Vernon Howard: Trending quotes

“The only way you're going to have a good relationship with anyone is to have a good relationship with yourself.”

“If we choose the easy way, by letting another think for us, we must eventually tread the hard way. If we select the hard way, by insisting upon our own mental integrity, we eventually come to the easy way.”

“If you hand a man a lemon and tell him that its sourness lies outside the lemon, he will think you are joking. Yet, with a perfectly straight face, that same man will tell you that his sour life is caused by external events. When will man learn that he is the cause of his own feelings for either happiness or anxiety?”

“You are not your cluster of memorized ideas about yourself. Awareness of this dissolves both the cluster and the belief that others can control you. If you have a self-image of being a desirable person, others can control you by flattering it, but can they control if you have no such image?”

“Try to see what attitudes rule your day, then ask what kind of a day you usually have.”

“What a dawning appears to the man or woman who earnestly inquires, 'Who is living my life for me?' Am I really thinking for myself or am I unknowingly projecting acquired ideas which may be all wrong?”

“Inner guidance is heard like soft music in the night by those who have learned to listen.”

“Mental silence is the perfect response to a challenge.”

“Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn, and you will.”

“By cultivating the beautiful we scatter the seeds of heavenly flowers, as by doing good we cultivate those that belong to humanity.”

“You have succeeded in life when all you really WANT is only what you really NEED.”

“A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.”

“Constantly ask yourself, 'What level is above this one?' This makes things different. Take personal problems for example. Problems are not solved by choosing between this and that. The very need to choose indicates misunderstanding. Problems are solved by outgrowing both this and that.”

“The power of the present moment is so immense it is capable - when lived in fully - of destroying forever every past mistake and regret.”

“Worried thought prevents practical thought which could prevent worried thought.”

“Take disturbance as an awakening sign that you misunderstand something you assumed you understood.”

“The less life in a person, the more he will try to live off your life.”

“God himself has made it possible for you to live without the dark place and the pains that rush out and flood out and take you over. Your choice of wanting to see and work is essential to you if you want to get rid of your feeling of emptiness, of futility. You've lied to yourself and said, 'I know what to do to get rid of the pain.' You've never gotten rid of the pain and that's evidence of self-deceit. You have to stop playing cruel tricks on yourself. So stop. Now.”

“Consciously risk the loss of something before losing it, and you will lose the fear of losing it.”