Inner Lives Quotes & Sayings

Our interests are centered in ourselves. We are preoccupied with material things. Our supreme god is technology; our goddess is sex. Most of us are more interested in getting to the moon than in getting to heaven, more concerned about conquering space than about conquering ourselves. We are more dedicated to material security than to inner purity. We give much more thought to what we wear, what we eat, what we drink, and what we can do to relax than we give to what we are. This preoccupation with peripheral things applies to every area of our lives. — Billy Graham

Every teenager deals in his or her own sexuality and has to face it and figure out how it can coincide with the rest of their lives in a healthy manner. And try to navigate it in our modern society, which is wrought with stigma and taboo and repression, and sort of as a result, these inner monsters that some teenagers really struggle with. — Ezra Miller

When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, inner life in which freedom lives. In which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. — Ralph Bellamy

The de-spiritualization of asceticisms is probably the event in the current intellectual history of mankind that is the most comprehensive and, because of its large scale, the hardest to perceive, yet at once the most palpable and atmospherically powerful. Its counterpart is the informalization of spirituality - accompanied by its commercialization in the corresponding subcultures. The threshold values for these two tendencies provide the intellectual landmarks for the twentieth century: the first tendency is represented by sport, which has become a metaphor for achievement as such, and the second by popular music, that devotio postmoderna which covers the lives of contemporary individuals with unpredictable flashes of inner emergency. — Peter Sloterdijk

Peace is more than a lofty ideal. It is a practical principle that, with conscious effort, can become a normal part of our lives as we deal with matters both large and small. One habit that prevents inner peace is procrastination. It clutters our minds with unfinished business and makes us uneasy until we finish a task and get it out of the way. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

I, too, have had my revelation. I do not compare it with yours. It has no identifiable source. It is an inner conviction that has grown from a small thought to a large certainty that there is other life in the universe, that to prove its existence is the most gloriously human thing man can do, that to communicate with it would make this vast, incomprehensible place in which man lives, this unexplored forest of the night, a friendlier, happier, more wonderful, more exciting, holier place in which to be. — James Edwin Gunn

Our lives of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22, 23). There is no longer the tiring need to hide our inner selves from others. We do not have to work hard at being good and kind; we are good and kind. To refrain from being good and kind would be the hard work because goodness and kindness are part of our nature. — Richard J. Foster

All the words that appear in the inner circle are attributes of God. To develop a relationship with Him we must know the implications of each for our lives. We need truth. His Word contains it. We need the ability to understand the truth. His Spirit will teach us. We need strength to cope with inner turmoil. His is omnipotent. We need a model to follow. Christ is God in human form. We need standards. He is righteous. We need acceptance. He is love. We need to know who is in charge. He is. — J. Grant Howard

Aging people should know that their lives are not mounting and unfolding but that an inexorable inner process forces the contraction of life. For a young person it is almost a sin and certainly a danger to be too much occupied with himself; but for the aging person it is a duty and a necessity to give serious attention to himself. — Carl Jung

God's presence in our lives gives us peace and joy. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It would be something fine if we could learn how to bless the lives of children. They are the people of new life. Children are the only people nobody can blame. They are the only ones always willing to make a start; they have no choice. Children are the ways the world begin again and again.
"But in general, our children have no voice
that we will listen to. We force, we blank them into the bugle/bell regulated lineup of the Army/school, and we insist on silence.
"But even if we cannot learn to bless their lives (our future times), at least we can try to find out how we already curse and burden their experience: how we limit the wheeling of their inner eyes, how we terrify their trust, and how we condemn the raucous laughter of their natural love. What's more, if we will hear them, they will teach us what they need; they will bluntly formulate the tenderness of their deserving. — June Jordan

One had the right to write because other people needed news of the inner world, and if they went too long without such news they would go mad with the chaos of their lives. — Arthur Miller

Whatever happiness and peace that one knows in one's life is generally so fragile that it is always subservient to the external situation. So most of your lives go in trying to manage a perfect external situation which is just impossible to do. No human being is ever capable of creating a perfect external situation because the outside situation will never be hundred percent in your control, no matter how powerful a human being you are. So yoga focuses on the inner situation. If you can create a perfect inward situation, no matter what the external situation, you can be in perfect bliss and peace. — Jaggi Vasudev

The movement toward gratitude, authenticity, and union is the natural and organic inner work of the second half of our lives. — Richard Rohr

