Master Yourself Quotes & Sayings

For the entire earth is but a point, and the place of your own habitation but a minute corner in it. ( ... ) Remember then to withdraw into the little field of self. Above all, never struggle or strain; but be master of yourself. — Marcus Aurelius

Self-Control is the very essence of character. To be able to look a man straight in the eye, calmly and deliberately, without the slightest ruffle of temper under extreme provocation, gives a sense of power which nothing else can give. To feel that you are always, not sometimes, master of yourself, gives a dignity and strength to character, buttresses it, supports it on every side, as nothing else can. This is the culmination of thought mastery. — Orison Swett Marden

An order given in battle, an instruction issued by the master of a sailing ship, a cry for help, are as powerful in modifying the course of events as any other bodily act ... You utter a vow or forge a signature and you may find yourself bound for life to a monastery, a woman or prison. — Bronislaw Malinowski

You are your own master, you make your own future. Therefore discipline yourself as a horse-dealer trains a thoroughbred — Gautama Buddha

You are the architect of your owner destiny; you are the master of your own fate; you are behind the steering wheel of your life. There are no limitations to what you can do, have, or be. Accept the limitations you place on yourself by your own thinking. — Brian Tracy

Master your words. Master your thoughts. Never allow your body to do harm. Follow these three roads with purity And you will find yourself upon the one way, The way of wisdom. — Gautama Buddha

This reminds me of the place in Genesis 4 where God looks at Cain, who is full of self-pity, and says to him, "Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it." What's important to understand is that the principle of self in your life is crouching at your door! It wants to have you, it wants to pounce on you, it wants to devour you. And it's up to you to do something about it. God asks that you deny yourself, that you lose yourself to find yourself. If you try to do this without the work of the Spirit, and without belief in all Christ has done for you, then simply giving up your rights and desires will be galling and hardening. But in Christ and with the Spirit, it will be liberating. — Timothy Keller

Offend in neither word nor deed. Eat with moderation. Live in your heart. Seek the highest consciousness. Master yourself according to the law. This is the simple teaching of the awakened. — Gautama Buddha

Master Sun So it is said that if you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. — Sun Tzu

Now then, you of noble mind, who love this profession, come at once to art and accept these precepts: enthusiasm , reverence, obedience, and perseverance. As soon as you can, place yourself under the guidance of a master, and remain with him as long as possible. — Cennino Cennini

Be true to yourself always, and remain the master of your own destiny. Should you place your heart, or your hopes and dreams, in the hands of another, then you allow that person the power to crush them. When all is said and done, the only one you can truly depend on, for anything, is you. — Shane K.P. O'Neill

Master the chaos within yourself and I promise you, you will gain the strength to withstand any storm. — Nikki Rowe

Striid andWthdraw into yourself. Our master-reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm. — Marcus Aurelius

All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require ... How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else. — Henry Ward Beecher

What avails it that indulgent Heaven
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own?
Enjoy the present; nor which needless cares
Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb,
Appal the surest hour that life bestows.
Serence, and master of yourself, prepare
For what may come; and leave the rest to Heaven. — John Armstrong

You're not a Dom, not a Master, Josh," she said. "You've never even been close. You're a submissive. A gorgeous, incredibly sensual submissive that any Mistress in her right mind would cherish forever. You were doing as your Mistress told you to do, and she used you cruelly. I won't let you blame yourself for anything, Josh, except maybe for not recognizing it sooner, because you are an intelligent man. Your inly crime is in denying your own worth, because she made you doubt yours. A Mistress doesn't do that, Josh. — Joey W. Hill

You love to listen to the very things that nailed your supposed Master to the tree?! Come off of it, man! Become a hellion, give yourself to demons, run wild; but don't come in here saying you're a believer and playing that game! You want to dance with the devil, then dance all night long! But don't come in here dancing with Christ for a moment, and then go back out there and share your love. — Paul Washer

Master Yourself and you master your environment! Such is the nature of wisdom. — D. Nicole Williams

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master;
he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him. — Epictetus

But what is your true self is the God within you who became you, and when you realize that you are not yourself but you are he, then you discover that you and he are one, just as Jesus said. Jesus was a great master, and he had great teachings for the world, and when it says in the Bible, "All those who received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God." — Goswami Kriyananda

