Transform Ourselves Quotes & Sayings

The ultimate reason for meditating is to transform ourselves in order to be better able to transform the world. — Matthieu Ricard

While many of us admire nice things, materialism and suffering may share a connection. When we place a great deal of our happiness in material things, we run the great risk of losing our happiness when our material things become lost, old, or damaged. Toys break. Cars get dents. Clothes get ripped. Jewels get lost or stolen. Riches come and go.
If we collect moments rather than things, these are ours to keep. If we redefine wealth by the amount of love and kindness we afford ourselves to give to others, we can transform our lives. — Ann Brasco

If we habitually focus on how to improve things that are already great, can you see how this spirit can transform ourselves, our organizations, families and communities? — Tony Robbins

The quick ticket to ecstasy is to catch yourself feeling in a very low state of mind
depressed, stupid, hateful
and to love yourself for feeling that way. When you do that you can experience a rocket ride right to the top. Love does not take time; it's possible to transform depression into ecstasy in a flash. But please do not accept my word for it. Try it as an experiment next time you are feeling low.
Something else to consider is that we will always be in the process of remembering how to love ourselves, then forgetting, then remembering again. It does not seem to be our destiny to be any one way all the time. So let's get used to being pendulums and enjoy the ride. — Gay Hendricks

Our adaptation to the natural forces
is a question of existence or non-existence.
We cannot transform the universe or nature so that they
adapt themselves to us; on the contrary, we must adapt ourselves
to nature and her laws. — Edmond Bordeaux Szekely

My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity. — Wayne Dyer

It is a shame that we so quickly lose that ability to believe in things; it limits the opportunities we have to transform ourselves, to save ourselves, for it puts the awful burden of transforming and saving ourselves on ourselves. Once you stop believing, you cannot pray, or make sacrifices or pilgrimages, or light candles. You are stuck with yourself, in a world without miracles. — Peter Cameron

What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new. It offers food without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed-up and pious, and then commands everyone to do the same. It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, — Sara Miles

The Stoics believed in social reform, but they also believed in personal transformation. More precisely, they thought the first step in transforming a society into one in which people live a good life is to teach people how to make their happiness depend as little as possible on their external circumstances. The second step in transforming a society is to change people's external circumstances. The Stoics would add that if we fail to transform ourselves, then no matter how much we transform the society in which we live, we are unlikely to have a good life. — William B. Irvine

Our environment, including the physical body, reflect our inner state - what we are inwardly, our eternal nature. When we renew our mind and transform ourselves, our environment responds to this change automatically. — Thomas Vazhakunnathu

It is our task-our essential, central, crucial task-to transform ourselves from mere social creatures into community creatures. — M. Scott Peck

Once you develop confidence in your own ability, you'll be able to make a real contribution to creating a better world. Self-confidence is very important. Not in the sense of blind pride, but as a realistic awareness of what you can do. As human beings we can transform ourselves by our good qualities and reducing our faults. Our intelligence enables us to judge what is good from what is harmful. — Dalai Lama

The fate which oppresses us is the inertia of our spirit. Through extending and cultivating our activity we shall transform ourselves into fate.
Everything seems to stream inward into us, because we do not stream outward. We are negative because we want to be - the more positive we become, the more negative will the world around us become - until at last there will be no more negation - but instead we are all in all.
God wants there to be gods. — Novalis

Our task in ourselves and in others is to transform right answers into automatic responses to real-life situations. — Dallas Willard

All of that has been a brutal lesson to me in not overlooking or misunderstanding what is actually there, in your hands, now. We always think the thing we need to transform everything
the miracle
is elsewhere, but often it is right next to us. Sometimes it is us, ourselves. — Jeanette Winterson

The source of our actions resides in an unconscious propensity to regard ourselves as the center, the cause, and the conclusion of time. Our reflexes and our pride transform into a planet the parcel of flesh and consciousness we are. — Emile M. Cioran

The goal of the human experience is to transform ourselves from being who long to attain power in the physical world to beings who are empowered from within. — Caroline Myss

All religion teaches the virtues of love, altruism and patience, while showing us how to discipline and transform ourselves to achieve inner peace and a kind heart. Therefore, they are worthy of our respect. — Dalai Lama