Painting has to get back to its original goal, examining the inner lives of human beings. — Pierre Bonnard

If you aren't hearing your inner voice, it could mean you're overburdened or not stimulated enough, or that you've learned to shut it off because the people around you have refused to engage it. Perhaps you've had a hardening of the arteries around your soul. I believe the choices we make in our lives and the people and places surrounding us increase the volume of our inner voice, decrease it, or annihilate it entirely. — Kelly Cutrone

As a relentless gatherer of moments, I find that my favorite images, although grounded in the present, are like spirits shaped by memories. They whisper of fairy tales, poetry, and other lives, as each gesture connects with another and raises yet another from the dead. Shadows flicker on film to an inner melody as I navigate, camera at hand and at the speed of light, through unimaginable worlds - desperately trying to make sense of the joy and suffering before it all disappears. — Sylvia Plachy

We need to put our full hope, trust, and dependency on God, and God alone. And if we do that, we will learn what it means to finally find peace and stability of heart. Only then will the roller coaster that once defined our lives finally come to an end. That is because if our inner state is dependent on something that is by definition inconstant, that inner state will also be inconstant. If our inner state is dependent on something changing and temporary, that inner state will be in a constant state of instability, agitation, and unrest. This means that one moment we're happy, but as soon as that which our happiness depended upon changes, our happiness also changes. And we become sad. We remain always swinging from one extreme to another and not realizing why. — Yasmin Mogahed

The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. Everyone who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I still know this place and its people to the marrow of their bones, to their soft, unguarded core, which had once sustained my own life, yet I am as much of an outsider here as I am on the other side of the world, in my adopted country. The truth is that there is no bridge between the two lives - the past and the present - that would conveniently span the memory of loss and the promise of an onward search. There is only a wound, the inner divide of exile. A daughter of an anatomy professor, I should have known that sliced hearts do not become whole, that split souls do not mend. Along with all those who left their countries for other shores, I belong in neither land. — Elena Gorokhova

People who have been hunting all their lives with no compunction to consider the exchange they make and the gravity of the trade, I don't know where to put them. I just remind myself there are too many mule deer for the earth to handle, and before my inner dialogue says we took their space, not the other way around, I try to change the channel. — Liz Stephens

As if you were on fire from within.
The moon lives in the lining of your skin. — Pablo Neruda

Never give up hope, that family can be a great source of love, that the eternal inner spirit lives on even when the human body is frail and through positive thinking it can overcome incredible odds. Yes, all of these. But also, that love for others defines us. — Peter Benn

If you want to have peace of soul, learn to forgive. Jesus' secret was His ability to see into people's hearts. Seeing their anguish and pain helped Him to understand their nastiness. So He could pity them rather than become angry with them. That is what we have to do: try to understand the pain in people's lives ... and not take personally what they do to us. — Joseph F. Girzone

There is no amount of darkness that can extinguish the inner light. The important thing is not to spend our lives trying to control the environment around us. The task is to control the environment within us. — Joan D. Chittister

If we want to grow as teachers
we must do something alien to academic culture: we must talk to each other about our inner lives
risky stuff in a profession that fears the personal and seeks safety in the technical, the distant, the abstract. — Parker J. Palmer

Some people believe that there is no distinction between the spiritual and physical universes, no distinction between the inner and the outer, between the subjective and the objective, between the miraculous and the rational. I need such distinctions to make sense of my spiritual and scientific lives. For me, there is room for both a spiritual universe and a physical universe, just as there is room for both religion and science. Each universe has its own power. Each has its own beauty, and mystery. — Alan Lightman

The calm mind allows one to connect with the inner self, the Soul, the very source of our being. That's where the music lives. That's where my music comes from. — Clarence Clemons

We are all capable of living lives characterized by great joy. Within each of us is an amazing human spirit that is strong enough to overcome pain and disappointment. And no matter what our current situation happens to be, or what beliefs we may currently harbor about ourselves, we can tap into that inner strength and wisdom and move forward to create more joy. — Salle Merrill Redfield

