Alan Cohen Quotes & Sayings

Joy is not the result of getting what you want; it is the way to get what you want. In the deepest sense, joy is what you want. — Alan Cohen

All limits exist only in thought, and that is where they are overcome. — Alan Cohen

It is not selfish or narcissistic to love yourself. It is your first and foremost responsibility. — Alan Cohen

You cannot be other than you are. Thank God. — Alan Cohen

It's always something."
The spirit says, "It's never anything. — Alan Cohen

Any problem you recognize represents but a tiny blip on the radar screen of your well-being. Even while you are experiencing a difficulty, homeostasis is working on your behalf to return you to perfect balance. Your role is simply to relax and allow nature to take its healing course. — Alan Cohen

Integrity is a high rock above which the stormy ocean of worldly troubles cannot rise. — Alan Cohen

You won't be happy anywhere until you're happy somewhere. — Alan Cohen

Forgiveness doesn't make wrong things right. It remembers that what is right far outshines what is wrong. — Alan Cohen

Anger is the ego's way of cloaking fear to make what is frail seem formidable. — Alan Cohen

Life has meaning only if you do what is meaningful to you. — Alan Cohen

When you finally give up striving, you will be left with what you have been striving for. — Alan Cohen

True progress comes not through action, but through awakening. — Alan Cohen

Your life is not a problem to be solved, but an adventure to be enjoyed. You are doing better than you think. — Alan Cohen

The power you give others belongs to you. Take it back and take yourself where you would go. — Alan Cohen

Successful people pay more attention to their visions and goals than to history and the opinions of others. — Alan Cohen

No matter what has happened, let today be new. — Alan Cohen

Everything will change when your desire to move on exceeds your desire to hold. — Alan Cohen

Our history is not our destiny. — Alan Cohen

No one can bother you unless you agree with them. — Alan Cohen

If you sense there must be more, there is more. — Alan Cohen

The world you see is less of an indication about the world and more of an indication about your seeing. — Alan Cohen

When you are secure in who you are, you set the trend for your own life, and do not look to others to tell you how to live.
When you know that every truth you seek is available within you,
you will not place someone else's idea of how you should live, above your own. — Alan Cohen

Dance on the edge of mystery. — Alan Cohen

Grace is the state of being in which we are loved unconditionally and all that we need is provided for us by the benevolent hand of God. — Alan Cohen

Anyone in a state of seeking can never be happy. Only those who are constantly finding are fulfilled. And finding is not something that happens to us - it is something we do. — Alan Cohen

Abundance is not a number or acquisition. It is the simple recognition of enoughness. — Alan Cohen

The spiritual path is not one of attainment, but of return. — Alan Cohen

Guilt: punishing yourself before God doesn't. — Alan Cohen

Waiting does not exist in the experience of those who recognize the presence of love wherever they are. — Alan Cohen

Love is heaven and fear is hell. Where you place your attention is where you live. — Alan Cohen

If you have to have it, it's ego. If you have to not have it, it's ego. Hold life lightly and it will deliver what you need and release what you don't. — Alan Cohen

The thoughts you think when you are happiest are the closest to the truth. — Alan Cohen

When your sense of worth exceeds your conditions, conditions will shift to match your vision. — Alan Cohen

When we enter into any relationship with the premise that we are empty and the other person will fill us in, we are sure to fail. We can only win when we proceed from wholeness. — Alan Cohen

Life does not require you to sacrifice or compromise your joy to get what you want. Joy is what you want, so when you choose in harmony with it, you are fulfilling your purpose in living. — Alan Cohen

The fire of purpose easily melts the icicles of obstacles. — Alan Cohen

You will not achieve work/life balance as long as you believe there is a difference between the two. When you find life in your work and work with your life, you will have only life. — Alan Cohen

Give people permission to be who they are and they will love, thank, and respect you forever. — Alan Cohen

The more you invest in your happiness, the more happiness will invest in you. — Alan Cohen

The only thing more important than being good is being real. Authenticity is kinder than resignation without conviction. Truth leads to good faster than good leads to truth. Ultimately truth is good, but you have to live it from the inside out. — Alan Cohen

Keep memories of insult on a short leash, and memories of blessing on a long one. — Alan Cohen

Will you ever run out of creative ideas and expressions? Ha! The more creative ideas you have, the more you will discover. Creativity is a tree with countless branches that never stop blossoming. — Alan Cohen

Quit using your creative power to formulate questions. You can just as easily - more easily - use it to formulate answers. — Alan Cohen

Humility is born of the spirit, humiliation of the ego. — Alan Cohen

Our noblest purpose in life is to remember our spiritual nature in the face of suggestions that we are a material society. — Alan Cohen

ACIM states that you will be appalled when you realize what you are truly here for (T-17.V.5:6). You thought you were here to get stuff, prove yourself, and find people to love you. Instead you are here get peace, be yourself, and find people to love. You thought you were here to fix the world. Instead you are here to appreciate what is before you and see the world through new eyes. — Alan Cohen

Real humility is not about denying the gifts you are offered; it is accepting them. — Alan Cohen

You change the past when you change the way you see it. — Alan Cohen

Life is a gift from God, an unlimited series of opportunities to find the good in ourselves and others. There is good in everything, if we are willing to see it. — Alan Cohen

