“Honesty is often very hard. The truth is often painful. But the freedom it can bring is worth the trying.”

Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.

Like all of life’s important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives.

People have said ‘don’t cry’ to other people for years and years, and all it has ever meant is ‘I’m too uncomfortable when you show feelings.

A love of learning has a lot to do with learning that we are loved.

Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.

Whatever we choose to imagine can be as private as we want it to be. Nobody knows what you’re thinking or feeling unless you share it.

You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you.

The only thing evil can’t stand is forgiveness.

I don’t think anyone can grow unless he’s loved exactly as he is now, appreciated for what he is rather than what he will be.

It’s a mistake to think that we have to be lovely to be loved by human beings or by God.

Peace means far more than the opposite of war.

Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.

There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.

I hope you’re proud of yourself for the times you’ve said “yes,” when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to someone else.

The connections we make in the course of a life, maybe that’s what heaven is.

Love and trust, in the space between what’s said and what’s heard in our life, can make all the difference in the world.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns.

Wherever you are is the perfect place to awaken. This moment is the exact place to practice compassion and loving awareness. You have all the ingredients to breathe and find freedom just where you are.

It is only through inner peace that we can have true outer freedom.

If I’m free, it’s because I’m always running.

Because one thing God gave us- and I’m afraid it’s at times a little too much- is freewill. Freedom to choose. I believe he gave us everything needed to build a beautiful world, if we choose wisely.

Our attitude in the face of life’s challenges determines our suffering or our freedom.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Submission is the willingness to give up our right to ourselves, to freely surrender our insistence on having our own way all the time.