Yogi Bhajan shows us that a key to being the master of your own mind is to learn how to forgive yourself. So for today, just for one minute, practice forgiving yourself. — Gabrielle Bernstein

There's a reason why one master teacher said, "Love your enemies." He wasn't preaching some touchy-feely mumbo jumbo. He was talking about a cosmic law. He knew there was only One of us here. That means that anything you withhold from another you're withholding from yourself. But it also means that anything you give to another, you're giving to yourself. — Derek Rydall

You speak of being afraid. Yet fear is something you generate in yourself, from your mind's lack of control; and you will learn to look at it and discover for yourself when you choose to be afraid. The first thing you must do is acknowledge that the fear is yours, and you can bid it come and go at will. Begin with this; whenever you feel fear that prevents choice say to yourself: 'What has made me feel fear? Why have I chosen to feel this fear preventing my choice, instead of feeling the freedom to choose?' Fear is a way of not allowing yourself to choose freely what you will do next; a way of letting your body's reflexes, not the needs of your mind, choose for you ... [Y]ou have chosen to do nothing, so that none of the things you fear will come upon you; so your choices are not made by you but by your fear ... I cannot promise to free you of your fear, only that a time will come when you are the master, and fear will not paralyze you. — Marion Zimmer Bradley

Being a lifetime wife and mother has afforded me the luxury of having multiple and even simultaneous careers: I've been a chauffeur. A chef. An interior decorator. A landscape architect, as well as a gardener. I've been a painter. A furniture restorer. A personal shopper. A veterinarian's assistant and sometimes the veterinarian. I've been an accountant, a banker and on occasion, a broker. I've been a beautician. A map. A psychic. Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. The T.V. Guide. A movie reviewer. An angel. God. A nurse and a nursemaid. A psychiatrist and psychologist. Evangelist. For a long time I have felt like I inadvertently got my master's in How To Take Care of Everybody Except Yourself and then a Ph.D. in How to Pretend Like You Don't Mind. But I do mind. — Terry McMillan

Throw yourself into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for Him is a waste of time or effort. — Rick Warren

In the beautiful words of Staton Kirkham Davis, 'You may be keeping accounts, and presently you shall walk out of the door that for so long has seemed to you the barrier of your ideals, and shall find yourself before an audience - the pen still behind your ear, the ink-stains on you fingers - and then and there shall pour out the torrent of your inspiration. You may be driving sheep, and you shall wander to the city - bucolic and open-mouthed; shall wander under the intrepid guidance of a spirit into the studio of the master, and after a time he shall say, 'I have nothing more to teach you.' And now you have become the master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving sheep. You shall lay down the saw and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the world. — James Allen

Pocock paused and stepped back from the frame of the shell and put his hands on his hips, carefully studying the work he had so far done. He said for him the craft of building a boat was like religion. It wasn't enough to master the technical details of it. You had to give yourself up to it spiritually; you had to surrender yourself absolutely to it. When you were done and walked away from the boat, you had to feel that you had left a piece of yourself behind in it forever, a bit of your heart. He turned to Joe. "Rowing," he said, "is like that. And a lot of life is like that too, the parts that really matter anyway. Do you know what I mean, Joe? — Daniel James Brown

If the Zen master sees that it will cause a person to progress, he will ask that person to do a task. The task is charged with power if it's performed properly. It's a koan between yourself and the Zen Master. — Frederick Lenz

Jesus demands to be Master and Lord of every part of your life. Is He Lord of your mind, of what you think, read, and believe? Of what you dream about, meditate on, and entertain yourself with? Do your eyes belong to Christ? Can [you] ask God's blessing on it? Can [you] do this to the glory of God? — Billy Graham

The moment you stop seeking pleasure in worldly things and become true master of yourself, you will experience the essential reality of the Self. Then you will no longer have to seek God. God himself will come to you. This is the Divine Law. — Asaram

Human potential is the same for all. Your feeling, "I am of no value", is wrong. Absolutely wrong. You are deceiving yourself. We all have the power of thought- so what are you lacking? If you have willpower, then you can change anything. It is usually said that you are your own master. — Dalai Lama

