t want to put the blame on themselves. (“The infinite Wisdom of Meditation“)
Erik Pevernagie
Om is the things, Om is the ingredient, Om is the container and the content of this universe.
Banani Ray (Glory of OM: A Journey to Self-Realization)
If people just took it a day at a time, they'd be a lot happier.
Richard Bachman
Music does not need language of words for it has movements of dance to do its translation.
Shah Asad Rizvi
True freedom is when all the stories, all the insights, all the realizations, concepts, beliefs and positions dissolve. What remains is what you are; a vast, conscious, luminous space simply resting in itself, not knowing a thing, at the point where all things are possible.
Enza Vita
Soar like an eagle beyond skies of heavens reach; as wings of dreams dance with winds of reality.
Shah Asad Rizvi
Dance resides within us all. Some find it when joy conquers sorrow, others express it through celebration of movements; and then there are those... whose existence is dance,
Shah Asad Rizvi
Om is that God of love. Like a loving mother Om cleans us of our clutters collected through many incarnations.
Banani Ray
Wisdom is knowing the right thing to do and doing it at the right time to get the desired result. It is also the correct application of knowledge.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Running and meditation are very personal activities. Therefore they are lonely. This loneliness is one of their best qualities because it strengthens our incentive to motivate ourselves.
Sakyong Mipham (Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind)
When you are truly awakened, you have completely stopped trying to become awakened. You simply are. You know that you did not locate awakening; awakening located you.
Enza Vita
Mind can be your best friend or worst enemy.
Kabira (Birthplace of Happiness)
When the melody plays, footsteps move, heart sings and spirit begin to dance.
Shah Asad Rizvi
Mindfulness is awareness of everything that is happening in the moment of 'Now'. Mindfulness is a self development technique that will change the focus of our mind towards happiness.
Nataša Pantović (Mindful Being (AoL Mindfulness, #4))
CHANGE: Don’t just talk about it, go out there and do it. Don’t just meditate about it, go out there and create it. Don’t just pray about it go out there and take action; participate in the answering of your own prayer. If you want change, get out there and live it. - Steve Maraboli
Steve Maraboli
A man with wisdom will always have a solution no matter how big his challenges may be. Wisdom makes you a problem solver.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Your mind is a book; God is the pen.
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes)
A new mind, equals a new life.
Lalah Delia
Your hardest time can be your greatest opportunity. Mobilize and harmonize your life-energy and balance the 114 chakras in your body.
Amit Ray (72000 Nadis and 114 Chakras in Human Body for Healing and Meditation)
The greatest Emotion is Love. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest gift is your own Life. The greatest pleasure is CHOCOLATE! The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is that there's always something new to learn. The greatest virtue is temperance. The greatest meditation is a peaceful mind. The greatest practice is to be Kind. education. The greatest challenge is to let go. The greatest wisdom is to be in the NOW
Pablo
Your reality is a reflection of yourself
Avis J. Williams
A compassionate leader always feel motivated to bring happiness and relieve the suffering of customers, investors, suppliers, employees, government and the communities.
Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
Later that day when I walked down this dried-out riverbed, enjoying the last rays of sunshine on my bare skin, I felt a deep inner peace coming up straight from my heart.
Nina Hrusa
If you feel anxiety or depression, you are not in the present. You are either anxiously projecting the future or depressed and stuck in the past. The only thing you have any control over is the present moment; simple breathing exercises can make us calm and present instantly.
Tobe Hanson (The Four Seasons Way of Life:: Ancient Wisdom for Healing and Personal Growth)
Hour by hour resolve firmly to do what comes to hand with dignity, and with humanity, independence, and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the desire to create an impression, the admiration of self, the discontent with your lot. See how little man needs to master, for his days to flow on in quietness and piety: he has but to observe these few counsels, and the gods will ask nothing more.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
In comparing sins (the way people do) Theophrastus says that the ones committed out of desire are worse than the ones committed out of anger: which is good philosophy. The angry man seems to turn his back on reason out of a kind of pain and inner convulsion. But the man motivated by desire, who is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self- indulgent, less manly in his sins. Theophrastus is right, and philosophically sound, to say that the sin committed out of pleasure deserves a harsher rebuke than the one committed out of pain. The angry man is more like a victim of wrongdoing, provoked by pain to anger. The other man rushes into wrongdoing on his own, moved to action by desire.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Being enlightened ironically means realizing that there is no separate entity that can be enlightened or unenlightened.
