Robert Holden Quotes

If you think something is missing in your life, it is probably YOU...

No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.

Sometimes in order to be happy in the present moment you have to be willing to give up all hope for a better past.

Are the choices you are making going to really make you happy NOW or happy eventually?

Some people CHASE happiness. And some people CHOOSE happiness...

One of the big mistakes I think we make in relationships is that we don't give our best energy to the people that matter most.

Happiness is not in things; happiness is in you.

Happiness does not have to be deserved, earned, worked for or paid for; it simply has to be accepted.

Circumstances and situations do color life, but you have been given the mind to choose what the color shall be.

I don't hate too many guys. What I may do, I may hate them for a little while, like this guy Stradlater I knew at Pencey, and this other boy, Robert Ackley. I hate them once in a while—I admit it—but it doesn't last too long, is what I mean. After a while, if I didn't see them, if they didn't come in the room, or if I didn't see them in the dining room for a couple of meals, I sort of missed them. I mean I sort of missed them.

I just always want to be different - THE EXCEPTION - and this weekend knocked me right back to reality.And the reality is - I AM TRULY BLESSED ..

Whoever said happiness needs a plan?

One new perception, one fresh thought, one act of surrender, one change of heart, one leap of faith, can change your life forever.

Nothing in the world can make you happy; everything in the world can encourage you to be happy

A Modern Prayer Dear God, help me to slow down notrushpasteverythingthatisimportanttodayamen. Robert Holden

It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns." "I know it's a poem by Robert Burns." She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye." I didn't know it then, though. "I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said. "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.

You can't hold on to a grievance and be happy. Time to make a choice!

At the heart of excessive individualism is a broken heart

That's where your definition of attachment comes in. I'm in a monogamous relationship with two people.

Those that go searching for love only make manifest their own lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it. D. H. Lawrence1

I want to be William Shakespeare and Galileo and Robert Frost. I want to be Sappho. I want to be Jane Austen. I want to be Holden Caulfield and Marilyn Monroe and Joan of Arc. I’m sad to think they came before me in history, they made their mark without me. But they were there. They happened.

All the happiness, health, and abundance you experience in life comes directly from your ability to love and be loved. This ability is innate, not acquired.

You can only be held back by your past if you use it to reject yourself in the present. Your

Biologists will teach us that the survival of the species depends on cooperation, not competition.

Revel in your freedom. Live wholeheartedly, laugh loud, love much, spread joy, be truthful, and give yourself to everything. You, who are already whole, can lose nothing. Your ego may fall from time to time, but you will not. Live big!

You may be cool under pressure and challenge, but can you be cool under success?

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” David Viscott

Love offers us the most perfect soil for growth.” Leo Buscaglia

John Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden: “The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears.

Success for you is a RECIPE that ONLY YOU KNOW the ingredients for.So to you I say ,COOK UP the success that ONLY YOU know how to make and allow the world to see YOUR CREATION!

Sometimes the basketball gods don't allow the ball to bounce your way ..

Contrary to popular belief, time does not heal, time does not fly, time does not do anything. Time has no consciousness. It does nothing for you. The key to happiness now is what you choose to do with your time right now. Are you, right now, making the most valuable use of your time? This moment is, after all, the time of your life. Your choices are what make each moment.

Sometimes the greatest fear and pain come from a sense of meaninglessness in life. Meaning is a choice, not a search, remember? A sense of meaninglessness is really, therefore, a call to let in higher awareness and truth.



I ask you to consider that the goal of your life is not just to find love; it is to be love. Love is the real work of your life.

I know that failing - coming up short - is part of the game and I have accepted that .I don't like it, but I have accpted it .God willing , I live to fight another day, NEXT YEAR..

It also reflects a tendency in our society to focus on negatives. Doctors, for instance, study illness, not health. Business leaders analyse failure, not success. Economists study cost, not value. Philosophers mostly debate original sin, not original blessing.