You are only as authentic as the substance you have inside you. Having others take your examinations or doing your assignments and projects is to reduce the level of authenticity of your qualification as well as your personal brand. Master your chosen area of study to the highest level and demonstrate that you have full knowledge as a specialist. Let the depth of your knowledge make you sought after and respected. Define yourself and be authentic. — Archibald Marwizi

Egos are drawn to bigger egos. Darkness cannot recognize light. Only light can recognize light. So don't believe that the light is outside you or that it can only come through one particular form. If only your master is an incarnation of God, then who are you? Any kind of exclusivity is identification with form, and identification with form means ego, no matter how well disguised. Use the master's presence to reflect your own identity beyond name and form back to you and to become more intensely present yourself. You will soon realize that there is no "mine" or "yours" in presence. Presence is one. — Eckhart Tolle

The master was an old Turtle
we used to call him Tortoise
'
Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.
We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock Turtle angrily; 'really you are very dull!'
You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth. — Lewis Carroll

Since I'm presuming you don't mean you finally bought him a leash, let me say simply that there is a big difference between allowing an animal to ravage you and allowing yourself to be ravaged. One is common. The other is art. It is planned. Crafted, even. Only capable of being done by a master. — Richelle Mead

Ask yourself this: Who is more amateurish, more vulnerable - those who rely on machines that need to be plugged in, or logged on, or in some other way connected in order to be more than a useless slab of plastic ... or those who have learned to master life without? — Anne Fortier

Meditation does not have to be long or complicated for you to receive its benefits. If you haven't done it before, I suggest you begin by meditating for five minutes a day. A good time to engage in this practice is in the morning just after you've awakened, but you can do it at any time that works for you. Find a comfortable position where you are sitting with your spine straight. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breath. Just follow your breath in and out for five minutes. If you find that you have started to think of something other than your breath during those five minutes, gently pull yourself back to concentrating on your breath. What you are seeking is five minutes of relaxed, easy focus on your breath. In, out, in, out, in, out. Summarizing how important this centeredness practice is, the Zen master Pao-chih simply said, "If the mind is never aroused toward objects, then wherever you walk is the site of enlightenment. — Anonymous

Jamison appeared in the doorway with a cooler.
"Thank you, Alfred," Griffin said, taking the supplies. "There's a thousand dollars in the cookie jar. Go buy yourself something pretty."
"I will purchase a firearm and shoot you with it," Griffin's butler said, bowing elegantly. "Master Griffin."
He left the room ... — Tiffany Reisz

Arjuna asked Sri Krishna, "In this chaotic condition of my mind, what is my duty? I surrender myself to you, great Master. Please tell me."
The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is, "You understand nothing. You draw conclusions without proper understanding of the structure of life and your relationship to people or things in general. It is a very sorry state. How can you draw conclusions without proper premises? If you draw a conclusion based on a wrong premise, the conclusion is also wrong. Therefore, all that you have been told up to this time is without any foundation because you do not know either yourself or the world. — Swami Krishnananda

Speed. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor,
He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
O excellent device! was there ever heard a better,
That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?
Valentine. How now, sir? what are you reasoning with yourself?
Speed. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason. — William Shakespeare

Revenge! Workingmen, to Arms!!! . . . You have for years endured the most abject humiliations; . . . you have worked yourself to death . . . your Children you have sacrificed to the factory lord - in short: you have been miserable and obedient slaves all these years: Why? To satisfy the insatiable greed, to fill the coffers of your lazy thieving master? When you ask them now to lessen your burdens, he sends his bloodhounds out to shoot you, kill you! . . . To arms we call you, to arms! — Howard Zinn

You may have known for many, many years that smoking isn't good for you, but you're still smoking. You have become a master of deluding yourself. Direct experience is the only thing that can crush your delusion. If you really want to quit and be free, this is the most important step you can take in that direction. — Gudjon Bergmann