If we do not like what is happening to us, it is a sure sign that we are in need of a change of mental diet. For man, we are told, lives not by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And having discovered the mouth of God to be the mind of man, a mind which lives on Words or inner talking, we should feed into our minds only loving, noble thoughts. For with Words or inner talking we build our world. Let love's lordly hand raise your hunger and thirst to all that is noble and of good report, and let your mind starve e'er you raise your hand to a cup love did not fill or a bowl love did not bless. That you may never again have to say, What have I said? What have I done, O All Powerful Human Word? — Neville Goddard

No, never mind, I didn't think so. Mead, Dante's theme is man-not a man.' Lowell said finally with a mild patience that he reserved only for students. "The Italians forever twitch at Dante's sleeves trying to make him say he is of their politics and their way of thinking. Their way indeed! To confine it to Florence or Italy is to banish it from the sympathies of mankind. We read Paradise Lost as a poem but Dante's Comedy as a chronicle of our inner lives. Do you boys know of Isaiah 38:10 — Matthew Pearl

We have yet to discover the true incentive, the inner Will which will have an over-mastering effect upon our lives, and yet be present in every circumstance and incident. — Nilakanta Sri Ram

Each soul lives on the verge of remembering the forgotten agreement and original dream that it carries; yet each moment can be another point when the dream of life becomes lost again. Each meaningful step we take on the path of life involves some tension between the needs of the common world and the dreams of the soul. This inherent tension can stop us in our tracks, yet can also be the source of vital energy needed for the soul to grow. Each time we remember a piece of why we came to life we pull the seeds of eternity farther into the world of time. The inner seed keeps trying to sprout, but often our fate must place us in a crossroads or nail us to a cross before we pay proper attention to it. — Michael Meade

Girls' inner critics are starting to reveal themselves at a younger and younger age. And body image issues are an aspect of their lives which is causing them low self esteem and day-to-day suffering. — Elizabeth Berkley

When I forget my own inner multiplicity and my own long and continuing journey toward selfhood, my expectations of students become excessive and unreal. If I can remember the inner pluralism of my own soul and the slow pace of my own self-emergence, I will be better able to serve the pluralism among my students at the pace of their young lives. — Parker J. Palmer

For some people it's real therapy to talk to journalists about their private lives and inner thoughts. But I would rather keep something to myself. — Mick Jagger

Whether your life is destined to be short or to be long, along the way on that journey, if you access that inner power, not only will you change your life in a positive way, you'll ultimately help change other peoples lives. You will be carrying something forward. — Brad Willis

When both our inner man and woman takes responsibility for themselves and lives their own truth, a joy and love begins to flow naturally between them. Healing means to develop the inner man and woman so that love can flow between them. Healing is to learn to love both our inner man and woman. It is to learn to live the truth of both the inner man and woman. — Swami Dhyan Giten

My poor little child
Karin Boye
My poor child, so afraid of the dark,
who has met ghosts of another kind,
who always among those clad in white
glimpses those with evil faces,
now let me sing you gentle songs,
from fright they free, from force and cramp.
Of the evil they ask no repentance.
Of the good they ask not for battle.
See, you must know, that all that lives
is deep inside of equal kind.
Like trees and herbs it seeks to grow -
pulled forward by its inner laws.
And trees may fall and flowers wilt
and branches break, their power lost,
still the dream remains - awaits the call -
in every living drop of sap. (205) — Linda Olsson

At the individual level, the great controlling myth of our time has been the belief that within each of us there is a real, inner, private 'self', long buried beneath layers of socialization and attempted cultural and religious control, and needing to be rediscovered if we are to live authentic lives. When we 'discover' this 'true authentic self' , we must do whatever it dictates, even if it means ignoring the norms of the 'unenlightened' society all around us. — N. T. Wright

Living in intention through acceptance, responsibility, pro-active choice, and the willingness to be ordinary, will move fear aside and allow intuition to surface. All of those skills teach us to be inner focused and aware of who we are becoming. That is powerful. That changes lives. — Rhonda Britten

At a certain point we need to grow up; we need to look inside ourselves for our inner guidance. There are things most human beings know; they just don't want to know them. They know deep down that certain things in their lives are working or aren't working, that certain parts of their lives are functional and others are dysfunctional. But sometimes, as human beings, we don't want to know what's not convenient. So we pretend not to know. — Adyashanti

If we focus on our health, including our inner health, our self-esteem, and how we look at ourselves and our confidence level, we'll tend to be healthier people anyway, we'll tend to make better choices for our lives, for our bodies, we'll always be trying to learn more, and get better as time goes on. — Queen Latifah

