Hugh Prather Quotes & Sayings

Happiness is a present attitude and not a future condition. — Hugh Prather

Before, I thought I was actually fighting for my own self-worth; that is why I so desperately wanted people to like me. I thought their liking me was a comment on me, but it was a comment on them. — Hugh Prather

We are all saying the same thing in different words. — Hugh Prather

Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser? — Hugh Prather

The ego, as a collection of our past experiences, is continually offering miserable lines of thought. It's as if there were a stream with little fish swimming by, and when we hook one of them there is a judgment. The ego is constantly judging everybody and everything. It has its constant little chit chat about things that can happen in the future, things about the past, too, and these are the little fish that swim by. And what we learn to do-this is why it takes work-is to not reach out and grab a fish. — Hugh Prather

I sometimes wonder if the "dead" are not more present, more comfort, more here than most of the living. — Hugh Prather

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write — Hugh Prather

When someone disagrees with me, I do not have to immediately start revising what I just said. People don't want me to always agree with them. They can sense this is phony. They can sense I am trying to control them: I am agreeing with them to make them like me. They feel; "I don't want to exist to like you. I DON'T exist to like you." — Hugh Prather

A messy mortal is my friend. Come walk with me in the mud. — Hugh Prather

Stands must be taken. If I am to respect myself I have to search myself for what I believe is right and take a stand on what I find. Otherwise, I have not gathered together what I have been given; I have not embraced what I have learned; I lack my own conviction. — Hugh Prather

Happiness is gentleness, peace, concentration, simplicity, forgiveness, humor, fearlessness, trust, and now. — Hugh Prather

I live from one tentative conclusion to the next, thinking each one is final. The only thing i know for sure is that I'am confused. — Hugh Prather

There are no absolutes for something so relative as a human life.
There are no rules for something so gentle as a heart. — Hugh Prather

There is no place love is not. — Hugh Prather

Negative feedback is better that none. I would rather have a man hate me than overlook me. As long as he hates me I make a difference. — Hugh Prather

When I get to where I can enjoy just lying on the rug picking up lint balls, I will no longer be too ambitious. — Hugh Prather

Books seek us out. They slip themselves into our hands just at the time we are ready for a new self-concept. — Hugh Prather

My trouble is I analyze life instead of live it. — Hugh Prather

Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble. — Hugh Prather

Boredom is useful to me when I notice it and think: Oh I'm bored; there must be something else I want to be doing ... boredom acts as an initiator of originality by pushing me into new activities or new thoughts. — Hugh Prather

Peace, or freedom from conflict, is the absolute core of happiness. It is in learning to watch our sense of peace that we avoid unhappiness. All forms of misery are heralded by a frame of mind that must become immediately recognizable if we are ever to gain mastery in happiness ... Take the time to look in your heart and be clear. Walk through life being clear. Practice doing each thing in peace. — Hugh Prather

To avail yourself of His certain wisdom, ask of Him whatever questions you have. But do not entreat Him, for that will never be necessary. — Hugh Prather

Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes. — Hugh Prather

The key to having "more than enough time" is to relax. Time is change, therefore I have more time per clock-hour when i am flexible. Rigid control means less time because less change. I can lengthen my life by saying out of doctrines and ruts. — Hugh Prather

The fatal mistake is waiting for life's circumstances to be right before we begin. Simply begin with your heart, look deeply into it and trust what you feel. Practice knowing and you will know. — Hugh Prather

Whenever we condemn, we cloak the world in pain. — Hugh Prather

Most words evolved as a description of the outside world, hence their inadequacy to describe what is going on inside me. — Hugh Prather

Egos clash. That's the nature of egos.
Treat these outbursts as sneezing fits. — Hugh Prather

Love itself is not an act of will, but sometimes I need the force of my volition to break with my habitual responses and pass along the love already here. — Hugh Prather

Why choose to be right instead of happy when there is no way to be right? — Hugh Prather

If I work toward an end, meantime I am confined to a process. — Hugh Prather

It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light. — Hugh Prather

I talk because I feel, and I talk to you because I want you to know how I feel. — Hugh Prather

I'm convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I "should be" and what i am. My anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. It seems to begin whenever I smuggle into my mind an expectation about how I or others should be. It is the tension between my desire to control the world and the recognition that I can't. "I will be what I will be" - where is the anxiety in that ? Anxiety is the recognition that I might not reach the rung on the opinion ladder I have just set for my self. I fear death most when I am about to exceed what I believe others think of me; then death threatens to cut me off from myself, because "myself" is not yet. — Hugh Prather