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself. — Walt Whitman

The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen. — Eugen Herrigel

But if you could read my thoughts, you would be welcome to come in
and listen to the story of my life. At least, you could slip your arm through
the bars and touch me and I will hold out my forepaw to greet you, after
retracting my claws, of course. You are carried away by appearances - my
claws and fangs and the glowing eyes frighten you no doubt. I don't blame
you. I don't know why God has chosen to give us this fierce make-up, the
same God who has created the parrot, the peacock, and the deer, which
inspire poets and painters. I would not blame you for keeping your distance
- I myself shuddered at my own reflection on the still surface of a pond
while crouching for a drink of water, not when I was really a wild beast, but
after I came under the influence of my Master and learnt to question, 'Who
am I?' Don't laugh within yourself to hear me speak thus. I'll tell you about
my Master presently. — R.K. Narayan

I have often thought, during these conferences, about the comment that Maurice Maignan, one of the first companions of Ozanam, made after a retreat: "One thought strikes me. All the means of sanctification which the preacher proposes and develops require a strong soul...I will not profit from exercises designed for strong souls. O my God, show me the exercises designed for feeble souls. Would the saints have forgotten or disdained them? Yet even if the saints did not think of these poor souls, who are nevertheless most numerous, You, Lord, my mercy, have not abandoned them. You Yourself, Good Master, have burdened Yourself with them. I know that better than anyone. I am one of those souls, and I bless You for having revealed to the weak and the little ones what You do not always accord to the valiant and the strong. — Jean C.J. D'Elbee

The only master that exists, the only one that's true and believable is your own conscience. To find it you have to stand in silence-alone and in silence-you have to stand on the naked earth, naked yourself and with nothing around you, as if you were already dead. You don't hear anything at first; the only thing you feel is terror, but then you begin to hear a voice, away in the background, far off; it's a calm voice, and maybe its banality gets on your nerves to begin with. — Susanna Tamaro

I think you can find yourself in life perhaps not really being the master of your own life and it is within your own will and tenacity whether you switch the roles or not. — Mark Lanegan

In your training, do not be in a hurry, for it takes a minimum of ten years to master the basics and advance to the first rung. Never think of yourself as an all-knowing, perfected master; you must continue to train daily with your friends and students and progress together in the Art of Peace. — Morihei Ueshiba

Learn to master yourself-to understand both your fears and your desires. That's the key to magic. Then, no one shall have any hold over you. Remember ... the magic (sic) ... is a living thing, joined to whomever it touches and changed by them as well ... You must come to know everything-even your darkest corners. Especially those ... Everything has its price. — Libba Bray

Some 2,600 years ago the ancient Greek poet Pindar wrote, "Become who you are by learning who you are." What he meant is the following: You are born with a particular makeup and tendencies that mark you as a piece of fate. It is who you are to the core. Some people never become who they are; they stop trusting in themselves; they conform to the tastes of others, and they end up wearing a mask that hides their true nature. If you allow yourself to learn who you really are by paying attention to that voice and force within you, then you can become what you were fated to become - an individual, a Master. — Robert Greene

Jesus Christ was the Master Realist when He urged men to prepare for death, which was certain to come. Do not worry, said the Lord Jesus, about the death of the body, but rather concern yourself with the eternal death of the soul. — Billy Graham

Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject. — George Washington

I know that a lot of our successes came because we had pure intentions and great talent, and we did a lot of things right, but I also believe that attributing our successes solely to our own intelligence, without acknowledging the role of accidental events, diminishes us. We must acknowledge the random events that went our way, because acknowledging our good fortune - and not telling ourselves that everything we did was some stroke of genius - lets us make more realistic assessments and decisions. The existence of luck also reminds us that our activities are less repeatable. Since change is inevitable, the question is: Do you act to stop it and try to protect yourself from it, or do you become the master of change by accepting it and being open to it? My view, of course, is that working with change is what creativity is about. — Ed Catmull

Be first the master of yourself — Baltasar Gracian

Light, show yourself pure and strong,
Save a man from evil's throng,
Take a form, small and white,
Give this girl the strength to fight. — Clara Diane Thompson

When you believe yourself to be master of your thoughts, you become so. — Emile Coue

It's easy to listen to what you are taught. But it's difficult to find what you have within yourself and master it as yor own. — Gogen Yamaguchi

I must ask myself, "Billy Graham, are you prepared to meet the Master at any moment?" Yes, I am - but not because I have preached or tried to help people, but solely because I am trusting Christ as my Lord and Savior. Stop right now and ask yourself that question. — Billy Graham

