Peak Experience Quotes & Sayings

The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you're present in the current moment; when you're resonating with the excitement of this thing that you're experiencing; when you are fully alive. — Ken Robinson

I predict we will abolish suffering throughout the living world. Our descendants will be animated by gradients of genetically pre-programmed well-being that are orders of magnitude richer than today's peak experiences. — David Pearce

The end of his life, he was asked what stuck in his mind about his experiences in South America and on the Beagle. And he remembered climbing to the peak of the Andes in Peru or Chile - I can't remember - and then turning as he reached the peak and looking behind him. And he said, it was like the Hallelujah Chorus in the Messiah, playing with full orchestra, blaring in his head, because he was on top of the world. He was looking down almost like God upon this creation, which he had begun to sort out in his own mind as he'd been climbing, as it were. At the end of his life he was asked, "What's the most extraordinary experience you had?" And he remembered climbing to the peak of the Andes. And then he slept on it, and the next day he came back to the person and he said, "No, it was the rain forest. It was sitting there and feeling that there must be more to man than the breath in his body. — Krista Tippett

She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - — Dan Simmons

I want my people to laugh like a lion's roar. Then even laughter becomes a tremendous experience, because it is intelligence at its peak. — Rajneesh

I rooted for the Milwaukee Brewers and its stars, Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. I went to a lot of games, including the World Series in 1982. The Brewers may have been a bad team for most of my life, but to have your team at its peak when you are thirteen years old is an experience I wish for every fan. — David Einhorn

Stepping out of one's world or out of one's habitual self is a transcendental experience. [ ... ] If we seek transcendence, we may have many visions, but we will surely end where we started. If we opt for growth, we may have our moments of transcendence, but they will be peak experiences along the steady road to a richer and more secure self. (32-33) — Alexander Lowen

The effects of mescalin or LSD can be, in some respects, far more satisfying than those of alcohol. To begin with, they last longer; they also leave behind no hangover, and leave the mental faculties clear and unimpaired. They stimulate the faculties and produce the ideal ground for a peak experience. — Colin Wilson

Men need to know the elemental challenges that sea and mountains present. They need to know what it is to be alive and to survive when great storms come. They need to unlock the secrets of streams, lakes, and canyons and to find how these treasures are veritable storehouses of inspiration. They must experience the sense of mastery of adversity. They must find a peak or a ridge that they can reach under their own power alone. — William O. Douglas

Influences come from everywhere but when you are actually shooting you work primarily by instinct. But what is instinct? It is a lifetime accumulation of influence: experience, knowledge, seeing and hearing. There is little time for reflection in taking a photograph. All your experiences come to a peak and you work on two levels: conscious and unconscious. — Arnold Newman

Even after a peak parenting experience, children never transition to a fully self-tuning physiology. Adults remain social animals: they continue to require a source of stabilization outside themselves. That open-loop design means that in some important ways, people cannot be stable on their own - not should or shouldn't be, but can't be. This prospect is disconcerting to many, especially in a society that prizes individuality as ours does. Total self-sufficiency turns out to be a daydream whose bubble is burst by the sharp edge of the limbic brain. Stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them. (86) — Thomas Lewis

As one of the first employees at a small cellular phone start-up called Nextel, I gained firsthand experience in how a business grows from an idea to a company that, at its peak, employed many thousands. — Jack Markell

Ultimately, I want a peak experience in reading, and that is sometimes difficult to find in contemporary fiction. I'm not interested in books that are just clever and well executed; polish doesn't impress me, and I don't care about a merely capable sentence. Life is short; I want a confrontation with high art. I want soul. Great literature rattles the mind and makes the body sing. It's an unmistakable, electric feeling, and too rare. That is what I want. — C.E. Morgan

Every moment of your experience is the peak of life experience. This is where your powerful now is. — Esther Hicks

Attaining lasting happiness requires that we enjoy the journey on our way toward a destination we deem valuable. Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak. — Tal Ben-Shahar

Sarai had treasured every stage of Rachel's childhood, enjoying the day-to-day normalcy of things; a normalcy which she quietly accepted as the best of life. She had always felt that the essence of human experience lay not primarily in the peak experiences, the wedding days and triumphs which stood out in the memory like dates circled in red on old calendars, but, rather, in the unself-conscious flow of little things - the weekend afternoon with each member of the family engaged in his or her own pursuit, their crossings and connections casual, dialogues imminently forgettable, but the sum of such hours creating a synergy which was important and eternal. — Dan Simmons

People want to be bowled over by something special. Nine times out of ten you might strike out, but that tenth time, that peak experience, is what people want. That's what can move the world. That's art. — Haruki Murakami

What was considered a peak mystical experience a few years ago is today the basic platform of sanity from which our exploration begins. — Arjuna Ardagh

Frankly, seeing my plays with an audience is something I do with gritted teeth; I find the experience very difficult. I love the moment when you have just the dress rehearsal, when no one's there; that's kind of the peak to me. When people start filing in, I like to file out. — Richard Greenberg

Sport is singularly able to give us peak experience where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential. — George A. Sheehan

A novel is something that stands at the end of a lengthy process called writing. It is not a preexisting Platonic form embedded within the writer... I do not have a Boston marathon inside me waiting to get out. The marathon is a peak experience I am rightly entitled to only as the culmination of years of regular training and love of running. — Victoria Nelson