Enza Vita
Follow your heart. It will lead you to where you need to be.
Avis J. Williams
The stiller you are the calmer life is.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
It's always the mind that needs quietening and the heart that needs listening to.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
You are a person worthy of love. You don’t have to do anything to prove that.
Sharon Salzberg (Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection)
When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
Bill Wilson
School does not make people, it is learning that makes people great, that is why you see first class students fail and poor. The world is not ruled by those who went to school, it is ruled by those who learn everyday.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
It’s only the ego that wants to surrender the ego; the real meaning of surrender does not involve anything external. It means to surrender to your true nature.
Enza Vita
Not knowing anything, not searching for anything, understanding that we can’t hold on to anything, leaves us with nothing — nothing except our original nature, pure awareness.
Enza Vita
All paths are valid, but in the end you will find that the realization of the ultimate truth is a pathless path.
Enza Vita
We need something that encourages us to work, we need an intimate aid. This is only possible through meditation.
Samael Aun Weor
May you comfort and healing.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
Wisdom cannot be bought from the walmart, it can only come from the Holy Spirit of God.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
Hearts shall dance once again; when canvas of ice is painted with the brush of skates.
Shah Asad Rizvi
The quieter the mind the louder the soul.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Life is like playing a guitar and meditation is like music. Small session of rehearsals daily won’t show much but would make you ROCK in the long run.
Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma (Guru with Guitar)
Immerse yourself in the world or the industry that you wish to master.
Robert Greene (The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy and Human Nature)
It becomes the urgent duty of mathematicians, therefore, to meditate about the essence of mathematics, its motivations and goals and the ideas that must bind divergent interests together.
Richard Courant
Understand your purpose and the belief-energy. Belief energy is the core of leadership and success. Design your belief energy for higher purpose and values. Belief energy can inspire and motivate you and others. Articulate, communicate and radiate your positive belief energy.
Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
In his talk, Suzuki Roshi says that meditation and the whole process of finding your own true nature is one continuous mistake, and that rather than that being a reason for depression or discouragement, it's actually the motivation.
Pema Chödrön (The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World)
Why wait for your awakening? The moment your eyes are open, seize the day. Would you hold back when the Beloved beckons? Would you deliver your litany of sins like a child's collection of sea shells, prized and labeled? "No, I can't step across the threshold," you say, eyes downcast. "I'm not worthy, I'm afraid, and my motives aren't pure." "I'm not perfect, and surely I haven't practiced nearly enough." "My meditation isn't deep, and my prayers are sometimes insincere." "I still chew my fingernails, and the refrigerator isn't clean." Do you value your reasons for staying small more than the light shining though the open door? Forgive yourself. Now is the only time you have to be whole. Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true Self. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. Please, oh please, don't continue to believe in your disbelief. This is the day of your awakening.
Danna Faulds (Go In and In: Poems From the Heart of Yoga)
Articulating and expanding your motivation when you wake up in the morning has the power to change your whole day.
Sakyong Mipham (Running with the Mind of Meditation: Lessons for Training Body and Mind)
The one who believes himself to be a person needs to try to find that person. This is a solution, an antidote, offered to a ghost that thinks it actually exists.
Enza Vita
Even with fasting and prayers you still need wisdom. At the root of every great accomplishment is wisdom. In all your getting get wisdom first.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
There are too many stars in the sky and none of them is overshadowing the other. Don't let anybody be a threat to your growth.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
World seems like a void of silence every time footsteps are deprived of dancing shoes.
Shah Asad Rizvi
If you do not completely accept yourself, you can not love yourself fully. It would be hard to love anything unconditionally.
Avis J. Williams
Our fatal mistake is waiting to be motivated before we take action. Action motivates.
Kyle Eschenroeder (The Pocket Guide to Action: 116 Meditations on the Art of Doing)
Ignite the light within you, it will make your world brighter.
Avis J. Williams
You need to find out, what you love most from the core of your heart, and for success you need to invest your time and energy on that.
Amit Ray (Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management)
Live each day with ecstatic serenity
Lailah Gifty Akita (Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind)
I believe there are only three businesses: my business, other people's business, and God's business.