That's the master bedchamber, remember? You've been there collecting my underwear."
"That's right. You're the swine who sent me on a fool's errand when you could have gone yourself." She observed his expression. "You did go yourself!"
"I saw you there," he admitted.
"Did I call you a swine?"
Remembering the drama with which she sneaked into Summerwind Abbey, she didn't know whether to laugh or shout. "Louse, rather!"
"Yes, but you must forgive me. Being a louse is my nature. — Christina Dodd

If you learn how to master yourself, you stand a good chance of learning how to master your job. — Auliq Ice

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause by yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others - playing people against one another, making them pursue you. — Robert Greene

Who are you, Master?' he asked.
'Eh, what?' said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. 'Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? — J.R.R. Tolkien

This is called My Youth in Vienna. It's a very nice edition
an association copy, Schnitzler to his Latin master, one Johann Auer, 'with thanks for the Auerisms.' [ ... ] Here he apologizes for writing so much on 'the so-called Jewish question.' But he says that no Jew, no matter how assimilated, was allowed to forget the fact of his birth. [ ... ] 'Even if you managed to conduct yourself so that nothing showed, it was impossible to remain completely untouched; as for instance a person may not remain unconcerned whose skin has been anesthetized but who has to watch, with his eyes open, how it is scratched by an unclean knife, even cut until the blood flows.' [ ... ] He wrote that in the early 1900s. The imagery is very chilling, is it not, in the light of what followed ... — Geraldine Brooks

Always ask yourself the golden question: If I could master one skill today, which skill would make the biggest difference in my playing? — David Dumais

She flapped her hands, anxious energy coursing through her. "How can you be so calm?"
He got to his feet, unfolding with an easy grace. He held out a hand, his dark eyes focused solemnly on hers. "Come with me."
"For what?"
"That's part of the lesson." Was it her imagination, or did a twinkle of humor stir in those eyes? "Center yourself, and grab onto the here and now."
That made no sense - what was he now, Sir Medieval Zen Master? But she slipped her hand into his strong, calloused one. He hauled her up until she bumped into his chest. With a finger under her chin, he tilted her face until she looked in his eyes.
"Listen to the world around you. Hear the birds? Hear the small animals scurrying? You are in this moment, this moment only, and sometimes that's all you can do, all you can be." His finger pulled away, brushing against her skin, and he tapped her nose, stepping away. — Angela Quarles

Either you're lying again or you're as stupid as you look. You ditch me first year for him when you were a girl. You ditch me second year for him when you were a boy. You lie and cheat and steal for him while he treats you like crap, and I help you and care for you and worship you like a queen while you treat me like crap! What does that guy have that I don't? What makes him so lovable and me so unworthy? Know how many times I've asked myself that question, Sophie? How many times I've studied him like a book or sat in the dark picturing every last shred of him, trying to understand why he's more of a person than me? Or why the moment he's gone, you take a ring from the School Master - or Raphael or Michelangelo or Donatello or whatever you want to call him to make yourself feel better - just because he looks like you want him to look and says what you want to hear? When you could have had someone who's honest and kind and real? — Soman Chainani

There is only one problem: You do not trust your powers. There is no difference between you and God. Count your blessings. Be proud of yourself. Make your children, friends and neighbors proud of you. Let your touch be the Master's Touch. Serve the Age of Aquarius. Keep up and God will keep you up. Trust it. Stop looking down at yourself. Feel God within. There is no God outside of you. — Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Contrary to popular wisdom, you cannot hide from evil in the practice of evil. You can no more master the horrors of the world by immersing yourself in them then one can master an earthquake by standing in front of a collapsing building every Tuesday to see where one gets hit, or if, and when, or how badly. Trauma is not tenderized one itty bit by inviting the host in repeatedly. — John Thomas Allen

It is possible I am pushing through solid rock, like the vein of ore encased, alone. I am such a long way in I can see no way through and no space. Everything is close to my face and everything close to my face is stone. I don't have much knowledge yet in grief, so this darkness makes me feel small. You, be the Master; Make yourself fierce; break in. And then your great transforming will happen to me And my great grief cry will happen to you. — Rainer Maria Rilke