For communication to have meaning it must have a life. It must transcend "you and me" and become "us." If I truly communicate, I see in you a life that is not me and partake of it. And you see and partake of me. In a small way we then grow out of our old selves and become something new. To have this kind of sharing I cannot enter into a conversation clutching myself. I must enter into it with loose boundaries. I must give myself to the relationship, and be willing to be what grows out of it. — Hugh Prather

Some people will like me and some won't. So I might as well be myself, and then at least I'll know that the people who like me, like me. — Hugh Prather

Unless I accept my faults, I will most certainly doubt my virtues. — Hugh Prather

Letting people in is largely a matter of not expending the energy to keep them out. — Hugh Prather

Don't fight a fact, deal with it. — Hugh Prather

When we recognize that nothing has to go right for us to be happy, that people do not have to behave for us to love them, our walk home can be surprisingly simple. We have enormous power not to manipulate the world, but to be happy and to know peace. — Hugh Prather

To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them. — Hugh Prather

Don't strive for love, be it. — Hugh Prather

True humor is fun - it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together. — Hugh Prather

It is your right to be happy. This is what you were made for. And if you will not resist, happiness will find a way to pour from your heart and fill your days. — Hugh Prather

There are only three things you need to let go of judging, controlling, and being right. Release these three and you will have the whole mind and twinkly heart of a child. — Hugh Prather

It's not that "today is the first day of the rest of my life," but that now is all there is of my life. — Hugh Prather

I can not 'make my mark' for all time - those concepts are mutually exclusive. 'Lasting effect' is a self-contradictory term. Meaning does not exist in the future and neither do I. Nothing will have meaning 'ultimately.' Nothing will even mean tomorrow what it did today. Meaning changes with the context. My meaningfulness is here. It is enough that I am of value to someone today. It is enough that I make a difference now. — Hugh Prather

Today I acknowledge that I am not in position to judge what mistakes anyone is making or what lessons anyone needs to learn. I don't know how far someone has come or when that person will have a breakthrough, I simply don't know what other people should be doing. But when I think I do know, I clearly am not doing what I should be doing, which is taking responsibility for my own life. — Hugh Prather

Moods should be heard but never danced to. — Hugh Prather

Letting go is freedom. When you find yourself in a useless battle, you merely walk off the battlefield. — Hugh Prather

Live as if everything you do will eventually be known. — Hugh Prather

Within me is the potential to commit every evil act I see being committed by other men, and unless I feel this potential, I can at any moment be controlled by these same urges. I am free from these urges only if I recognize when I am feeling them, and while feeling them and acknowledging them to be me, choose not to follow them. Only in this way can I begin to regain the disowned parts of me. And only in this way can I know what it is I am criticizing in others. — Hugh Prather

What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't. — Hugh Prather

It's this simple: If I never try anything, I never learn anything. If I never take a risk, I stay where I am. — Hugh Prather

'Fault' means failure to meet a standard. Whose? Mine. — Hugh Prather

If the ocean was pure mind and I was a wave, I would be in terror if Itried to distinguish myself fromthe water that produced me.What is a wave without water, and what is a mind without God? — Hugh Prather

Fears, indecision, and frustration feed on words. Without words they usually stop ... Words are at times good for looking back, but they are confining when I need to act in the present. — Hugh Prather

Every moment that I am centered in the future I suffer a temporary loss of this life. — Hugh Prather

There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen. — Hugh Prather

An argument is always about what has been made more important than the relationship. — Hugh Prather

It is enough that I am of value to somebody today. — Hugh Prather

If a man takes off his sunglasses I can hear him better. — Hugh Prather

If your reaction to your partner's fear-or any other form of distress- is disdain or irritation, you do not want oneness or even friendship with your partner at that moment. — Hugh Prather

Boredom or discontent is useful to me when I acknowledge it and see clearly my assumption that there's something else I would rather be doing. In this way boredom can act as an invitation to freedom by opening me to new options and thoughts. For example, if I can't change the activity, can I look at it more honestly? — Hugh Prather

Perfectionism is slow death. — Hugh Prather

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency. — Hugh Prather

The number of things just outside the perimeter of my financial reach remains constant no matter how much my financial condition improves. With each increase in my income a new perimeter forms and I experience the same relative sense of lack. — Hugh Prather