'Look at Me' started with Rockford, Illinois and New York and the question of how much image culture was changing our inner lives. That's an abstract idea; you don't think that's going to be a rocking work of fiction, but it seemed to fuse in a way that was interesting. — Jennifer Egan

The movie Koyaanisqatsi shows non-commented time-lapse footage and focuses our attention on the very rhythm of our civilized modern life and nature. A marijuana high can do something for a user similar to what this time-lapse footage does. The enhancement of episodic memory and the acceleration of associative streams of memories can alter and enhance our recognition of patterns in our lives in various ways. If we are presented with quick associative chains of past experiences, we can see a pattern in a body of information that is usually not at once presented to our "inner eye" as such. — Sebastian Marincolo

Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy. Left unchecked, it can spread throughout our entire inner being and contaminate every area of our lives. Even worse, it often will "metastasize" from us into the lives of other believers around us. — Jerry Bridges

Reflecting on various aspects of our lives is essential for a person to grow and adjust to changing phases in their life. Self-analysis entails examining a person's existing level of self-esteem and documenting the inner voice that speaks to a person, which is frequently either affirming of self-defeating. Failure to periodically engage in self-analysis, make crucial revisions in our personas, and modify our thinking patterns when we encounter transformative events in life can lead to mood disorders, burnout, and other emotional maladies. — Kilroy J. Oldster

No matter who we are, where we live, what we look like, the circumstances of our birth or the situations we face; each of us has gifts within us. Strength, beauty, courage, compassion, hope, joy, talent, imagination, reverence, wisdom, love and faith are among them. They are not like material presents we unwrap and hold in our hands. We can't see these gifts with our eyes. But they are real and powerful. When we open ourselves to them, they can enrich every aspect of our lives. They can help us transform challenges into opportunities and tragedies into triumphs. They can help us make a difference in the world. — Charlene Costanzo

Adults who were hurt as children inevitably exhibit a peculiar strength, a profound inner wisdom, and a remarkable creativity and insight. Deep within them - just beneath the wound - lies a profound spiritual vitality, a quiet knowing, a way of perceiving what is beautiful, right, and true. Since their early experiences were so dark and painful, they have spent much of their lives in search of the gentleness, love, and peace they have only imagined in the privacy of their own hearts. — Wayne Muller

I have spoken to many people who have begun to live in presence, and they find many changes come into their lives. Sometimes these changes happen as inner realizations - "This is what I have to do" - or they arise from the external when something suddenly happens. — Eckhart Tolle

The coward's fear of death stems in large part from his incapacity to love anything but his own body. The inability to participate in others' lives stands in the way of his developing any inner resources sufficient to overcome the terror of death. - J. Glenn Gary, The Warriors — Sebastian Junger

We can increase the frequency of guiding coincidences by uplifting every person that comes into our lives. Care must be taken not to lose our inner connection in romantic relationships. — James Redfield

. . .many conservation biologists assert the importance of scientists being able to communicate the spontaneous inner experience and appreciation for the creatures they investigate, claiming that no one has more expertise, or right, to express a love for nature than those who have given their lives to its study. — Fred Van Dyke

Being reflective also means listening to your inner self with new ears. The truth is, we think we've heard our own story so much that we stop listening to it! We become like the people in our lives who we complain don't listen to us. With reflection, we listen freshly to our selves, the way we would like to be listened to. There — Helene Brenner

Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyses us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather to harness and master it. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The misfortune of others is our misfortune. Our happiness is the happiness of others. To see ourselves in others and feel an inner oneness and sense of unity with them represents a fundamental revolution in the way we view and live our lives. Therefore, discriminating against another person is the same as discriminating against oneself. When we hurt another, we are hurting ourselves. And when we respect others, we respect and elevate our own lives as well. — Daisaku Ikeda

The academic bias against subjectivity not only forces our students to write poorly ("It is believed ... ," instead of, "I believe ... "), it deforms their thinking about themselves and their world. In a single stroke, we delude our students into believing that bad prose turns opinions into facts and we alienate them from their own inner lives. — Parker J. Palmer

We take almost all the decisive steps in our lives as a result of slight inner adjustments of which we are barely conscious. — W.G. Sebald

For I regard memory not as a phenomenon preserving one thing and losing another merely by chance, but as a power that deliberately places events in order or wisely omits them. Everything we forget about our own lives was really condemned to oblivion by an inner instinct long ago. — Stefan Zweig

