Erhard Quotes & Sayings

I didn't arrive at the opportunity to make the world work for everyone by figuring out how to do it. — Werner Erhard

If you're not all right the way you are it takes a lot of effort to get better. Realize you're all right the way you are,and you'll get better naturally. — Werner Erhard

Transformation is the shift of the principle which orients the person's life, which is ordinarily the principle of gaining satisfaction. Essentially what organizes life for most of us is an attempt to gratify our needs; our psychological needs, our material needs, our personal needs ... Individuals transform when there's a shift in the principle which orients their life from one of gaining satisfaction to one of expressing the satisfaction they've already got ... — Werner Erhard

I used to be different. Now I'm the same. — Werner Erhard

So long as you do not know who you really are, this will be difficult. You may have to give up a lot of things to which you may be attached. You may have to give up your resentments, your anger, your upset, your annoyance, your desire to punish. — Werner Erhard

Begin building the future through "conversation for possibility." — Werner Erhard

Your life and my life have turned out, and once you get that, life goes on from a position of having turned out. That's called playing the game from win — Werner Erhard

Until what is significant is created by you, you aren't living your life, you are living some inherited life. — Werner Erhard

Living is not the story of your life. Living is the process of experiencing right now. — Werner Erhard

Here's my definition of a hero. A hero is an ordinary person given being and action by something bigger than themselves. One thing I'm sure about is I'm real ordinary. Yet I've had the chance to touch the lives of a lotta people. — Werner Erhard

A strange thing has happened - while all the other arts were born naked, this, the youngest, has been born fully-clothed. It can say everything before it has anything to say. It is as if the savage tribe, instead of finding two bars of iron to play with, had found scattering the seashore fiddles, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, grand pianos by Erhard and Bechstein, and had begun with incredible energy, but without knowing a note of music, to hammer and thump upon them all at the same time. — Virginia Woolf

Pay no attention to critics. No one ever erected a statue to a critic — Werner Erhard

The altimeter had been damaged along the way, but the few bottles that we brought along to wash down the ordinary expedition rations were fine. True, a bottle gives only a vague indication of altitude, but can you drink an altimeter? — Erhard Loretan

Create your future from your future not your past. — Werner Erhard

We distinguish integrity as a phenomenon of the objective state or condition of an object, system, person, group, or organizational entity, and define integrity as: a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, perfect condition. — Werner Erhard

Maturity is doing whatever you want, even if your parents want the same thing. — Werner Erhard

While most managers spend their time attempting to predict the future accurately - and while that's valuable - the best managers are able to generate a future which was not going to happen otherwise - that is, a future which was not predictable. — Werner Erhard

It may be necessary to make compromises in everyday politics, but we cannot compromise with our conscience. — Ludwig Erhard

Competition is the most promising means to achieve and secure prosperity. It alone enables people in their role of consumer to gain from economic progress. It ensures that all advantages which result from higher productivity may eventually be enjoyed. — Ludwig Erhard

The quickest way to be happy is to choose what you already have. — Werner Erhard

But that is like saying that the hole in the sand looks like the stick that you made the hole in the sand with. Holes in the sand and sticks are worlds apart. To put what happened into language would be like trying to describe a stick by telling you about the hole in the sand. — Werner Erhard

Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader within ourselves. — Werner Erhard

In life you wind up with one of two things - the results or the reason why you don't have the results. Results don't have to be explained. They just are. — Werner Erhard

[On Werner Erhard, founder of est:] If I wanted a new belief system, I'd choose to believe in God - He's been in business longer than Werner, and He has better music. — Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

All my life, I have never felt as happy on Earth as when I'm getting closer to the sky. — Erhard Loretan

Ride the horse in the direction it's going. — Werner Erhard

Why would I like to do this? Will it serve any purpose? Will it make my life easier? Is it essential for life? Does it only imply fulfillment of rather superficial desires? Which feelings move me to achieve this? Can I see a part of life's happiness in it? Will it only improve my image? Does it present an important need in my life? Is my vanity moving me to do this? Does my inner voice support it? What is my responsibility in this matter? Will I be able to achieve it in an easy and carefree way? Will it take me a lot of time and strength to achieve? Is the matter worth the effort? — Erhard F. Freitag

Heroes are ordinary men and women who dare to see and meet the call of a possibility bigger than themselves. Breakthroughs are created by such heroes, by men and women who will stand for the result while it is only a possibility - people who will act to make possibility real. — Werner Erhard

The problems we have now in communities and societies are going to be resolved only when we are brought together by a common sense that each of us is a visionary. Each of us must come to the realization that we can function and live at the level of vision rather than following some great leader's vision. Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader in ourselves. — Werner Erhard

Until you know that who you are is empty and meaningless, you don't know anything. — Werner Erhard

If you keep saying it the way it really is, eventually your word is law in the universe. — Werner Erhard