I like to think of the word love as a door. If you only look at the door, all you get is an idea about what love is; but if you are willing to move closer to the door, to open it, and to walk on through, you get to have an experience of what love is. To be intimate with love, you have to move beyond words, leave behind self-concepts, empty your mind of learned ideas, stop being so religious, and let yourself dissolve into love. Now we are really getting somewhere. Now, at last, we can stop trying to define love, and we can let

All parents want their children to be happy, but so few parents talk about it.

Love brings up everything unlike itself so that you can let go of fear and be the loving person you truly are.

Each of us is called to do something in the name of love, to make sure that humanity comes to understand itself and is able to choose love over fear.

Winning means so much, and not winning always mentally frustrates and then pushes me physically to be a BEAST all summer.I LOVE THIS GAME.

Happiness is your original nature. It is YOU minus your neurosis.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,” wrote Shakespeare. For example:

I am Jon-Robert Holden - a basketball player, a son, a brother, a father, a friend, a writer and an Olympian!All these things are great , but I am simply a child of God who pushed himself to be the best I could be .And by following my heart and pursuing my passion I know that He blessed my steps prior to me getting here.And it's because of this I simply and humbly say, "Thank You".

you is all of Heaven. Every leaf that falls is given life in you. Each bird that ever sang will sing again in you. And every flower that ever bloomed has saved its perfume and its loveliness for you. Text-25.

But seriously Holden, what is the island called now?” “Sentosa,” Holden said romantically and with a flourish of his unoccupied left hand. “Sentosa. Sounds romantic all right. So this is the progress you’re talking about?

What does normally activate the fear of happiness is an experience that is judged to be too much, too big, or too good to be true. I have coached many people who have gotten themselves out of a hole, and are about to be truly happy again, when suddenly they turn around and run back into the hole. Sometimes it’s a different hole, perhaps a slightly more interesting one, but it is still a hole. And if it’s not a hole they find, then it’s a drama, or a crisis, or a health issue, or some other distraction. This looks like bad luck, and as if some external force has intervened, but I assure you what’s really happened is that your ego has performed a maneuver that I call the “Ego U-Turn.

I got out of my car, locked it tight as a virgin, and entered his back seat, where a Milky Way wrapper greeted me on the floor, a burnt cigarette mark greeted me on the seat, and the overpowering scent of upholstery cleaner nearly did me in.

Tomorrow you may look up and see me as a lawyer, a doctor, business executive,teacher - or WHATEVER I BELIEVE I CAN BE !My story isn't about nice handles or quickness on the court ,but about HARD WORK, PERSEVERANCE, and FAITH! I know God's blessings ,I can accomplish anything and i mean ANYTHING!!!

the truth remains that whether someone loves you or not has no bearing on how loveable you really are. Your childhood is not the last chapter in your story. Your first love is not your only love. Your greatest heartache is not the whole story of your life. Your parents are not God. An unhappy past, no matter how terrible, is not a reason to say “I am not loveable,” nor is it a reason to stop loving yourself. Actually, it is a reason to love yourself more. You can only be held back by your past if you use it to reject yourself in the present. Your life is a love story. It is the story of how much you

The principal effect of fear is that it prevents you from seeing where love is present, whereas love helps you to see where you are afraid. Love makes you conscious. It switches a light on in your mind. This light brings everything into view. You can see into every corner of your mind. Love does not judge, so nothing is hidden. Love does not condemn, so there is no deception. Love does not censure, so all is revealed. Love exposes the fears you identify with, the secret shame you haven’t forgiven, the old wounds not yet released, and every other unloving thought that blocks the awareness of love’s presence.

And as I sit and reflect, I m left with one question - What's next for me? What challenges does life pose for me tomorrow ? How long will I continue to bounce this ball ? And when this ball stops , where will I find myself? Will I be simply remembered as some guy who had success overseas?Will i rely solely on my past and be one who just talks about my glory days as professional basketball player? NOT LIKELY!!J.R.HOLDEN REPRESENTS SO MUCH MORE THAN AN ATHLETE .

The meaning of life is not a search—it is a choice. Meaning is not found in things; meaning is what you make of things. The world means nothing by itself. You give it all the meaning it has. Thus, the meaning of life is a choice you make, not just once, but every waking hour of your day. 