And who, pray, is to choose the master?" "Nobody. He's the ineluctable product of circumstances." "That's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?" "He rises to the top because he has the instinct to lead. He has the will to power. He has audacity and enthusiasm, ability, industry and energy. He fears nothing because to him danger is the salt of life." "No one could say that you hadn't a good conceit of yourself, Simon," smiled Charley. — W. Somerset Maugham

Uh-huh. I think she was flattered. It'll help fill her bucket." "Huh?" "You know - the bucket ... " "What are you talking about?" "Well, the elementary school teachers talk about the bucket a lot. Everyone has one. When people say nice things to you, do nice things, make you feel better about yourself, they're filling your bucket. When people are mean or insulting or hurtful in any way, they're emptying your bucket and you don't want to go around with an empty bucket. It makes you sad and cranky. And you don't want to be emptying other peoples' buckets - that also makes you unhappy. The best way is to fill all the buckets you can and keep yours nice and full by looking for positive people and experiences." She smiled. Troy leaned his elbow on the bar and rested his head in his hand. "What do I have to do to get a job with you?" "Master's degree in counseling." She took a sip. "Easy peasy. You'd be great. — Robyn Carr

I have an argument that to master any field, it's simple: it's a function of time. How much you devote yourself to the process, how much experience you get, how much you're willing to expand your limits, how willing you are to develop your own style. If you're willing to put 10,000 hours, something amazing is going to happen. — Robert Greene

Don't misunderstand. There is no abandoning, or being abandoning. And you're not owned by your parents, either. You should understand ... that you have no other master besides yourself. No one was forcing you to wait for a slow death ... in such a lonely place. — Minari Endou

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I'll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master ... it's when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems. — Charles Bukowski

I suddenly asked my master Caeiro, "Are you at peace with yourself?" and he answered, "No, I'm at peace." It was like the voice of the earth, which is everything and no one. — Alvaro De Campos

If you can't master yourself, someone else will. — Travis Luedke

Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding," Joseph exclaimed. "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"
The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun. — Hermann Hesse

Don't let yourself be regimented by dogma, by uniforms, by doctrines, don't let yourselves be fooled by those who command you, by those who promise, who frighten, by those who want to replace one master with another, don't be flock of sheep, for heaven's sake, don't hide under the umbrella of other people's guilt, think with your own brains, remember that each of you is somebody, a valuable individual, a responsible, his own maker, defend your being, the kernel of all freedom, freedom is a duty, a duty even more than right — Oriana Fallaci

To guard yourself against thieves who slash open suitcases, rifle through bags and smash open boxes, one should strap the bags and lock them. The world at large knows that this shows wisdom. However, when a master thief comes, he simply picks up the suitcase, lifts the bag, carries off the box and runs away with them, his only concern being whether the straps and locks will hold! In such an instance, what seemed like wisdom on the part of the owner surely turns out to have been of use only to the master thief! — Zhuangzi

It was an instant-fix afternoon quickie, and the Architect was a master of the kind. After I locked my front door after him, still radiant from recent orgasmic thrill, I had it all figured out: love yourself. Take care of yourself. Nurture yourself. Have your needs met; and everything will fit in its space. Eventually, if not earlier.
Yet, there was one thing I was unable to grasp:
How come men can do the nasty with their shoes on (how do they take their pants off?), yet they never fail to take off their handwatches? — Gina Wings

Will you have the stamina and inspiration necessary to dream up bigger, better, more original sins and wilder, wetter, more interesting problems? Do you realize how demanding it will be to turn yourself into a wildly disciplined, radically curious, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, ingeniously loving, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lustfully compassionate master of rowdy bliss? — Rob Brezsny

So. How to "Resist Not Evil" Meditation - Sit every day and find the silence inside yourself. In this silence, there is peace without anger. There is no evil, no attachment to revenge or righteous indignation. With practice, you learn to identify yourself with this place. It becomes natural to master anger, an energy like any other. When this happens, evil begins to release you from its hold. Contemplation - The mind plays a large — Deepak Chopra

