- We must ask why we participate so humbly in society's frantic race, allowing ourselves into its mazes of mediocrity and settling for scraps of reward when nature has offered unlimited freedom, power, and abundance to the bold, the determined, the creative, the independent -- to each of us.
- Randomness and mediocrity too often ruled the day, and the loud and the needy dictated who we were and what we should do -- our lives becomes subject to the tyranny of fools.
- Permission to move forward with boldness is never given by the fearful masses.
- Well-being has been cast aside for wealth; success favored over sanity.
- Hurt has nothing to do with love, and love is unaffiliated with and unaffected by pain. Ego was hurt, no love. Love is diving; it is everywhere, ever present and abundant and free.
- Too often we don't call out a wrong or expect ourselves or others to act with routine integrity, excellence, or love.
- Humankind's motivation is to seek and experience Personal Freedom.
- Personal Freedom is liberty from the restrictions of social oppression and the tragic self-oppression that is fear.
- When freedom is gone, suffering sets in for all.
- The entitled are perhaps the most caged of all, slave to a grand fiction that the world owes them anything at all.
- It is only in active self-expression and pursuit of our own aims that we can become free.
- Our most difficult task is to defeat social oppression, the caging of our spirit and the stifling of our potential by others.
- Chasing the prizes that society tells us we must want can also drive us from our true self.
- The more we are true to ourselves, the more we can connect with and contribute to the world.
- None of us wants to be the cause of our own failure in life -- yet most often we are. It is our own inept thinking, our own bad habits that rip the vibrancy from life. We are the ultimate oppressors of our own happiness.
- Personal power is directly tied to personal responsibility.
- Freedom requires responsibility to choose who we are above and beyond our immediate impulses, needs, and social pressures, so that we can genuinely express the type of person we want to be, live the life we truly we want to live, leave the legacy we desire.
- In life we seek Freedom, in death we are released into its vastness.
- Unless we are being chased by a deadly animal or deranged human, or face imminent physical harm like falling to our death, fear is just bad management of our mind.
- If we are not free, if we are not genuinely expressing our full personality and pursuing our true desires, it is because we are choosing to act from aversion rather than ascension.
- We must not worry what could go wrong but rather wonder what magnificence could enter our lives when we are consistently expressing our genuine selves and pursuing our true passions.
- If we are conscious to the existence of rude, ignorant, cruel people, then we can control our reaction when they emerge from the darkness and attempt to steal our light.
- A society so afflicted by ease and conformity always flinches at the arrival of those boldly seeking Personal Freedom.
- Most of the fear we feel in life is simply anxiety arising from our anticipation of two kinds of pain that change might bring: the pain associated with loss or hardship.
- The tools to manage the difficulties of life are within.
- Fear wins or Freedom wins, and I choose Freedom.
- Success and fulfillment in life rests on the unflagging ability to get up, to be ourselves, to chase our dreams with fire each day, to keep willing ourselves to the next level of presence and performance and potential.
- If we fail to master our motivation at an individual level, we cannot be happy; if we fail to maintain our motives for goodness at a societal level, all would be lost.
- Enlightenment comes when we realize happiness is a choice, sadness is a choice, anger is a choice, love is a choice. Every state, emotion, and mood available to Man can be generated at will in our mind.
- They appear, in the eyes of the mindless masses, to be the lucky ones, the chosen. In fact, they decided to choose.
- If we want more motivation in our lives, we must make clearer choices and more deeply commit to them.
- What grand pursuit or act of service will be satisfying to me and get me out of bed each morning?
- By deeply contemplating higher aims, we energize ourselves to pursue them.
- Desire without belief in self in ultimately deflating.
- Do not hope for motivation; choose an ambition to become motivated for.
- The real downfall for many people isn't that they are "unmotivated" people, but that they are simply distracted, too absentminded to sustain motivation.
- We often forget that it is sweat and toil toward meaningful pursuits that makes us truly alive.
- Greatness belongs to those who have mastered the ability to focus relentlessly on their ambitions and act decisively toward them.
- Two choices will amplify our motivation to another level: attitude and environment.
