Daniel Gottlieb Quotes & Sayings

The story of Pi is the story of all of us. We all have tigers under our tarpaulins - tigers that, we feel, could destroy us. We think we want to be rid of our tigers. But the truth is, we would feel a great loss if they ran away, because ultimately, each tiger is part of us. — Daniel Gottlieb

Your physical well being and thus your mental state, is God-given responsibility to you. Tending to them and get a clear sense of what your life is about before ashes and dust and you'll be having inner peace with your life — Daniel Gottlieb

Like Pi, we all have tigers within us. Lil demons which are a part of us. If you can't run away from them, welcome them, feed them and listen to what they will have to say. There is really not a whole lot to be afraid of. — Daniel Gottlieb

Learn to tolerate your own different-ness from other people and learn to navigate your own waters — Daniel Gottlieb

Hope is always about the future. And it isn't always good news. Sometimes, hope can imprison us with belief or expectation that something will happen in the future to change our lives. Similarly hopelessness isn't always about despair. Hopelessness can bring us right into this very moment and answer all of life's most difficult questions. Who am I? Where am I? What does this mean? And what now? — Daniel Gottlieb

Missing feels like a sad spot in my heart ... Missing means I love her. — Daniel Gottlieb

And then I realized that whatever we did, it wouldn't feel like it did before. — Daniel Gottlieb

The mind that leaps is the mind that lives. — Daniel Gottlieb

So many of us suffer because we are trying to live the life we once had or the life we wish for. Life is much sweeter when we live the life we have — Daniel Gottlieb

We parents are in the process of losing parts of ourselves, of waking up each morning to find ourselves changed by our children. We may fantasize that we are not really changed, that we can go back to poring over Wittgenstein, immersing ourselves in the latest movies, being beach bums- whatever it was that we were before the child or children came into our lives. But part of what we have lost is the part of our identity that is the person-without-children. The parent we are now has a life inextricably entwined not only without our past life and our private selves but also with the lives of our children. — Daniel Gottlieb

Like Abraham, as we embark on our own journey, have a lil faith, take the imparted wisdoms from our parents/teachers, go forward and be attentive always to the quiet voice of your heart — Daniel Gottlieb

Real security only comes when we are comfortable with who we are, real happiness is a byproduct of a life well lived. — Daniel Gottlieb

I think we owe it to our children to share our wisdom. If we share our wisdom for the purpose of changing our children, then that's hitting them over the head with a hammer or shoving something down their throats. If the wisdom turns into advice, that's selfish. But if we simply share ourselves and let our children know our hearts, then it's a gift. And I think it's a gift we're responsible for giving them. — Daniel Gottlieb

A wise man once said all children are born knowing what the angels look like — Daniel Gottlieb

Two waves in the ocean are talking to each other. The front wave tells the second that it's frightened because it is about to crash into the shore and cease to exist. But the second wave shows no fear. It explains to the first: You are frightened because you think you are a wave; I am not frightened because know I am part of the ocean. — Daniel Gottlieb

In Greek mythology, Gods divide a human soil into two and send them world apart, and thus, each human is doomed to spend eternity looking for his/her other half — Daniel Gottlieb

When we stop fighting against death, we are able to wake up to our lives. — Daniel Gottlieb

the wall is there to teach us. — Daniel Gottlieb

When you do feel shame, seek out someone who loves and accepts you for who you are, in the intimacy that exposure brings, an amazing opportunity of being loved for who we are — Daniel Gottlieb

One day you will die, but death is not your enemy and it only makes you to appreciate life's gifts more with each passing second. — Daniel Gottlieb

We work so hard to avoid death because life is precious. That is why we clutch to this life so tightly. That's why we have so much anxiety, even anger, when something threatens us or our loved ones. But here's the contradiction: If you work TOO HARD to avoid death, then you're not going to have time to feel how precious life really is. You won't be able to feel it. You'll know it in your head but not in your heart. — Daniel Gottlieb

More often than not, it's disrespectful to them (our children) - and disrespectful to their struggle with their tasks in life- if our own anxiety as parents makes us cling to our children. It's disrespectful is we demand more intimacy than they are willing or able to give. Too much involvement with our children is not an act of love- it's an act of selfishness. — Daniel Gottlieb

That's what happens in our hearts. The holes do not disappear, but scar tissue grows and becomes part of who we are. The same takes place in nature. As the famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi observed, 'There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature.' The most stable structures in nature - like trees or spiderwebs - have angular and curved lines. As our hearts grow larger, and we learn that scar tissue is not so ugly after all, we accommodate what we had thought would be unendurable. And we realize that the wisdom we have gained would not have been possible without the losses we have known, even those that seemed impossible to bear. — Daniel Gottlieb

The truth is, if we become comfortable with who we are rather than who we think we should be, then we will be less insecure. — Daniel Gottlieb

As our children turn even five or six degrees away from us, we have to be aware of our fear and our excitement and our hope for them. And as that five or sex degrees turns into ten or twenty degrees, even ninety degrees, we have to monitor those feelings every step of the way-and ultimately realize that our child is another human being and not necessarily and extension of us. — Daniel Gottlieb

It's a funny thing about life, I think we're born square and we die round — Daniel Gottlieb

God told Abraham to leave his home and set for journey and to have faith of being taken care of. Not just an external journey, it was also a journey upon into oneself. — Daniel Gottlieb

The world is much bigger than you thought — Daniel Gottlieb

There is nothing wrong if you are different. But FEELING different is. — Daniel Gottlieb

Sometimes situations call for us to act strong and brave even when we don't feel that way, but the payoff is better if we don't pretend when we feel weak or scared so that we allow people to show the kindness that's in them — Daniel Gottlieb

Giving to others is most precious when it is done quietly and selflessly.
Righteous indignation is like candy when you're starving. It feels good, but it doesn't sustain you very long. — Daniel Gottlieb

As the waters of life wash over us, we lose our sharp corners, and that can be good or bad...trust your instincts, remember your 'secret pacts' and reclaim the wisdom you have always had — Daniel Gottlieb

Like all buses, it comes when it comes. You can wait with frustations, angers or feeling of victimhoods or you can wait with patience and relaxation, either way, it won't make the bus come any way faster — Daniel Gottlieb

A Buddhist teacher once said that a poisonous snake is only poisonous when you walk toward it. — Daniel Gottlieb