Tobe Hanson (The Four Seasons Way of Life:: Ancient Wisdom for Healing and Personal Growth)
There is no greater prize than a quiet, peaceful mind.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
No man's advice can change you unless you speak to yourself. Bible school or seminars can't change you, going to church can't change you except you decide to change. Psalm 139:23 - 24
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
You aren’t actually a someone, a person, who is conscious. You are the awake space of awareness itself, within which all the “thought up” entities in your world appear. Out of all these imagined entities, you have simply made the mistake of thinking that one of them is you.
Enza Vita
In the hectic pace of the world today, there is no time for meditation, or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I’d put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he’s motivated, in prison he can change his life.
Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)
Our Mind is constantly active. Seeking stillness within the Mind that is in motion is impossible if you do not use the motion itself. When the surface of a lake is still, we will be able to see, experience, intuitively sense the ocean of our sub-conscious and to tap into the magic of super-conscious. This is impossible when the surface is agitated by waves of our thoughts, emotions, habits, fears.
Nataša Pantović (Mindful Being (AoL Mindfulness, #4))
Realization includes everything, the mundane and the transcendental. In true awakening, nothing stands apart and nothing is excluded. If we find ourselves in a state where something is excluded, that state, however amazing it is, is still a dualistic state.
Enza Vita
The problem is that you THINK that you have to be motivated to do something, instead of just doing it and then having it done. Tip: The willingness to do things comes with action. Don’t wait until you feel like going to the gym and exercising. Start exercising right away and there’s a huge possibility that you’ll feel the desire to continue.
Ian Tuhovsky (Zen: Beginner's Guide: Happy, Peaceful and Focused Lifestyle for Everyone (Buddhism, Meditation, Mindfulness, Success) (Down-to-Earth Spirituality for Everyday People))
Daily meditation promotes self confidence, peace of mind and strong faith in God.
Lailah Gifty Akita
Looking forward” to what you think enlightenment might be at some grand point in the future keeps you from seeing the truth of its presence right now.
Enza Vita
Whenever you feel overwhelmed, distracted and out of sorts. Turn your attention to your breath, inhale, exhale, and listen to the sound and movement of your everyday breath flowing softly in and out through your nose. You will reclaim your calm and refocus on what matters.
Ntathu Allen (yoga for beginners a simple guide to the best yoga styles for relaxation, stretching and good health)
Realization is not about you, the wave, realizing it is ocean. The ocean realizes itself in you and reveals itself to have never been just a wave. Nothing changes except the falling away of a false belief.
Enza Vita
When you decide that you need to lose twenty pounds because you are disgusting at this weight or that you need to meditate every day or go to church on Sundays because you will go to hell if you don’t, you are making life decisions while you are being whipped with chains. The Voice-induced decisions—those made from shame and force, guilt or deprivation, cannot be trusted. They do not last because they are based on fear of consequences instead of longing for truth. Instead, ask yourself what you love. Without fear of consequences, without force or shame or guilt. What motivates you to be kind, to take care of your body, your spirit, others, the earth? Trust the longing, trust the love that can be translated into action without the threat of punishment. Trust that you will not destroy what matters most. Give yourself that much.
Geneen Roth (Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything)
At the moment of enlightenment, everything is dropped—body, mind, all states, all things—everything. At that moment, there is no separate entity that can become enlightened, because there is no I that can experience it.
Enza Vita
Live now, enjoy Life now! Love now, for this now is the precious moment that is creating our lives. Each now is unique -- it won’t come back in time. In it we leave a footprint, and within that impression are the actions we leave behind. Each step we take, we leave a mark. The path is created by the steps a person takes while walking it.
Jacqueline Ripstein (The Art of HealingArt: The Keys to Power and Awareness (collectors Edition))
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.
Alcoholics Anonymous (Alcoholics Anonymous)
Do not wait for a change of environment before you act; get a change of environment by action. You can so act upon the environment in which you are now as to cause yourself to be transferred to a better environment. Hold with faith and purpose the vision of yourself in the better environment, but act upon your present environment with all your heart, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.
Wallace D. Wattles
This is the law of nature that every person who is born has to go through certain kind of painful experiences. The painful issues keep coming throughout life. As you progress on the spiritual path their impact become lesser and lesser and finally a stage would come where you can achieve liberation from Stress and unhappiness forever. -Subodh Gupta author, "Stress Management a Holistic Approach -5 steps Plan".
Subodh Gupta (Stress Management A Holistic Approach)
Strategies that relax and replenish can restore one’s reservoir of willpower and are thus helpful in ADHD. These strategies include: times of relaxation such as meditation, positive emotions, self-talk that is encouraging, time of play, physical exercise, adequate breaks, or even having a snack that increases blood glucose. Motivational strategies such imagery, or physical reminders of or talking about future rewards can also help.
