Wise Quotes about Responses

During his training, a baseball player strives
to make each swing better than the last.
The repetition of a faulty swing would be worse than useless.
It would ingrain bad habits.
The same is true of emotional responses.
If we allow ourselves to continue to have the same angry responses,
we just entrench our anger habit.
But if we strive - through consciousness, visualization, and coaching -
to moderate our anger response,
over time, we can train ourselves to respond
to events as we choose - without anger.
You can't magically be free from anger tomorrow,
but you can put yourself on your own training program
that will reduce the frequency and intensity
of your anger response day by day, year by year.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We should not let our response to
the people who disagree with us
be dictated by what they say about us
or even how they treat people we care for.
There has to be a chance that we can find love.
- William J. Clinton

The answer to circumstances is choosing a positive response,
and the most positive choice is to be of service.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In all circumstances I acknowledge this,
IN ALL THINGS AND ALL WAYS, I HAVE CHOICE.
My choice resides in my perspective.
While I certainly do not control climate and markets
and roadways and others, I do control myself
and my response to all those circumstances. I do indeed.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

We are injured and hurt emotionally,
not so much by other people
or what they say and don't say,
but by our own attitude and our own response.
- Maxwell Maltz

If someone irritates you, it is only
your own response that is irritating you.
Therefore, when anyone seems to be provoking you,
remember that it is only your judgment
of the incident that provokes you. -
- Epictetus

Grief is a normal and natural response to loss.
It is originally an unlearned feeling process.
Keeping grief inside increases your pain.
- Anne Grant

Most people think that anger is an instinctive response,
and that some people were just born with the temperament
to get angrier faster than others.
That statement is only half right.
Anger is an instinctive response.
We respond to an affront with anger essentially instantaneously -
much too quickly for conscious thought to be called upon.
But the instinct of the anger response
can be trained through conscious repetition,
visualization, and coaching.
Visualization is seeing the event
we desire to master in our mind's eye.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I accept that no one else has ever been to blame
for either my joy or my suffering.
The entire cause of all my joys and all my sufferings
is my own emotional response to the events of my life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I Forgive Myself and All Others with Compassion -
I forgive everyone, especially myself,
for all actions and all inactions throughout my entire life.
I accept that no one else has ever been to blame
for either my joy or my suffering.
The entire cause of all my joys and all my sufferings
is my own emotional response to the events of my life,
and I am committed to consistently distinguishing
between my feelings about events
and the physical occurrence of those events.
I declare that everyone who has ever played any role
in any of the events of my life is entirely without fault.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I like to talk about a thing I call a "practiced pause."
Just a few moments of pausing allows me
to consider a circumstance and take stock
of what the best direction might be.
Reactions tend to rise from habit and unconsidered action.
A Response is considered and thoughtful.
My actions are my own and I am, singularly,
responsible for what I see, say, feel and exert.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I have gratitude for EVERYTHING that has ever occurred
to bring me to this moment.
I accept that no one else is ever to blame
for either my joy or my suffering.
The entire cause of all my joys and all my sufferings
is my own emotional response to the events of my life,
and I am committed to consistently distinguishing
between my feelings about events
and the physical occurrences of those events.
I declare that everyone who has ever played
any role in any of the events of my life
is entirely without fault.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

AN INSPIRED LIFE: I HAVE A CHOICE
My key to living an inspired life involves
Embracing my history,
Understanding the function of expectations
and gently learning to have none;
Recognizing the power of attentive and conscious choices.
In all circumstances I acknowledge this,
IN ALL THINGS AND ALL WAYS, I HAVE CHOICE.
My choice resides in my perspective.
While I certainly do not control climate
and markets and roadways and others,
I do control myself and my response
to all those circumstances. I do indeed.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change.
- Charles Darwin

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

Riches do not exhilarate us so much with their possession
as they torment us with their loss.
- Epicurus

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson

Stand Tall, Stand Proud.
Know that you are unique and magnificent.
You do not need the approval of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
- Chinese Proverb

Treat those who are good with goodness,
and also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
Be honest to those who are honest,
and be also honest to those who are not honest.
Thus honesty is attained.
- Lao Tzu

I am not afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
- Louisa May Alcott

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Practice does not make perfect,
perfect practice makes perfect.
- Vince Lombardi

Humility is not thinking less of yourself,
it's thinking of yourself less.
- Rick Warren (author of The Purpose Driven(R) Life)

The illiterate are not those who cannot read and write,
but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
- Alvin Toffler

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.
Neither need you do anything but be yourself.
- Lao Tzu

To the people who love you,
you are beautiful already.
This is not because they're
blind to your shortcomings
but because they so clearly see your soul.
- Victoria Moran

It is nearly a certainty that some
of your expectations will not be met today -
choose Joy anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures
is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:
that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw

We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,
we borrow it from our children.
- Native American Proverb

An idea that is not dangerous is
unworthy of being called an idea at all.
- Oscar Wilde

An error does not become truth
by reason of multiplied propagation,
nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but,
if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Wealth consists not in having great possessions,
but in having few wants.
- Epictetus

It is not the man who has too little,
but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Many persons have a wrong idea of
what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller

You got to be careful if you
don't know where you're going,
because you might not get there.
- Yogi Berra

Do not say, "It is morning,"
and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.
See it for the first time
as a newborn child that has no name.
- Rabindranath Tagore

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue;
Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.
- Lao Tzu

I walk the path - the way - the way of ways -
to the end that is not an end.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you have health, you probably will be happy,
and if you have health and happiness,
you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.
- Elbert Hubbard

People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard

There is so much we can never know.
Breathe deeply and relax into the not-knowing.
There is much that we do not have to know
in order to live joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you,
but your opinion that these things are insulting.
- Epictetus

One defeats a fanatic precisely by not being a fanatic oneself,
but on the contrary by using one's intelligence.
- George Orwell

A man should look for what is,
and not for what he thinks should be.
- Albert Einstein

Many men go fishing all of their lives
without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
- Henry David Thoreau

The flower which is single need not envy
the thorns that are numerous.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition,
is not only a waste of energy
but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains,
but the thought which it suggests;
just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones
but in the echoes of our hearts.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Men and women are not prisoners of fate,
but only prisoners of their own minds.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Wisdom Quotes