So we have to be ready, willing, and able to really transform ourselves, and each other in the world, not just say it and affirm it, "Oh, I want to change". Intention is important, but so is action. — Surya Das

Darkness is the only path to light. It is not our wonderful gifts that make us closer to God: it's using our garbage to transform ourselves. This is the key that unlocks the door that opens to God. — Yehuda Berg

Race is the great taboo in our society. We are afraid to talk about it. White folks fear their unspoken views will be deemed racist. People of color are filled with sorrow and rage at unrighted wrongs. Drowning in silence, we are brothers and sisters drowning each other. Once we decide to transform ourselves from fearful caterpillars into courageous butterflies, we will be able to bridge the racial gulf and move forward together towards a bright and colorful future. — Eva Paterson

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation - just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer - we are challenged to change ourselves. Let — Viktor E. Frankl

We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. — J.K. Rowling

I've always loved butterflies, because they remind us that it's never too late to transform ourselves. — Drew Barrymore

What it comes to is that if we - who can scarcely be considered a white nation - persist in thinking of ourselves as one, we condemn ourselves, with the truly white nations, to sterility and decay. Whereas if we could accept ourselves as we are, we might bring new life to the Western achievements and transform them. The price of this transformation the unconditional freedom of the Negro. It is not too much to say that he - who has been so long rejected - must now be embraced and at no matter what psychic or social risk. He is the key figure in his country, and the American future is precisely as bright or as dark as his. — James Baldwin

Spirituality is about being able to see what's wrong with ourselves, accepting the idea that we can change, and then showing a willingness to actually transform ourselves. — Karen Berg

When the feminine and our vitality become lost to power drives and life becomes a wasteland, the stage is set for the mythic world to give rise to a hero to transform and revitalize the situation. They mythic hero is a metaphor for our struggle to transform our consciousness and bring new life to ourselves. — Massimilla Harris

To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others to transform themselves or to bring about a modified change through revolution, either of the left or of the right. It is important to understand that this is our responsibility, yours and mine ... — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Sometimes it seems that light can transform anything! That it is an undeniable and irreducible metaphor for grace. But do the people of the ranchitos know this? Is it for beauty that they do it? Or do they merely want a comfortable illumination in their little shacks?
It doesn't matter.
We can't stop ourselves from making beauty. We can't stop the world. — Anne Rice

We accept responsibility for ourselves when we acknowledge that ultimately there are no answers outside of ourselves, and no gurus, no teachers, and no philisophies that can solve the problems of our lives. They can only suggest, guide, and inspire. It is our dedication to living with open hearts and our commitment to the day-to-day details of our lives that will transform us. — Judith Hanson Lasater

The reason that marriage is so painful and yet wonderful is because it is a reflection of the gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. This is the only kind of relationship that will really transform us. — Timothy Keller

In any relationship I believe love should flow naturally . We cannot control it, make other person guilty or punish it to happen.
Love need patience , acceptance and trust. For love to come we make a hard and fast rule on from where, who and we chase it.
Love flow naturally.
When you feel scarcity of love , you need to be patience , big hearted, whole. Remain in your own love zone do not push, control because love is natural. You cannot ask or demand for it.
We might not get the people who we want us to love but there are people who will step in and they can see the light or flow of our love as it is.
We do not need to transform anyone, we need to know our love towards ourselves and how it flows in others.
When resistance is not there, when openness comes in a relationship . We bend, we are flexible and we trust our loving nature . We become less depended on what other is giving us. We do get fair love and acceptance too. — Archna Mohan

Is not our body in itself nothing but a common central effect of our senses - if we have mastery over our senses - if we are able to transform them into activity at will - to center them at a common point, then it only depends on us - to give ourselves the body we want.
Indeed, in our senses are nothing other than modifications of the mental organ - of the absolute element - then with mastery over this element we shall also be able to modify and direct our senses as we please. — Novalis

It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, the despised or frightening or unintelligible other, we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: God's. — Sara Miles

It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more.
This more, it proposes,will make us in some way richer - even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.
Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable. The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour. (P. 125) — John Berger

If we want to change existing conditions, we must first transform ourselves, which means that we must become aware of our own actions, thoughts and feelings in everyday life. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

The truth is, however, that God does not intend for us to forget our past because it has the potential to make us stronger, more purpose-filled people. God can redeem those experiences and use them to transform us into a more accurate image of his Son. The key is that we must let him into those places so that we can see him - and ourselves - more clearly. — Kasey Van Norman