I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown. — Hugh Prather

A whole mind cannot create chaos. A conflicted mind can create nothing else. — Hugh Prather

I can't be found in myself; I discover myself in others. That much is clear. And I suspect that I also love and care for myself in others. — Hugh Prather

The first step of letting go: To remove what obstructs your experience of wholeness and peace, you must first look at the obstruction. — Hugh Prather

No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves — Hugh Prather

The components of happiness are quite simple. Happiness is gentleness, peace, concentration, simplicity, forgiveness, humor, fearlessness, trust, and now. In its true form each quality includes all the rest, for happiness is whole, and one feels whole when genuinely happy. — Hugh Prather

You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me. — Hugh Prather

Selfishness is neither good nor bad - it depends on the way we are selfish as to whether it nourishes or injures. — Hugh Prather

It seems that the truth is needed today is always a lie by tomorrow. — Hugh Prather

Because the results are unpredictable, no effort of mine is doomed to failure. — Hugh Prather

Love, the magician, knows this little trick whereby two people walk in different directions yet always remain side by side ... — Hugh Prather

One element of maturity is the realization that we don't get away with anything. Any advantage gained or convenience taken, any private procrastination or insincerity, no matter how subtle or quick in passing, is paid for. — Hugh Prather

If I had Only ...
Forgotten future greatness
and looked at the green things and the buildings
and reached out to those around me
and smelled the air
and ignored the forms and the self-styled obligations
and heard the rain on the roof
and put my arms around my wife
... and it's not too late — Hugh Prather

You're wrong means that I don't understand you, I'm not seeing what you're seeing- and I'm not seeing all of you there is to see. But there is nothing wrong with you. You are what you need to be, doing what you need to be doing, and although I may take steps to protect myself of others, I do not know all and therefore am literally inadequate to judge. — Hugh Prather

Support your friends - even in their mistakes. But be clear, however, that it is the friend and not the mistake you are supporting. — Hugh Prather

The way for me to live is to have no way. My only habit should be to have none. Because I did it this way before is not sufficient reason to do it this way today. I — Hugh Prather

But it's morning. Within my hands is another day. Another day to listen and love and walk and glory. I am here for another day. — Hugh Prather

Very seldom will a person give up on himself. He continues to have hope because he knows he has the potential for change. He tries again - not just to exist, but to bring about those changes in himself that will make life worth living. Yet people are very quick to give up on friends, and especially on their spouses, to declare them hopeless, and to either walk away or do nothing more than resign themselves to a bad situation. — Hugh Prather

Today I don't want to live for, I want to live. — Hugh Prather

What I must do is die now. I must accept the justice of death and the injustice of life. I have lived a good life - longer than many, better than most. Tony died when he was twenty. I have had thirty-two years. I couldn't ask for another day. What did I do to deserve birth? It was a gift. I am me - that is a miracle. I had no right to a single hour. And yet I have had thirty-two years. Few can choose when they will die. I choose to accept death now. As of this moment I give up my "right" to live. — Hugh Prather

Many books on communication are strong on theory but impractical on application. Marshall Rosenberg's instant classic is the stand-out exception. It is clear and compelling in its logic and flat-out inspiring in its inviting exposition of usable techniques and strategies. If this book is read by enough people, the world will transform. — Hugh Prather

We become what we look at most. — Hugh Prather

Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behavior, trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be. — Hugh Prather

I like a man with faults, especially when he knows it. To err is human — Hugh Prather

I was just asked to go somewhere. I said, "I can't. I have to stay home. Gayle's sick." Clearly, I was not accepting responsibility for my actions. Next time I want to be more honest and state that I do what I do because I want to do it. — Hugh Prather

Forgive and be happy. That is the ancient secret?the only wisdom ever to be attained. — Hugh Prather

The tools of the mind can be wrongly used, but the mind possesses no wrong tools. — Hugh Prather

am not responsible for my feelings, but for what I do with them. — Hugh Prather

We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't
and those feelings are probably realistic. — Hugh Prather

There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach ... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just on thing in life, would kill off large parts of me. — Hugh Prather

I live now and only now, and I will do what I want to do this moment and not what I decided was best for me yesterday. — Hugh Prather

Next time I will ... "
"From now on I will ... "
- What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow? — Hugh Prather

Our job this day is to become part of the answer to the world's immense and protracted suffering rather than continuing our ancient task of being part of the difficulty. — Hugh Prather