Lidia Zylowska (The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD: An 8-Step Program for Strengthening Attention, Managing Emotions, and Achieving Your Goals)
There is a great Hindu story about a lady who wanted to meet the god Krishna. So she went into the forest, closed her eyes, and prayed and meditated on making the god appear and lo and behold, Krishna tapped the lady on the shoulder, she, without opening her eyes, told him to get lost because she was busy meditating on a very important goal. When we get so wrapped up in our heads, we miss out on what's available to us right now in the moment.
Jen Sincero (You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life)
Murder is always murder, regardless of motive or circumstance. Thus those who murder or who prepare to murder are malefactors and criminals, regardless of who they may be: kings, princes, marshals or judges. None who contemplates and commits violence has the right to consider himself better than an ordinary criminal. Because it is in the nature of all violence to lead inevitably to crime. Nicodemus de Boot, Meditations on Life, Happiness and Prosperity
Andrzej Sapkowski (Blood of Elves (The Witcher #1))
Just as there’s usually a space or interval between people passing on the street, even if it sometimes seems very small, a space also exists between thoughts. In your meditation, see if you can perceive this gap between thoughts. What is it, and does it belong to the realm of time? If it does not, then it’s unborn and undying, beyond all conditioning, which is a psychological carry-over from the past to the present. Whatever thoughts or internal conflicts come up—do nothing. Do not try to force them to cease or change. And don’t “do nothing” to still the mind, quiet fears, or resolve conflicts—all of this is doing something. It only leads to more struggling and prevents you from seeing the actual nature of thought and internal conflict. Genuine attention has no motive. This observation or listening doesn’t involve effort. Effort merely distracts you from what’s taking place in the instant. A kind of concentration exists that’s not forced. We’ve all experienced listening or paying attention to something we truly enjoyed. At that moment, was effort required for concentration to take place?
H.E. Davey (Japanese Yoga: The Way of Dynamic Meditation)
How can we discriminate between selfish and unselfish desires? As to what has motivated and does motivate the desire. If it is for the self, or for the glorification of the Christ Consciousness in thine experience. That this or that may appear to self as being well, if such and such an experience were thine own. But, as has been given, each soul may find in self an answer to that it seeks or desires to know from what source it(the desire) has originated, or is in its impelling force. First ask self in the physical consciousness, and answer - and find an answer - yes or no. Then enter into the inner self through meditation and prayer, and seek the answer there.
Edgar Evans Cayce
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it. We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.
Alcoholics Anonymous (Alcoholics Anonymous)
Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, “What are you thinking about?” you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones—the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything else you’d be ashamed to be caught thinking. Someone like that—someone who refuses to put off joining the elect—is a kind of priest, a servant of the gods, in touch with what is within him and what keeps a person undefiled by pleasures, invulnerable to any pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an athlete in the greatest of all contests—the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens. With what leaves us dyed indelibly by justice, welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes—whatever we’re assigned—not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think. He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for him—doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us—and it carries us. He keeps in mind that all rational things are related, and that to care for all human beings is part of being human. Which doesn’t mean we have to share their opinions. We should listen only to those whose lives conform to nature. And the others? He bears in mind what sort of people they are—both at home and abroad, by night as well as day—and who they spend their time with. And he cares nothing for their praise—men who can’t even meet their own standards.
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
Knowledge, taken up to excess without hunger, even in opposition to any need, now works no longer as something which reorganizes, a motivation driving outwards. It stays hidden in a certain chaotic inner world, which that modern man describes with a strange pride as an 'Inwardness' peculiar to him. Thus, people say that we have the content and that only the form is lacking. But with respect to everything alive this is a totally improper contradiction. For our modern culture is not alive, simply because it does let itself be understood without that contradiction; that is, it is really no true culture, but only a way of knowing about culture. There remain in it thoughts of culture, feelings of culture, but no cultural imperatives come from it. In contrast to this, what really motivates and moves outward into action then often amounts to not much more than a trivial convention, a pathetic imitation, or even a raw grimace. At that point the inner feeling is probably asleep, like the snake which has swallowed an entire rabbit and then lies down contentedly still in the sunlight and avoids all movements other than the most essential.
Friedrich Nietzsche (Untimely Meditations)