Without Britain, Europe would remain only a torso. — Ludwig Erhard

There is something I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything. — Werner Erhard

Until you've completed your relationship with your parents, all your relationships will be about your parents. — Werner Erhard

You will leave this course being a
leader and exercising leadership effectively as your natural
self-expression in any situation
and no matter what the
circumstances. — Werner Erhard

Life is already together, and what you have to experience is experiencing it being together. The striving to put it together is a denial of the truth that it is actually already together and further striving keeps you from getting it together. — Werner Erhard

What is is and what isn't ain't. — Werner Erhard

The fastest way to destroy love is to make a goal out of it, because people who are trying to be loved come from a place that they're not loved. — Werner Erhard

There are only two things in the world: nothing and semantics. — Werner Erhard

What most people do is give space to people's quality and deal with their garbage. Actually, you should do it the other way around. Deal with who they are and give space to their garbage. Keep interacting with them as if they were God. And every time you get garbage from them, give space to the garbage and go back and interact with them as if they were God. — Werner Erhard

Participation: What I intend to create is the opportunity for people to participate in the transformation of people. For me it is the highest expression of humanity to contribute, to facilitate, to participate in the transformation of humanity. — Werner Erhard

In life, understanding is the booby prize. — Werner Erhard

Don't change beliefs. Transform the believer. — Werner Erhard

All Knowledge is Divided into Three Domains: "What We Know", "What We Know That We Don't Know", and "What We Don't Know That We Don't Know." — Werner Erhard

Honoring your word is also the route to creating whole and complete social and working relationships. In addition, it provides an actionable pathway to earning the trust of others. — Werner Erhard

Integrity (in our model) is not about good or bad, or right or wrong, or what should or should not be. — Werner Erhard

The real purpose of est was to create space for people to participate in life - to experience true space and freedom in life. — Werner Erhard

Life is a ripoff when you expect to get what you want. Life works when you choose what you got. Actually what you got is what you chose. To move on, choose it. — Werner Erhard

If its comfort you want, life is not the place to be. — Werner Erhard

What we are engaged in creating is the opportunity for people to participate in the transformation of peoples' lives and of life itself. This context of transformation is a context of freedom and opportunity, of empowerment and human joy, of contribution and of participation. Participation in this transformation is, for me, the fullest expression of being. — Werner Erhard

When you've said all of the bad things and all of the good things you haven't been saying, you will find that what you've really been withholding is, "I love you." You don't have to go looking for love when it is where you come from. — Werner Erhard

Happiness is a function of accepting what is. Love is a function of communication. Health is a function of participation. Self expression is a function of responsibility. — Werner Erhard

The Truth, believed, is a lie. — Werner Erhard

There are all kinds of futures. There is a hoped-for future, there is a feared future, there is a predictable future, and there is an unimagined future. — Werner Erhard

I have a lot of respect for L. Ron Hubbard and I consider him to be a genius and perhaps less acknowledged than he ought to be. — Werner Erhard

What I recognized is that you can't put it together. It's already together, and what you have to do is experience it being together. — Werner Erhard

Human beings did not have rights. Human beings created, from nothing, the domain of human rights. They called it up. They languaged it. They communicated it. Communication has that power. It has the power not only to represent and not only to evoke, but literally to bring something into being. And to know yourself, to know your self, as a context creator, is to transform the quality of your life. — Werner Erhard

What gives people superiority at a task is true intention. That makes you attuned to everything. — Werner Erhard

Love is granting another the space to be the way they are and the way they are not. — Werner Erhard

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece. — Ludwig Erhard

For many people, life seems to be a kind of brief candle hardly worth living. But for those who are bold, who are venturesome, who have the humility to deal with what is possible rather than what is predictable, life is an exciting and challenging adventure. Life is no brief candle to me. In a world that can work for everyone, especially in which I can make a difference-that is a life worth living! That is living! That is being alive! — Werner Erhard

Opportunity: it's not really scarce. It's everywhere.
If you really were any good, you'd be overwhelmed by it. — Werner Erhard

hI was following through on the mountain commitment from my younger days, and it's always a nice surprise when the newly minted adult doesn't disown the child he once was. — Erhard Loretan

The world is perfect the way it is. — Werner Erhard

We can choose to make our love for each other what our lives are really about. — Werner Erhard

In a certain sense, all true leaders are heroes. Heroes are ordinary people who are given being and action by something bigger than themselves ... Each of us must make the personal choice to be a hero or not, to be committed to something bigger than ourselves or not, to go beyond the way we "wound up being" and have the purpose of our lives and our careers be about something that makes a difference or not, in other words, to be a leader or not. — Werner Erhard

Keeping in mind the old mountain adage that the longer you take to set up your bivy site, the shorter the bivy you have to endure, we ended up taking two hours to dig the snow cave. — Erhard Loretan