Foretold by ancient seers and now by scientists, we are at the unprecedented historic and evolutionary crossroad. We have the capacity to transform ourselves spiritually and our civilisation materially or de-evolve into an Orwellian nightmare — Jonathan R. Banks

The healing of ourselves is the healing of the whole nation. Society is only a manifestation of our collective consciousness and our collective consciousness has a lot of fear, violence and hatred in it ... It is possible to transform our heart ... Not much time is needed ... (the transformation can be born) the moment you vow to go in the direction of peace and service. — Nhat Hanh

We can transform reality to the extent that we influence what happens in consciousness and thus free ourselves from the threats and blandishments of the outside world. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Opening to the sacred, we transform our vision of ourselves. — Stephanie Dowrick

We're all assigned a piece of the garden, a corner of the universe that is ours to transform. Our corner of the universe is our own life - our relationships, our homes, our work, our current circumstances -. exactly as they are. Every situation we find ourselves in is an opportunity, perfectly planned by the Holy Spirit, to teach love instead of fear. — Marianne Williamson

To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy. — Orhan Pamuk

Death is the defined destination at the end of our life where we transform and transcend ourselves for eternal life. — Debasish Mridha

We need to transform
the current scientific worldview
into a modern metaphysical
worldview in order to survive
the exponential disruptive technologies
we are about to
unleash upon ourselves — Jonathan R. Banks

If people are given the opportunity to really make a difference in their own lives, their own communities, their own businesses and their own governments, then we can really transform the prospects of life on this planet. We can find ourselves living in a world that is more like the world that I think most of us want to be living in. — Alex Steffen

If we could learn to trust and rest and be instead of always striving to do, we would find ourselves face to face with some of life's most perplexing paradoxes. First, that transformation comes only when we stop trying to transform ourselves. Second, that love can flow out of us only after we've allowed it to flow freely into us. And third, that you can't catch God by chasing him; you catch him only by accepting his pursuit of you. — Tim King

For the first time I was beginning to discern a God whom I actually wanted to live for. I was beginning to discover the motivation of Paul when he proclaimed, "Christ's love compels us" (2 Cor. 5: 14). All my life I'd tried to be good to avoid hell, or the ugly-stick flogging, or my stepmother's beatings with a two-by-four. But while most people would undoubtedly be better at behaving well with these frightful motivations than I ever was, no one could ever be transformed by these sorts of motivations. Threatening motivations address behavior, but they can never transform our identity. They motivate people to change as a means of protecting themselves, but for this reason they can never move us beyond ourselves to become someone fundamentally different from who we currently are. And threatening motivations can certainly never transform us into people with an other-oriented, self-sacrificial, loving character. Only a motivation that is anchored in love can do this. — Gregory A. Boyd

Evil is real - and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away, not fled. And God is against evil all the way. So each of us has to decide where WE stand, how we're going to live OUR lives. We can try to persuade ourselves that evil doesn't exist; live for ourselves and wink at evil. We can say that it isn't so bad after all, maybe even try to call it fun by clothing it in silks and velvets. We can compromise with it, keep quiet about it and say it's none of our business. Or we can work on God's side, listen for His orders on strategy against the evil, no matter how horrible it is, and know that He can transform it. — Catherine Marshall

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

This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history. — Christiana Figueres

We all carry within us places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others. — Albert Camus

Someone must transform income into the food, shelter, clothing, nurture, discipline, education, minding, nursing, transportation, and emotional support that creates life outside of the office, permits survival of the race, cares for the ill and disabled, and makes life livable when we can no longer care for ourselves. — Anne-Marie Slaughter

If we face our unpleasant feelings with care, affection, and nonviolence, we can transform them into a kind of energy that is healthy and has the capacity to nourish us. By the work of mindful observation, our unpleasant feelings can illuminate so much for us, offering us insight and understanding into ourselves and society. — Nhat Hanh

Mercy is God's loving response to sinners; and mercy is our loving response to others - and to ourselves - in circumstances of need. To this I would add that mercy, as an experience of love, has an unexpected quality - something unforeseen or unanticipated. We talk about mercy when we feel or offer forgiveness, when we find or give help and assistance, but we also speak about "mercy" when we are surprised by good deeds that catch us unawares and transform our lives for the better. — Mathew N. Schmalz