She seemed to have encompassed time. She postulated the elapsed years during which no honeymoon nor any change had taken place, out of which the (now) five faces looked with a sort of lifeless and perennial bloom like painted portraits hung in a vacuum, each taken at its forewarned peak and smoothed of all thought and experience, the originals of which had lived and died so long ago that their joys and griefs must now be forgotten even by the very boards on which they had strutted and postured and laughed and wept. — William Faulkner

Reality is all-encompassing: the absolute nature is one. Although we may feel separate from the original uncreated reality - whether we call it 'God,' 'peak experience,' or 'enlightened mind' - through awareness we can contact this essential part of ourselves. — Tarthang Tulku

It was Wallachia---her land, her mother---greeting her. This was how church was supposed to feel. She had never experienced the divine spirit within a church's walls, but on this peak, in this countryside, she felt peace and purpose and belonging. This was the glory of God. This was Wallachia, This was hers. — Kiersten White

The methods and technologies of how to experience that which is beyond the physical is what is known as the science of yoga is a longing. Only when your longing is cranked up to peak intensity, knowing becomes a possibility. — Jaggi Vasudev

Mrs. Convoy leaned into the desk, flattening her knuckles on it like a linebacker bracing against the hard earth, and with eyeballs floating above her bifocals asked why I felt it necessary to sit in my own waiting room during peak hours. I told her, she said, "And how is the 'complete experience'?" I told her, she said, "And do you think the 'complete experience' might be enhanced by a dentist who tends to his patients in a timely manner?" I told her, she said, "We will not get a reputation for being a drill-and-bill shop just because you tend to patients in a timely manner. Jesus Mary and Joseph," she said. "Sometimes I think we all work for Toots the Clown. — Joshua Ferris

She knew the intensity of adolescence, and knew no cure for it except growing up. And then one has age and experience, and mourns the loss of intensity. Maybe it's why musicians and mathmaticians are said to peak young-poetry needs the fire of an unbounded universe. — Sara Paretsky

It's strange, isn't it, how you never know you're living the best time of your life at the moment you're living it? If you could appreciate, at that instant, that this is it, maybe you'd make certain your mind imprinted every detail of the sights, smells, sounds and sensations.
Then again, maybe knowing that life will only get duller, sadder, less hopeful afterward would inject melancholy into that moment. You'd miss life's peak experience by mourning it before it passes.
So perhaps it's best not to know. — Anita Bartholomew

In life, every experience of a peak always follows the experience of a valley and we go back and forth between them. [ ... ] Until you understand that both the peaks and the valleys are inevitable and will eventually pass, and you disidentify from both sides, you will miss seeing your unmoving center, which is untouched by your thoughts, feelings or experiences. — Mada Eliza Dalian

Sometimes when you've reached a peak experience, you look for other peak experiences ... I'd always been interested in art. I was looking for other experiences outside of sports. Art was a form of expression I had always liked a great deal. — Bob Beamon

In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to flow as the time when you become lost in your actions, whether climbing a mountain peak, painting or playing soccer. — Beth Whitman

To live only for some unknown future is superficial. It is like climbing a mountain to reach the peak without experiencing its sides. The sides of the mountain sustain life, not the peak. This is where things grow, experience is gained, and technologies are mastered. The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides. So I went on towards the top, but always experiencing the sides. I had a long way to go but I was in no hurry. I went in little steps - just one step after another - but each step towards the top. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

We'll always be disappointed if we believe that we can plan for a peak experience and make it happen. True joy can't be anticipated or planned. It just strikes. — Harriet Lerner

The emotional reaction in the peak experience has a special flavor of wonder, of awe, of reverence, of humility and surrender before the experience as before something great. — Abraham Maslow

During a peak experience," Maslow explained, "the individual experiences an expansion of self, a sense of unity, and meaningfulness in life. The experience lingers in one's consciousness and gives a sense of purpose, integration, self-determination and empathy. — Steven Kotler

C. S. Lewis wrote that "sooner or later [God] withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs. . . It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be." This is because "He wants servants who can finally become sons [and daughters]."22 That may simply be, unavoidably, a wrenching process of spiritual abandonment such as Eve and Adam felt in their expulsion from God's presence, or we all must have felt upon leaving of our premortal estate. Perhaps this feeling of desolation was entailed in Joseph's remark that in our quest for understanding, we "must search into and contemplate the darkest abyss."23 Perhaps many of us will never find God by calling out His name at the entrance to the cave; we must enter its depths. — Terryl L. Givens

Everyone who experiences a spontaneous peak experience tries to recapture the bliss, but most are disappointed. They search for fulfillment in the next job, a new relationship, more money, a coveted car, accolades, and accomplishments. — Deepak Chopra

Once we are bound together to our brothers by a common good that is outside us, then we can breathe. Experience teaches us that love is not to gaze at one another but to gaze in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through unity on the same rope, climbing towards the same peak. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The idea is that people remember two things about an experience: the peak, and the end. In a poker game, when people think about another player they'll mostly remember any really good hands that the player got, and how he was doing at the end of the game. You took care to win only on believable hands and to leave on a losing streak - you completely blanked their peak-end retention. — Anonymous

Almost all of the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it; they feel it; they experience it before hey actually do it. They begin with the end in mind. — Stephen Covey

As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs. — Charles Francis Richter