Guilt is really the reverse side of the coin of pride. Guilt aims at self-destruction, and pride aims at the destruction of others.
BILL W.Nowadays my brain no longer races compulsively in either elation, grandiosity, or depression. I have been given a quiet place in bright sunshine.
More Bill W. Quotes
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When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love, the finest emotion we can ever know.
BILL W. -
More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor
BILL W. -
Is sobriety all that we are to expect of a spiritual awakening? No, sobriety is only a bare beginning; it is only the first gift of the first awakening.
BILL W. -
No personal calamity is so crushing that something true and great can’t be made of it
BILL W. -
The temporary good is enemy to the permanent best.
BILL W. -
Because of our kinship in suffering, our channels of contact have always been charged with the language of the heart.
BILL W. -
Indecision with the passing of time becomes decision.
BILL W. -
Seeing is believing to most families who have lived with a drinker.
BILL W. -
How dark it is before the dawn! In reality that was the beginning of my last debauch.
BILL W. -
Regardless of what is happening around me I will always have the prerogative, and the responsibility, of choosing what happens within me.
BILL W. -
If more gifts are to be received, our awakening has to go on. As it does go on, we find that bit by bit we can discard the old life – the one that did not work – for a new life that can and does work under any conditions whatever.
BILL W. -
You are asking yourself, as all of us must: ‘Who am I?’ . . . ‘Where am I?’ . . . ‘Whence do I go?’ The process of enlightenment is usually slow. But, in the end, our seeking always brings a finding. These great mysteries are, after all, enshrined in complete simplicity.
BILL W. -
Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is the sense of belonging that comes to us.
BILL W. -
I am the creator of my own reality. When I [review my day], I know that I must stop judging others.
BILL W. -
I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth dimension of existence. I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes.
BILL W. -
No matter how unreasonable others may seem, I am responsible for not reacting negatively.
BILL W. -
Learning how to live in the greatest peace, partnership, and brotherhood with all men and women, of whatever description, is a moving and fascinating adventure.
BILL W. -
Apparently, the course of relative humility and progress will have to lie somewhere between these extremes. In our slow progress away from rebellion, true perfection is doubtless several millennia away
BILL W. -
We know that if we rebel against doing that which is reasonably possible for us, then we will be penalized. And we will be equally penalized if we presume in ourselves a perfection that simply is not there.
BILL W. -
Years ago I used to commiserate with all people who suffered. Now I commiserate only with those who suffer in ignorance, who do not understand the purpose and ultimate utility of pain
BILL W. -
Each day my friend’s simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself in a widening circle of peace on earth and good will to men.
BILL W. -
No demands are made on anyone. An experience is offered which members may accept or reject. That is up to them.
BILL W. -
I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere.
BILL W. -
Almost without exception alcoholics are tortured by loneliness.
BILL W. -
AA is no success story in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a story of suffering transmuted, under grace, into spiritual progress.
BILL W. -
We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves would restore us to sanity.
BILL W.