Life is like art—it is all about interpretation. The moment anything happens to you, you interpret a meaning for it. The meaning you vote for then governs your perception, your thinking, your faith, your choices, your feelings, your behaviors, everything! Whenever you elect a new meaning, this changes everything.

Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things: John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolf Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr. X. Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling what He did and why—at least to a degree—He did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person… or, more properly, as a Person. Here are some people who have not written books, telling what they did… and what they saw: The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmed—badly, most undertakers say—Pope John XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving away the flies. The man who cremated William Holden. The man who encased the body of Alexander the Great in gold so it would not rot. The men who mummified the Pharaohs. Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret.

Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things: John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolph Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr. X. Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling what He did and why—at least to a degree—He did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person . . . or, more properly, as a Person. Here are some people who have not written books, telling what they did . . . and what they saw: The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmed—badly, most undertakers say—Pope John XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving away the flies. The man who cremated William Holden. The man who encased the body of Alexander the Great in gold so it would not rot. The men who mummified the Pharaohs. Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret.

SEPTEMBER 23 I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me. I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me. I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.

But there is no miracle that can be given you unless you want it.

When I reflect on the olden days, and on how my work in psychology and philosophy has evolved over the last 30 years, I recognize that I took a path that was mostly self-directed and not very orthodox. I stepped away from academia. I gave up a secure teaching position. I followed my intuition, and I took the road less traveled. I blended psychology with spirituality. I studied mysticism and physics. I practiced yoga philosophy and wrote poetry. Along the way I became a teacher of inquiry, and

That night, they were drinking at the bar with the big game hunter and novelist Robert Ruark, whose recent book about the Mau Mau uprising, titled Something of Value, was an international bestseller. In high spirits, Holden proposed buying the outmoded hotel, which was listed for sale. “Put up or shut up,” said Ruark. “Well, that did it for me,” Holden told Stefanie Powers, as their car bounced along the dusty road. “If I was sober I would not have bought the hotel,” he yelled over the noise of the car’s engine. “But I’m glad I did.

Nothing in the world can make you happy; everything in the world can encourage you to be happy.

You can make anything out of anything.

Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see. Remember this. In this lies either Heaven or hell, as you elect. Manual

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception to such an extent that it changes the world you see

intriguing, not standard Hollywood stuff. He was not a street kid who’d had to claw his way to respectability. His reasonably well-to-do family’s roots traced back to George Washington’s mother, and he was always proud of the fact that he was distantly related to “one of the founders of our country.” Bill was Irish-English-German, “mixed in an American shaker,” as he liked to say. His maternal grandfather was a cousin of Warren G. Harding, twenty-ninth president of the United States. Bill had been born William Franklin Beedle Jr. in O’Fallon, Illinois, on April 17, 1918. When he was three, the family moved to Pasadena, California. His father, William, was an industrial chemist; his mother, Mary, a teacher. He had two younger brothers, Robert (Bob) Westfield Beedle, and Richard (Dick Porter) Beedle.

Life is an act of listening. The quality of your life depends on the quality of your listening.7 In any given moment, you’re either listening to the voice of fear (your ego), or the voice of love (your unconditioned Self). Fear always leads to more fear. Love always leads to more love. Learning to switch off the voice of fear is an art. What is unhelpful is to attack fear, resist fear, or defend against fear. One answer is simply to focus on love, and to value love more than fear. The more you value love, the less fear you’ll hear.

To live well, it is important to cultivate a happy relationship with your thoughts. The following five ideas are a wonderful recipe for sanity and joy: 1. Your thoughts are not real. Your thinking is not reality; it is an interpretation of reality. No thought has any more authority than what you give it. 2. All thoughts are passing thoughts. Thoughts are transient. They are like leaves in the wind. The only thoughts that stay are the ones you hold on to. 3. You choose your thoughts. No one else does! You can elect to change any thought. You can also choose whether or not to act on any thought. 4. Thoughts have no power. Thoughts are literally electrical mental toys that are powered by you. They have no power of their own. 5. You do not have to take any of your thoughts seriously. The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it.

You were lost in the darkness of the world until you asked for light. And then God sent His Son to give it to you. Psychotherapy-3. III. 8:9-13.