You cannot change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination." So it is that when disasters occur in our lives and we go within to discover our inner strength or to seek discernment, we have choices to continue in the same direction the storm of life has paved for us, or adjust our sail and get back on track to what we believe and know to be our path in life. — Stephen R. Covey

The holy days are the best times to focus on real enthusiasm, the inner source that lightens and sanctifies our lives all year. — Martha Beck

It was apparent that all of mankind is actually motivated by inner love, but has simply become unaware; most people live their lives as though they're sleepers unawakened to the perception of who they really are. — David Hawkins

I liked the push and pull of that, between the outer political world and the inner personal lives of the characters. It's also real life ... Many of us are keenly aware of world events, but break your nose and I bet that's the main thing you'd be focused on. — Said Sayrafiezadeh

God begins the process of perfecting us from the moment we are converted from unbelief to faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit regenerates us. He give us a new heart with a new set of holy desires (Ezek. 36:26). He transforms our stubborn wills. He opens our hearts to embrace the truth rather than reject it. He enables us to believe rather than doubt. He gives us a hunger for righteousness an a desire for Him. And thus the new birth transforms the inner person. From that point on, everything that occurs in our lives - good or bad - God uses to move us toward being like Christ (Rom. 8:28-30). — John MacArthur Jr.

Honest concern for others is the key factor in improving our day-to-day lives. When you are warm-hearted, there is no room for anger, jealousy, or insecurity. A calm mind and self-confidence are the basis for happy and peaceful relations with each other. Healthy, happy families and a healthy, peaceful nation are dependent on warm-heartedness. Some scientists have observed that constant anger and fear eat away at our immune system, whereas a calm mind strengthens it. We have to see how we can fundamentally change our education system so that we can train people to develop warm-heartedness early on in order to create a healthier society. I don't mean we need to change the whole system - just improve it. We need to encourage an understanding that inner peace comes from relying on human values like love, compassion, tolerance, and honesty, and that peace in the world relies on individuals finding inner peace. - HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA — Debra Landwehr Engle

There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: there are no rules. Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be. Being traditional is not traditional anymore. It's funny that we still think of it that way. Normalize your lives, people. You don't want a baby? Don't have one. I don't want to get married? I won't. You want to live alone? Enjoy it. You want to love someone? Love someone. Don't apologize. Don't explain. Don't ever feel less than. When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it. No fairy tales. Be your own narrator. And go for a happy ending. One foot in front of the other. You will make it. — Shonda Rhimes

In order to be effective decision makers and to live satisfying and contented lives, people need to be aware of their goals, desires, and purposes and need to be able to evaluate or assess the extent to which they are heading in the direction specified by their inner standards. — Timothy Carey

We yearn for there to be meaning to our lives, balanced with a sense of inner peace & joy. — Allan Lokos

Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on 'being more' rather than simply having more. — Daisaku Ikeda

The Dalai Lama. He is a very wise man of great inner peace who believes that happiness is the purpose of our lives. Through his teachings and leadership, he continues to make this world a better place in which to live. — Sidney Sheldon

We spend much of the first half of our lives trying to build internal models that fit the world and much of the last half of our lives trying to adjust the world so it fits the inner models. — Bruce Wexler

Our destiny is aligned with our heart's innermost longing, a longing embedded within our soul before birth. This longing is a unique pattern or configuration reminiscent of the constellations in the night sky. When we express (press out) our unique configuration, it shines through us with an otherworldly luminosity, manifesting abundance in our lives and the lives of others. Our sole task is to yoke our inner destiny, thread it through our lives and weave it into the world. All else is just shadows and dust. — Thea Euryphaessa

I tried to photograph the mysterious, true and magical soul of popular Spain in all its passion, love, humor, tenderness, rage, pain, in all its truth; and the fullest and most intense moments in the lives of these characters as simple as they are irresistible, with all their inner strength, as a personal challenge that gave me strength and understanding and in which I invested all my heart. — Cristina Garcia Rodero

I talk to groups studying the most advanced spiritual teachings and sometimes these people wonder why nothing is happening in their lives. Their motive is the attainment of inner peace for themselves - which of course is a selfish motive. You will not find it with this motive. The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course, service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service. — Peace Pilgrim

Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets? — Jeanette Winterson

We tend to manage our lives intellectually - in other words, we get stuck in our heads, keeping ourselves preoccupied with juggling an assortment of activities and responsibilities in order to manage the surface of life. Meanwhile, underneath we feel empty, hungry for meaning, restless, somewhat lost, and frequently ungrounded - as if we aren't really inhabiting our own bodies. This is why we keep ourselves so busy. It's one way to distract ourselves, at least temporarily, from experiencing the low-grade inner anxiety that haunts us. Change — Sonia Choquette

The larger loneliness of our lives evolves from our unwillingness to spend ourselves, stir ourselves. We are always damping down our inner weather, permitting ourselves the comforts of postponement, of rehearsals — Carol Shields

In reality, there is a single integral community of the Earth that includes all its component members whether human or other than human. In this community every being has its own role to fulfill, its own dignity, its own inner spontaneity. Every being has its own voice. Every being declares itself to the entire universe. Every being enters into communion with other beings.

In every phase of our imaginative, aesthetic, and emotional lives we are profoundly dependent on this larger context of the surrounding world. — Thomas Berry

When I see brokenness, poverty and crime in inner cities, I also see the enormous potential and readiness for transformation and rebirth. We are creating an art form that comes from the heart and reflects the pain and sorrow of people's lives. It also expresses joy, beauty, and love. This process lays the foundation of building a genuine community in which people are reconnected with their families, sustained by meaningful work, nurtured by the care of each other and will together raise and educate their children. Then we witness social change in action. — Lily Yeh

Perhaps we do not yet know what the word "to love" means. There are within us lives in which we love unconsciously. To love thus means more than to have pity, to make inner sacrifices, to be anxious to help and give happiness; it is a thing that lies a thousand fathoms deeper, where our softest, swiftest, strongest words cannot reach it. At moments we might believe it to be a recollection, furtive but excessively keen, of great primitive unity. There is in this love a force that nothing can resist. — Maurice Maeterlinck

Teaching is almost like an act of prayer for me. I feel that I am present at the intersection of people and ideas in a very holy way. There are not many places where successful adults can take a break from work or domestic issues and freely and safely explore their inner lives or global issues through an ethical lens. — Erica Brown

We are the true architects of our lives. Only we as individuals and individuals alone, carry within us, the inner ability to make any changes to it's blue prints. — Robert M. Hensel

With experience as their guiding light, Christian monks and nuns could, for example, come together with Sufis and Yogis to pray and meditate, then discuss their experiences by talking about how silence and inner peace have changed their lives, instead of talking about the content of their prayers or focusing on theology. Hindus, Christians, and Muslims, who tread the path of goodness, could come together and do good works. Doing good side by side would show them that they are not as different as previously thought and that their various beliefs can lead to similar outcomes. — Gudjon Bergmann

Because you are obsessed with the idea of past, present, and future, you are forced to think of reincarnations as strung out one before the other. Indeed we speak of past lives because you are used to the time sequence concept ... You have dominant egos, all part of an inner identity, dominant in various existences. But the separate existences exist simultaneously. Only the egos involved make the time distinction ... a thousand years in your past or in your future - all exist now. — Jane Roberts

If your inner being changes, your whole outer life will be totally different. It will have a different fragrance, a different beauty, a different grace. And when your inner being is changed and becomes a flame of light, you will become a light unto others too. You will become a beckoning light, a great herald of a new dawn. Your very presence will trigger revolutions in other people's lives. — Rajneesh

I think most people, if I asked, would say, "Yes, of course I believe." But I think for a great many of them it doesn't really make much difference in terms of either what they do with their lives or with their own inner well-being. They believe because so did grandfather, and that's the same church they've been going to all these years. — Frederick Buechner

A loner by nature and an introvert ... i am a twinkling star, burning bright amidst a cloudless night. As such, i tend to fade in and out of people's lives. This aspect of me is often misunderstood as rejection or a lack of love and caring. In reality, the only way i can survive as an introvert, is to drop from the sky, from time-to-time, recharging within the energizing landscape of my inner-universe. To love me, is to let me me have the space i need to illuminate the sky. I can't be taken hostage or held captive. Inner-light is what gives my star its twinkle. — Jaeda DeWalt