- Keeping one's attitude positive, especially when the world conspires to make us mad, is one of the greatest accomplishments of life.
- For motivation's sake, we must be vigilant and surround ourselves with genuine and positive people who seek positive aims with positive attitudes.
- We should love the spaces we spend our time in, and if we do not, we should make immediate changes.
- Choose an ambition and, with full force, expect that it is possible and that you can make it happen. Give constant attention and committed effort to your dreams, and your motivation will perpetuate itself. Demonstrate a positive attitude as you strive for great things and take care to create a supportive environment around you that amplifies your motivation.
- Each day there are a million divine wonders, acts of human kindness, and beautiful sights. Yet we are too checked out or busy thinking about yesterday or tomorrow to even sense the magic.
- Unless recounting its joys or looking for its lessons that may help us Now, it is best to release the past entirely.
- There is nothing wrong with journeying into the future if it brings joy or instruction. But that journey must be brief and never come at the expense of owning the hour.
- Playing the director of our own movie gives us the ability to choose our entire character and life's arc.
- Be conscious of the information entering our minds.
- The sunshine of enlightenment spreads to those who understand that the moments must not go unnoticed and unlived.
- Freedom and greatness belong to those who master their day.
- Dedicating time in that first golden hour to planning our out schedule. That precious first hour must not be squandered, for our evening's dreams can easily be forgotten in daylight.
- No great person ever made history without having guilt thrown at them or suffering some backlash from those who didn't like or appreciate their independence, discipline, or single-mindedness.
- Our thoughts, more so than our circumstances, sabotage our freedom and success.
- Greatness belongs to those who have mastered their internal world.
- Heroism is taking action to do important things even when we are afraid. Cowardice is acting in accordance to our fears when our heart wishes to see us behave more nobly and courageously.
- We now know Defiance and its three serpent heads: Doubt questions our worth and course of action. Delay breeds indolence. Division closes the mind and heart.
- Great men and women don't give a damn if anyone approves.
- Let us remember this sad but sure truth: the only permission ever granted by society is permission to follow its norms and traditions.
- All the resources needed to win are within.
- Believing, in any form, that all those who have success and power are wicked, untrustworthy, hated -- and that we ourselves would become bad if we had the same success and power -- is desperate, ignorant, and dangerous.
- "First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do." Epictetus
- Today's thoughts and actions become our legacy.
- The Six Practices of Integrity
- Think before we act.
- Never commit to anything where we lack passion.
- Keep our word.
- Always treat others with respect.
- Tell the truth.
- Always favor action.
- We should all know that we can easily lose integrity when we are feeling or reacting to any of these things: impatience, disappointment, desperation, aggression, hurt, loyalty, and power.
- Love was never absent from our life. We simply allowed our awareness of it to diminish.
- To sense and amplify love, we do not need to love ourselves -- though let that be our goal as well. This popular fantasy that we must first love ourselves before loving others serves no one, for it merely gives us permission to await a good day to love others.
- Good people often fail to become great people because they avoid looking honestly at personal lives.
- A society that lacks good people willing to speak against evil or low standards can only devolve into darkness and mediocrity.
- When people do something wrong, they need to be told they are doing something wrong.
- We must learn to shape and confront others' beliefs and behaviors so that everyone is moving forward to a meaningful goal.
- The Nine Virtues of Greatness
- Let us demand honesty.
- Let us demand responsibility.
- Let us demand intelligence.
- Let us demand excellence.
- Let us demand courage.
- Let us demand respect for others.
- Let us demand vigilance.
- Let us demand service.
- Let us demand unity.
- The more senses we bring to the moment, the more time slows, the more a catalog of joyful vivid memories grows in our minds, the more life is filled with gratitude, and the more nourished our soul.
- THE 9 DECLARATIONS
- Meet life with full presence and power.
- Reclaim your agenda.
- Defeat your demons.
- Advance with abandon.
- Practice joy and gratitude.
- Do not break integrity.
- Amplify love.
- Inspire greatness.
- Slow time.
If you enjoyed the quotes, read the book.