In this conversation we discover another possibility: living in a way, now, moment to moment, that makes a difference to life. We discover that as human beings we can live in a possibility instead of in what we have inherited, that instead of just being a human being because we were born that way, we can declare the possibility of being for human beings. This is the work of transformation: bringing forth a breakthrough in the possibility of being human. — Werner Erhard

I have no interest in the justification of circumstances or producing guilt in others by assigning obligation. I am interested in providing an opportunity for people to experience mastery in the matter of their own lives and the experience of satisfaction, fulfillment, and aliveness. These are a function of the self as context rather than thing, the self as space rather than location or position, the self as cause rather than self at effect. — Werner Erhard

I could always tell when an organization was in good shape. I could tell because the manager of the organization would always be talking about how great the people in the organization were. If the manager was talking about anything other than how great people in the organization were, I knew that the organization was in bad shape. The way to manage an organization successfully is to manage it in such a way that you can be proud of the people with whom you are working. You have to find a way to interact with the people with whom you are working in a way that makes you proud of them. — Werner Erhard

It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don't want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act. — Werner Erhard

Oversimplifying somewhat, honoring your word as we define it means you either keep your word (do what you said you would do and by the time you said you would do it), or as soon as you know that you will not, you say that you will not to those who were counting on your word and clean up any mess caused by not keeping your word. — Werner Erhard

[Alan] Watts did two main things for me. He opened up the connections between what I was doing and the traditional Oriental philosophies. And he pointed me toward the distinction between Self and Mind. — Werner Erhard

You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from. — Werner Erhard

In a civilization of wage slaves, where people seek to survive more than to live, mountaineering is an enigma. — Erhard Loretan; Jean Amman

If you stand in the rain, you get wet, whether you understand water or not. — Werner Erhard

Even the truth, when believed, is a lie. You must experience the truth, not believe it. — Werner Erhard

This is it. There are no hidden meanings. All that mystical stuff is just what's so. — Werner Erhard

I assure you it's harder to battle human stupidity than to do battle with mountains. Mountains, after all, have holds. — Erhard Loretan

We assert that integrity (the condition of being whole and complete) is a necessary condition for workability, and that the resultant level of workability determines the available opportunity for performance. Hence, the way we treat integrity in our model provides an unambiguous and actionable access to superior performance (however one wishes to define performance). — Werner Erhard

Man keeps looking for a truth that fits his reality. Given our reality, the truth doesn't fit. — Werner Erhard

I have a lot of feeling for Ron Hubbard. His genius has not been sufficiently acknowledged. — Werner Erhard

Ride the horse in the direction that it's going. — Werner Erhard

At all times and under all circumstances, we have the power to transform the quality of our lives. — Werner Erhard

Consider that all accomplishment is constituted by a series of resolved breakdowns. — Werner Erhard

You and I want our lives to matter. We want our lives to make a real difference - to be of genuine consequence in the world. We know that there is no satisfaction in merely going through the motions, even if those motions make us successful, or even if we have arranged to make those motions pleasant. We want to know we have made some impact on the world. In fact, you and I want to contribute to the quality of life. We want to make the world work. — Werner Erhard

For an individual we distinguish integrity as a matter of that person's word being whole and complete, and for a group or organizational entity as what is said by or on behalf of the group or organization being whole and complete. In that context, we define integrity for an individual, group, or organization as: Honoring one's word. — Werner Erhard

Your life works to the degree you keep your agreements. — Werner Erhard

To take a stand for the future is to bring forth an opportunity not borne of the path we've taken in the past, but borne of a vision which we would create for ourselves. — Werner Erhard

Health is a function of participation. — Werner Erhard

One creates from nothing. If you try to create from something you're just changing something. So in order to create something you first have to be able to create nothing. — Werner Erhard

Just like the front and the back of the hand, being and action are distinct yet inseparable. — Werner Erhard

Your power is a function of velocity, that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality. Most of us disempower ourselves by finding a way to slow, impede, or make more complex than necessary the process of translating intention into reality. — Werner Erhard

The essence of communication is intention. — Werner Erhard

If God told you exactly what it was you were to do, you would be happy doing it no matter what it was. What you're doing is what God wants you to do. Be happy. — Werner Erhard

Whatever you are pushing against, you are stuck to. — Werner Erhard

In every human being there is both garbage and gold, it is up to us to choose what we pay attention to. — Werner Erhard

The only two things in our lives are aliveness and patterns that block our aliveness. — Werner Erhard

Most of our notions about the world come from a set of assumptions which we take for granted, and which, for the most part, we don't examine or question. We bring these assumptions to the table with us as a given. They are so much a part of who we are that it is difficult for us to separate ourselves from them enough to be able to talk about them. We do not think these assumptions, we think from them. — Werner Erhard

Who you know yourself to be is simply one way of being that is available to you, and you are not stuck with that way of being. — Werner Erhard