Rules are the offspring of fear. If everyone trusted and followed their true inner spirit, the world would function flawlessly. — Alan Cohen

You do not need to import greatness from another; you just need to act on your own. — Alan Cohen

The things that bug you the most have the potential to open you the most. — Alan Cohen

You always have energy to do what you are passionate about. — Alan Cohen

Ask for peace first, and you will clearly see your next step. — Alan Cohen

You believe that a lover will bring you love, but it is your love that will bring you a lover. — Alan Cohen

The point of life is not to be married or single - it is to be. We are human beings, or humans being. It does not matter so much what lifestyle we choose - it's what we make of the opportunities to grow, that counts. — Alan Cohen

Those who recognize their innocence do not expect, receive, or accept punishment from any outside source. — Alan Cohen

I claim my heart's desire, and I choose my direction. I will attain my chosen goal. — Alan Cohen

Put aside ambition for public recognition, and simply do what you do because it feels good inside. — Alan Cohen

What happens to you happens from you. — Alan Cohen

If you want to find God, hang out in the space between your thoughts. — Alan Cohen

Preparing to live your dream is postponing it. You are either living it, or not. — Alan Cohen

If you act anxiously to hasten your results, you delay their arrival. Calm poise reveals the shortest route home. — Alan Cohen

When faced with demanding situations, can you keep your heart as light as a feather? Can you laugh your way through challenges and maintain an attitude freer than fear? When confronted with upsets and the poisonous projections of others, can you remember that all is well? Do you know that you are a spiritual being, not subject to the whims and caprices of earthly tides? — Alan Cohen

What you go through is nothing compared to who you are. — Alan Cohen

Acts that proceed from your calm center are always more effective than acts that proceed from fear, guilt, or anger. — Alan Cohen

We learn early on that, in order to be a winner, you have to believe in yourself. You have to have the confidence to make things happen. And you have to have personal pride. — Alan Cohen

Appreciation empowers not just money transactions, but all interactions. Gratitude is one of the greatest meditations of a lifetime, the fastest attitude uplifter I know. Be grateful for all the good in your life and your good will only increase, along with your happiness. — Alan Cohen

Personal growth is not a matter of learning new information but of unlearning old limits. — Alan Cohen

After a certain point you quit trying to prove yourself to anyone and you simply live in the way that makes you happy. — Alan Cohen

Anything you believe you have to do or become before you can be free is a denial and distraction from the truth that you are already free. — Alan Cohen

As you recognize that you already own the wholeness you seek, and no one outside you can give you more than you already are, dysfunctional situations will evaporate like bad dreams exposed to the morning sun. — Alan Cohen

To make the world a better place, see the world as a better place. — Alan Cohen

Do not wait for the future to be happy. You are happy now, or you are not. — Alan Cohen

The more you recognize the immense good within you, the more you magnetize immense around you. — Alan Cohen

Truly creative people care a little about what they have done, and a lot about what they are doing. Their driving focus is the life force that surges in them now. — Alan Cohen

Success is less about getting good, and more about letting good. — Alan Cohen

Sometimes when things seem to be going wrong, they are going right for reasons you are yet to understand. — Alan Cohen

True champions are team players. — Alan Cohen

Don't use the past as an excuse to miss out on your future. — Alan Cohen

Today I set my mind and heart on a new path. I focus my energy on love, appreciation, and my highest possibilities. — Alan Cohen

Keeping your commitment to your purpose does not depend on other people keeping theirs. — Alan Cohen

People who pressure you usually deserve a "no". People who are patient with you usually deserve a "yes". — Alan Cohen

The door you open to give love is the very one through which love arrives. — Alan Cohen

So money is not the answer to problems; wealth mentality is. — Alan Cohen

Apply analysis when appropriate, but keep it on a short leash when joy beckons. — Alan Cohen

The first step to boosting your income is to identify where your passion lives and to be true to it. — Alan Cohen

Do what is healing to your spirit and without effort you will bring the world healing in return. — Alan Cohen

Don't try to lose weight. Take delight in gaining fitness. — Alan Cohen

Do not resist events that move you out of your comfort zone, especially when your comfort zone was not all that comfortable. — Alan Cohen

Joy is the wild card of life; it supersedes every other formula for success. If you can find a way to create joy, you can rise beyond all external factors. If you can play at whatever you are doing, you are the master of your life. — Alan Cohen

What your heart desires is not too good to be true. It is good enough to be true. — Alan Cohen

Half of your power lies in your sameness with others. The other half lies in your uniqueness. — Alan Cohen

In the end, we shall recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you'll find your way home. — Alan Cohen

You are destined to become the peer of those you most respect because the greatness you perceive in them is your own. — Alan Cohen

To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny. — Alan Cohen

Truly creative people care little about what they have done, and a lot about what they are doing. — Alan Cohen

Quit making believe you don't know.
You do know. Act on it. — Alan Cohen

To be a miracle worker you do not have to get a doctoral degree, become a minister, eat a particular food, or be able to meditate for long hours. All you need to do is to begin to see beauty in your life and those around you. — Alan Cohen