Do you stick with the position you've mastered? Or do you push yourself to master the position that seems out of reach? Do you listen to what everyone else thinks is best for you? Or do you listen to your own voice? Do you settle? Or do you dream? — Reggie Love

I believe that the road to pre-eminent success in any line of work is to make yourself master of that line of work. — Andrew Carnegie

Maintain perfect harmony between yourself and every member of your mastermind group. If you fail to carry out this instruction to the letter, you may expect to meet with failure. The master mind principle cannot obtain where perfect harmony does not prevail. — Napoleon Hill

Lying is an art, if you can convince yourself with lie, then you are a master. — Nikhil Yadav

Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if you observe, the left hand for want of practice is insignificant, and not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than the right, from constant use. — Pliny The Elder

When you oppose the shaykh, it's like the slave who kills himself over a quarrel with his master. Hey, why are you killing yourself over a quarrel?He says, So my master will suffer loss. — Shams Tabrizi

There is really only one Zen Master ... and that's yourself. — Frederick Lenz

you cannot be friends either with boy or man unless you give yourself away in the process, and Mr. Pembroke did not commend this. He, for "personal intercourse," substituted the safer "personal influence," and gave his junior hints on the setting of kindly traps, in which the boy does give himself away and reveals his shy delicate thoughts, while the master, intact, commends or corrects them.
Originally Rickie had meant to help boys in the anxieties that they undergo when changing into men: at Cambridge he had numbered this among life's duties. But here is a subject in which we must
inevitably speak as one human being to another, not as one who has authority or the shadow of authority, and for this reason the elder school-master could suggest nothing but a few formulae. Formulae, like kindly traps, were not in Rickie's line, so he abandoned these
subjects altogether and confined himself to working hard at what was easy. — E. M. Forster

Become a master of your intellect as a charioteer masters his horses and you will realize it is not about the war, it is not about fighting or not fighting, it is not about winning or losing, but it is about taking decisions and discovering the truth about yourself. When you do this, there will be no fear, there will be no ego; you will be at peace, even in the midst of what the deluded call war. — Devdutt Pattanaik

Here's the rub. Leadership can be learned; however, not everyone wants to learn it, and not all those who learn about leadership master it. Why? Because becoming the very best requires a strong belief that you can learn and grow, an intense aspiration to excel, the determination to challenge yourself constantly, the recognition that you must engage the support of others, and the devotion to practice deliberately. Moreover, the best leaders realize that no matter how good they might be, they always can be even better, and are open to learning how to do so.4 — James M. Kouzes

Make yourself a master of perspective, then acquire perfect knowledge of the proportions of men and other animals. — Leonardo Da Vinci

If you are not willing to take the shame on yourself, you then let it remain on Jesus Christ. You must bear the reproach of your sinful state of indifference, or the cause of our Master must bear it. — Mordecai

Your head is pounding with voices of confession and revelation. You followed the rails of white powder across the mirror in pursuit of a point of convergence where everything was cross-referenced according to a master code. For a second, you felt terrific. You were coming to grips. Then the coke ran out; as you hoovered the last line, you saw yourself hideously close-up with a rolled twenty sticking out of your nose. The goal is receding. Whatever it was. You can't get everything straight in one night. — Jay McInerney

Have a care, Sir Tucker, lest you find yourself in the stockades."
He scoffs and looks at Mr. Erikson. "She can't do that, can she? She's not the ruler of this class. Brady is."
...
"You could strip him of his title," suggests Brady, apparently not minding at all that I have usurped his throne. "Make him a serf."
"Yeah," says Christian. "Make him a serf. Being a serf blows."
As a serf, poor Christian has already been killed several times in our class. Aside from dying of the Black Plague on the first day, he's starved to death, had his hands cut off for stealing a loaf of bread, and been run down by his master's horse just for kicks. He's like Christian the fifth now. — Cynthia Hand

The important thing is to be honest with yourself. And to have the will and determination. My emotions are not me, but mine. My memories are not me, they're mine. I am the master of my emotions and my memories. So now, all you have to do is make up your mind firmly to leave those things behind without attachment or regret, and go through with it. — Ilchi Lee

I believe the road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master IN THAT LINE. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one's resources. Andrew Carnegie — H.W. Brands