Oli Anderson Quotes & Sayings

Only ever doing what feels comfortable is a form of suicide. — Oli Anderson

The first step to empathy and compassion is realising the similarities between yourself and those that are suffering; the first step to forgiveness is realising that we're all human and we all share the same capacity for fallibility and foible; the first step to growth is to recognise the value of things that are outside your current mental frameworks so that you can grow into them. — Oli Anderson

The final lesson is that 'reality' is always the way to go and that acceptance is the only way to get there. — Oli Anderson

One of the most human things that you can do is reach out for the stars knowing that you might not ever touch them; we are all perfectly imperfect, but to live knowing so is to be a fulfilled human being. — Oli Anderson

When people challenge your ideas, they help you (whether they know it or not). — Oli Anderson

Nobody is going to save you but yourself and the 'best' and only way to do so is
through action. — Oli Anderson

If philosophy gets you lost in the labyrinth of symbols that distance us from reality, then it is part of the problem; if it motivates positive action that can create a better world, philosophy is usually a gift. — Oli Anderson

Having problems doesn't make you noble or virtuous, it makes you human. Nobility and virtue comes from the way that you handle your problems and either learn to move past them or live with them if out of your control. — Oli Anderson

Practicing dialogue helps you to cultivate a realness that allows you to face reality on its own terms, not just the terms you'd like it to have in order to remain in your comfort zone. — Oli Anderson

If we go in to each situation that life throws at us with an attitude that we can
learn from it then we will never be truly defeated. — Oli Anderson

Life is for those that deserve it. Those kings amongst men who can climb out of barrels and will dare to break through glass walls and to transcend all of this whatever it is, these eyes to the ground, this pretence, acting only as is expected and never as is intended. We have been told what is acceptable in what situation and so we take heed. This is not living. In the real world, in nature, there is no need to pretend. There is no place for it. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue isn't a competition to be the smartest or the most correct person in the room; it is a collaboration to find the truth. — Oli Anderson

I decided to give up meaningless sex, but then I remembered that everything is meaningless. — Oli Anderson

The human condition is essentially the conflict between the human need for control and a universe that provides little if any of it. Once we accept this and get into the flow of life, we are free and, paradoxically, able to get better results. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue is an opportunity for people to communicate from outside the limitations of their points of view. When we enter a circle of dialogue, there are no labels, only human beings. — Oli Anderson

Remember: knowing originates on the inside, knowledge on the outside. Certain facts and concepts may change, come into being, disappear, or be replaced, but what it is to be a human being will never really be all that different. Every person to ever live, now and the whole of history, has had a rich and elaborate world of inner experience, but it has mainly been flesh upon the same skeleton. We are all
born, come to terms with the world, and then come to terms with coming to terms with the world, as we go through the stages of puberty, old age, death and
making sense of it all in between. We all live the same process in different ways. Some live it longer than others and some cover more ground. But that's it. — Oli Anderson

Whenever we find ourselves stuck, whenever we find ourselves lost or confused by the chaos of the world, we can be sure that the only way to free ourselves is to take action of some kind. Action is the only thing that ever changes anything and in a world that ever changes, it is the best way to keep ourselves in the flow of the world unfolding. — Oli Anderson

When one dream dies we replace it with another. — Oli Anderson

To engage in dialogue is to serve others via whatever is real inside you; to engage in debate is to ultimately serve the illusions of your ego. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue with the self is the source of all insight and insight is the only thing that can change your life. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue can help you find out if you've been brainwashed or not. — Oli Anderson

If humans created it then it is the product of a choice that somebody made. And if it was chosen it can be changed. — Oli Anderson

Our modern day, hyper-rat-race culture often leads us to mistakenly confuse
'busy' for 'success'. The truth of the matter is that if you're constantly having to tell people how busy you are and how overwhelmed with work or stressed you are, what you're really telling them is that you can't cope with what's on your plate. You're 'failing'. — Oli Anderson

Familiarity breeds contempt, for others at first, but then inwardly, contempt towards ourselves. — Oli Anderson

Idealism + Inaction = Depression — Oli Anderson

There are two types of 'busy': 1)
Constantly distracting yourself from what is true. 2) Constantly working to create something real. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue unplugs you from your own programming as you become more real; debate turns up the voltage and entrenches you more deeply. — Oli Anderson

Debate is an attempt to cling to the illusion of control provided by a point of view designed to keep the ego in place; dialogue is an attempt to dance with the unknown at the risk of losing what we think we know. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue teaches you to listen through your emotions, not to become distracted or distanced from the truth because of them. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue reminds us that we can question to build, not only to doubt or deconstruct. — Oli Anderson

Dialogue is about freeing human beings from the beliefs and attitudes that make human beings miserable. — Oli Anderson

It is essential to our health and happiness that we dedicate ourselves to some kind of mission or purpose that transcends the mundane hustle and bustle of daily living. — Oli Anderson

Unleash in the right time and place before you explode at the wrong time and
place. — Oli Anderson

Life is a dance more than it is an assertion and there is more health in dynamism or fluidity than there is rigidity and stasis. — Oli Anderson

We have to accept that much of reality is ineffable and so to understand it we can't rely on words alone. — Oli Anderson

Acceptance is an active response to a temporary situation; surrender is a passive reaction to a situation that you think will last forever.
-Personal Revolutions — Oli Anderson

This world is your world but that doesn't mean you can always stop it from burning. — Oli Anderson

Most arguments are about programming; most resolutions are reached through a process of unlearning then relearning. — Oli Anderson

See yourself as a long-term work in progress, not a short-term project of preservation. — Oli Anderson

Don't cling to your self-concept purely because your will demands it. Demand that your environment aligns as much as possible and change what you must about yourself when the outer world can't be changed. Mental health is about mental fluidity, mental illness stems in rigidity. — Oli Anderson

God' is whatever is the next obvious step towards wholeness in yourself and your life; 'Ego' is whatever within you stops you taking it. — Oli Anderson