There are three dominant worldviews in psychology and philosophy. Each worldview is represented

All your suffering is rooted in a single superstition which is that you believe you live in a world when in truth the world lives in you.” Imagine for a moment that the world is not a physical place that is separate from you, but rather a projection of your state of mind. If this is so, then your mind really can move mountains. There are three dominant worldviews

Don't try to write a bestselling book, or even a good book. Write a true book.

To get to love you have to start with love.

True happiness is valuable because, for example, it is a sign of authenticity, and it is a way of knowing you are on purpose.

The fear that something is missing in you is what leads you to search somewhere else for happiness. You overlook what is already here as you chase after there; you miss the sacred now as you ponder your next step; you forget to be grateful for what is as you prey after more. You search, struggle, and strive, but you never arrive because you can’t get past the thought that something is missing.

Shit happens! yes, it does. In fact, if you have made it to thirty the chances are you already have enough reasons to be miserable to last a lifetime. You have to ask yourself, what will I do with these reasons? Will you cash them in or will you let them go ? Will you live happily even after ?

God works in mysterious ways.

If you are looking for the world to make you happy, you will be disappointed.

Spending time around her house, I came across a cache of 16mm movies in her basement. It turned out that Barbara [Stanwyck] had a lot of her own movies, and I convinced her to spend some time watching them with me. I ran the projector. She had prints of Union Pacific, Ball of Fire, and Baby Face, among others. She didn't particularly like watching them, but she did enjoy reminiscing about their production: how she got the part, what the location was like, that sort of thing. She liked people with humor and always spoke highly of Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, and Frank Capra. Oddly enough, she wasn't crazy about Preston Sturges; she seemed to feel that he expended all his charm and humor for his movies and that there wasn't anything left for his actors. In broad outline, all this sounds a little bit like the scene in Sunset Boulevard where Gloria Swanson sits with William Holden and watches a scene from Queen Kelly, rhapsodizing about her own face. But Barbara couldn't have cared less about how she looked; as I watched her films with her, it was clear that, for her, the movies were a job she loved, as well as a social occasion for a woman who was otherwise something of a loner.

Now has enough wisdom to last you forever, because within you, right now, there is all the wisdom you listen for in others. Now has enough love to last you a lifetime, because within you, right now, there is the love you continually cry out for. Now has enough peace to last you an eternity, because within you, right now, peace of mind is one thought away at most. And now has enough joy to outlast the world, because within you, right now, the joy you chase is not in things – it is in you.

Workaholism’ is endemic, and for many of us our life is governed entirely by work. Once upon a time, we worked to live; now, we live to work. Any ‘life’ we do have is merely recovery from work. We work, recover from work and then work again. We go to the office to work. After work, we bring some work home with us. For rest, we go to the gym for a workout. Totally exhausted, we go to therapy to work through our problems – ’I’ve done a lot of work on myself,’ we say. After all that, there’s the housework! Finally, we go to bed, too tired to be happy, but our mind is still working and we can’t sleep. No problem. Insomnia is a wonderful chance to get more work done! The work ethic is motivated by the belief that anything worthwhile requires great work, effort and labour. According to the work ethic – creativity isn’t inspiration, it’s perspiration; love is a labour, not a joy; success is a marathon, it never comes easily; health is about a ‘no pain, no gain’ attitude; salvation is hardest of all – it is a wrestling match with the angels, just ask Jacob. Nothing comes easily, according to the work ethic. Has it ever occurred to you that ... you’re trying too hard to be happy?

Without Self-acceptance, love has to wait; with Self-acceptance, love is made welcome. Without Self-acceptance, there is no happiness; with Self-acceptance, you know happiness. Without Self-acceptance, truth hurts; with Self-acceptance, truth heals. Without Self-acceptance, you can accept no one fully into your life; with Self-acceptance, you can. Without Self-acceptance, you are always hiding; with Self-acceptance, your spirit is gliding. Without Self-acceptance, nothing is enough; with Self-acceptance, you are enough. Without Self-acceptance, you are not free to grow; with Self-acceptance, your potential is free to flow. Without Self-acceptance, there is no chance; with Self-acceptance, you always have a chance.