Morrie Schwartz Quotes

There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things" -he sighed- "these things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do? Morrie Schwartz

Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back

I don't mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don't go around naked, for example. I don't run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But the big things- how we think, what we value- those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone-or any society- determine those for you. ' -Morrie Schwartz

Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another

We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said." Love is the only rational act.

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too-even when you are in the dark. Even when you're falling.

Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hang on too long.

Death ends a life, not a relationship. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on- in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.

Death ends a life, not a relationship

The tension of opposites: Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.

For me, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them …

Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air-until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore. "My God, this is terrible," the wave says. "Look what's going to happen to me!" Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?" The first wave says, "You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?" The second wave says, "No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.

Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others.

If you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.

As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here

There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like. In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and let it come in

The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it

What is it about silence that makes people uneasy?

Once you learn how to die you learn how to live

In business people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own.

It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.

How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.

Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning

As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you were at twenty-two, you'd always be twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.

So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way to get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives your purpose and meaning.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. 2. Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others. 3. Death ends a life, not a relationship. 4. Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live. 5. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too-even when you are in the dark. Even when you're falling. 6. As you grow old, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, its also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.

Build a little community of those you love and who love you

We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives.

Said to Mitch Album in "Tuesday's with Morrie": "The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things and you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it! CREATE YOUR OWN!

The culture doesn't encourage you to think about such things until you're about to die. We're so wrapped up with egostical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks. We're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going . So we don't get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?

Accept yourself, your physical condition and your fate as they are at the present moment.

Now is the time to work on becoming the kind of person you would like to be.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and let it come in.

Morrie: And the biggest one of those values, Mitch? Mitch: Yes? Morrie: Your belief in the importance of your marriage.

We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country…. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. MORE IS GOOD. MORE IS GOOD. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.

If you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until you're sixty-five.

the word "dying" was not synonymous with "useless.

People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.

When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.

I believe that even though each person has an individual and unique self, the self means nothing outside the context of community or meaningful contact with other people.

All this emphasis on youth - I don’t buy it. Listen, I know what a misery being young can be, so don’t tell me it’s so great. All these kids who came to me with their struggles, their strife, their feelings of inadequacy, their sense that life was miserable, so bad they wanted to kill themselves... and in addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live everyday when you don’t know what’s going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you’ll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you’ll be sexy - and you believe them! It’s such nonsense.

Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it. Reminisce about it, but don't live in it. Learn from it, but don't punish yourself about it or continually regret it. Don't get stuck in it.

Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?

When you're in bed, you're dead.

Be compassionate. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much a better place. Love each other or die. -Morrie Schwartz

A veces no eres capaz de creerte lo que ves, tienes que creer lo que sientes. Y si quieres que los demás lleguen a confiar en ti, tu debes sentir que puedes confiar en ellos, aunque estés a oscuras. Aunque estés cayendo"- Morrie Schwartz

You don't have to be nice all the time—just most of the time.

Resist the temptation to think of yourself as useless. It will only lead to depression.

You can find joy in practically any situation if you are open to the experience of happiness.

The best preparation for living fully and well is to be prepared to die at any time, because impending death inspires clarity of purpose, a homing in on what really matters to you.

Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

جاه و مقام نمیتواند تو را به جایی برساند. تنها یک قلب گشاده است که باعث میشود تو در میان هر گروهی جایی برای خودت باز کنی

But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as "too late" in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

When people die, you always hear the expression, "You can't take it with you.

In the beginning of life, we need others to survive. At the end of life, we need others to survive. In between, we need others as well.

If we can make peace with dying, we can finally make peace with living.

In Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom reports that Morrie Schwartz, his former professor terminally ill with ALS, “was intent on proving that the word ‘dying’ was not synonymous with ‘useless.’” The immediate question is why one would have a need to prove this. No human being is “useless,” whether the helpless infant or the helpless ill or dying adult. The point is not to prove that dying people can be useful but to reject the spurious concept that people need to be useful in order to be valued. Morrie learned at a young age that his “value” depended on his ability to serve the needs of others. That same message, taken to heart by many people early in life, is heavily reinforced by the prevailing ethic in our society. All too frequently, people are given the sense that they are valued only for their utilitarian contribution and are expendable if they lose their economic worth.