I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me. — Jhumpa Lahiri

If we think we monopolize the truth and we still organize a dialogue, it is not authentic. We have to believe that by engaging in dialogue with the other person, we have the possibility of making a change within ourselves, that we can become deeper. Dialogue is not a means for assimilation in the sense that one side expands and incorporates the other into its "self." Dialogue must be practiced on the basis of "non-self." We have to allow what is good, beautiful, and meaningful in the other's tradition to transform us. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Our poisoned hearts must be cured. And the most difficult battle to be won against the enemy in the future must be fought within ourselves, with an exceptional effort that will transform our appetite for hatred into a desire for justice. — Albert Camus

With mindfulness - the practice of peace - we can begin by working to transform the wars in ourselves. Conscious breathing helps us do this. — Nhat Hanh

As we transform ourselves into creatures of the screen, we face an existential question: Does our essence still lie in what we know, or are we now content to be defined by what we want? If we don't grapple with that question ourselves, our gadgets will be happy to answer it for us. — Deborah Blum

When we trust ourselves, ascents become descents, difficulties turn into easinesses, rocks transform into sands and swords into melting candles!.. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

People transform. I've seen it over and over. As we reframe and refine our lives, we up-level in the most remarkable ways. We end up in places and with lives we never dreamed of when we were caught in our outdated assumptions that we are our personalities, stuck with ourselves as we are. — Lori Cash Richards

The more one engages in conscious action to understand and transform the world -- one's reality -- through the interplay between reflection and action, the more fully human we become, that is, we have greater control over our destinies. If we just accept the world as set by others, we allow ourselves to become dehumanized -- an object shaped and made by others rather than expressing our uniquely human potential to be involved actively in creating what we become. As human beings, our shared vocation is to become active individual subjects engaged on an equal basis with others in the process of creating (or naming) the world. We should create history and culture rather than exist merely as passive objects accepting reality and the world as ready-made by other people. In creating history and culture, we create our own beings in the process. — Marie Emmit

And I guess what was bothering me the most was that he had blasted away the fiction with which I had justified the weakness in myself that seemed to stay my hand whenever I was finally reaching for the life I so desired. Sure I always had my reasons, failure always does, but underlying the hesitancy was a belief I somehow couldn't shake. We are what we are, we can't transform ourselves, the die is cast and we play out our fates. I might hit upon the million-dollar case, I might stumble upon the love of my life, something hard and clean might fall into my lap and change everything, but it really wouldn't change anything. I'd still be Victor Carl, I'd still be second tier and second class, I'd still be less than I ever hoped to be. — William Lashner

God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us. — Richard J. Foster

The single most empowering thing we can do for ourselves is to transform fear. While fear contains tremendous power, it doesn't propel us forward and upward, but, rather, drags us down and chains us to the past. Freeing ourselves from fear is a loving intention because, as fear subsides, we are better able to access the soft, sweet power of our hearts, which naturally leads to loving ourselves and others more freely and completely. — Sue Thoele

Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.
How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world? Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death. — Eric Metaxas

If this planet is to be transformed for the better, then we as individuals must first transform ourselves. — Auliq Ice

The best way to transform ourselves is by transforming our consciousness and awareness. — Debasish Mridha

When we're angry, our anger is our very self. To suppress or chase away our anger is to suppress or chase away ourselves. When we're joyful, we are joy. When we're angry, we are anger. When we love, we are love. When we hate, we are hatred. When anger is born, we can be aware that anger is an energy in us, and we can change that energy into another kind of energy. If we want to transform it, first we have to know how to accept it. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Failure is normal expression of an action's re-action. learning is secondary in this process .it is only prime to recognize true capacity within ourselves.it is a tool to transform the same person in new one with new value and outlook towards the same old world. — Ratna M.munshi

Compassion for ourselves gives rise to the power to transform resentment into forgiveness, hatred into friendliness, and fear into respect for all beings. — Jack Kornfield

In an ideal world, we'd all transform ourselves into experts and make judgments based on extensive knowledge. Given that this will never happen, our next best option is to emulate the wisdom of Socrates: We become wiser when we acknowledge our ignorance. — Joshua Greene