We are living in a renaissance of personal writing. People are rebalancing the impersonalization endemic to modern society with an increase in personal introspection. We have enough common psychology under our belts to know that psychology doesn't explain or heal everything and that it isn't the fulfillment of awareness, but its beginning. We are undergoing a shift in paradigms in which we are trying to develop new models for humanness and human responsibility. This is no small task. Our individual lives are placed under increasing pressure to respond adequately to both inner and outer change. — Christina Baldwin

There is a glorious pattern for every man's life, an individual, perfect patter. No two people are alike ... No two leaves are alike-no two snowstorms-no two sets of fingerprints. No two lives are alike, yet each life holds a divine pattern of unfoldment, a great and holy destiny, rich in achievement and honor. As you live true to the pattern of yourself, that deep, inner self, you will unfold as perfect, as joyous, as naturally beautiful as the tree will reach its full measure of fulfillment. — Annalee Skarin

In focusing towards the outer world, we celebs forget to focus on our inner well-being. We don't lead perfect lives, and only when we learn to have peace with our family members can we have peace in life. — Shilpa Shetty

When beauty lives in the heart, it doesn't need to show up anywhere else. — Steve Goodier

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life, it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer business we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love ... and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure. — Paul E. Miller

So many people seem to spend their lives trying to appear normal, predictable and consistent to themselves and those that surround them. They just end up bored with themselves, bereft of any depth of inner resources, suffocated by the inhibitions that defend their own monolithic identities. — Peter J. Carroll

All this imagery and syncretism of Yahweh with Asherah was, of course, frowned on by the Levitical priesthood and made intolerant zealots like Samuel furious. Asherah smiled to herself. In truth, the elitist inner circle of Levites was quite small and unable to enforce its will across the innumerable rural towns and villages of Israel. The polytheistic folk religion of the common man was often out of tune with the official national cult of monolatry. But it was much more influential on the daily lives of citizens, who did what they wanted without repercussion. Thus, Asherah had a stranglehold on Israel and could venture most anywhere she wanted, without much fear of being attacked by Yahweh's evil minions. The people empowered her with their worship. Their idolatry protected her. — Brian Godawa

Both friend and enemy reside within us. One lives by the rule of compassion, the other by the rule of hard knocks. Though potential influence of either extreme is inevitable, our actions bear witness to the one we embrace. — T.F. Hodge

Authors may have very good reasons for staying out of character's minds. What is in their mind ought to be out in the world of their action anyway, just as in Real Life. Inside is already out there, and visible. It is also a reader's responsibility to imaginatively project the inner-lives of characters just as we have to imaginatively project the inner-lives of those most dear to us in Real Life. — Nathan "N.R." Gaddis

Neurotic suffering indicates inner conflict. Each side of the conflict is likely to be a composite of many partial forces, each one of which has been structured into behavior, attitude, perception, value. Each component asserts itself, claims priority, insists that something else yield, accommodates. The conflict therefore is fixed, stubborn, enduring. It may be impugned and dismissed without effect, imprecations and remorse are of no avail, strenuous acts of will may be futile; it causes - yet survives and continues to cause - the most intense suffering, humiliation, rending of flesh.
Such a conflict is not to be uprooted or excised. It is not an ailment, it is the patient himself. The suffering will not disappear without a change in the conflict, and a change in the conflict amounts to a change in what one is and how one lives, feels, reacts. — Allen Wheelis

Every human soul is different. We are all shaped by both experience and design, by callings and the way our gifts mold our inner lives. Every soul has a bent, a drift, a way it wants to go. And when hard times come and the inner person writhes in torment, the soul reaches for what it thinks is anesthesia, for something to medicate the pain. — Stephen Mansfield

The starting point of enlightenment, a goal that every person should strive for, is inner leadership. Leadership is far more than something businesspeople do at work. Leadership is all about personal responsibility, self-discovery, and creating value in the world by the people we become. Too many people spend their time blaming others for all that isn't working in their lives. We blame our spouses for our unhappy home lives; we blame our bosses for our distress at work; we blame strangers on the freeway for making us angry; we blame our parents for keeping us small. Blame, blame, blame, blame. But blaming others is nothing more than excusing yourself. Blaming others for the current quality of your life is a sad way to live. In doing so, all you're doing is playing the victim. — Robin S. Sharma

My music is also one part of my inner process, and people also seem to connect with me on that - especially the ones who have the same questions for their own lives. — Volker Bertelmann