I know I cannot do this. None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.

So if you want to be more kindly and compassionate, start being more kindly and compassionate. If you want to be a meditative person, start meditating. What were the qualities you longed for when you were younger or when you were well? Now is the time to work on becoming the kind of person you would like to be.

My own circumstances may be very different from yours; you may not have an opportunity to be interviewed on television or write a book, but everyone has the opportunity to be involved with people and make a contribution to others. Even a smile of encouragement to someone who is having a bad day can make you that person's inspiration.

Here’s how Polly Francis expresses her sense of a spiritual connection. A new set of faculties seem to be coming into operation. I seem to be awakening to a larger world of wonderment—to catch little glimpses of the immensity and diversity of creation. More than at any other time in my life, I seem to be aware of the beauties of our spinning planet and the sky above. And now I have the time to enjoy them. I feel that old age sharpens our awareness.

What is the essence of yourself? Who are you when you think of yourself ? Are you all the roles that you play? Are you more than your roles? We used to discuss that in sociology—are you more than a role player? You're a family member, you're a worker, you're this or that, but is there something else besides all these roles?

Normally, opposite emotions alternate: one dominating now, the other dominating later. It is what dominates most of the time that determines your state of mind.

Learn how to live," Morrie wrote, "and you'll know how to die; learn how to die, and you'll know how to live.

Morrie Schwartz said that you have to be strong enough to create your own culture if the culture around you does not work.

Accept yourself your physical condition, and your fate as they are at the present moment.

When someone does something that hurts us, it’s easy for us to think that if we forgive that person, we’re doing so for his or her sake.  The truth is, though, that we ourselves benefit the most from our forgiveness.  That forgiveness can rid us of the poisons of anger and resentment, two emotions that hold us prisoner and keep us from moving on with our lives in happy and fulfilling ways.  When we carry a grudge, we’re really carrying around a weapon that we’re using against ourselves.  Our negative feelings rarely affect the other person all that much, but they keep us in a deep dark hole that keeps us from seeing the sunshine and feeling the fresh air.      Do yourself a favor:  forgive.  As Morrie Schwartz said shortly before his death, “Forgive everyone everything” before it’s too late to do so.  Your life will take a turn for the better when you can truly forgive anyone who has done you wrong.

Once you learn how to diw, you learn how to live

I’ve experienced waves of hopelessness and despair, alternating with determination and enthusiasm for living.

I’ve experienced increased insecurity because of my increased vulnerability to illness.

recognize, with a slight shock, that I really don’t believe how old I am, and when I do believe it I want to forget it.

believe that trying to become the best person we can be, aging well, and coming to terms with our issues might be the most important and meaningful goals to strive for in later life.

Discovering the truth is not a simple matter. There are many sides and layers of truth. There are many complexities, mixtures, and contradictions. There may be only partial truths, not exclusive or universal truths. There may be modified or contaminated truths. But within the context, and despite these limitations, I feel the search must continue. Thus, I ask myself these questions: Who am I really? What have I done? What do I do that is truly good and useful? What do I believe in and why? How well do I know myself and others? What kinds of relationships do I geniunely have and what kind do I want? What is important and meaningful to me? Important and meaningful enough to make me want to keep on living? What difference has it made that I've lived? What contributions have I made that I'm proud of? What values do I hold firmly and unequivically and why those? What talents do I really have? What potentials have I not yet realized? Should I still try to achieve them? How can I balance my optimism and pessimism? What do I know and what do I still want to know about human nature and the human condition? What do I understand about the development and survival of the human race? What does it mean to be fully human and where am I on that scale?

There is no forced retirement from aging creatively.

Later life is a special period of development, with unique limitations and opportunities. And it may be the most important phase of your life. You can change a lot in later life—if you really want to.