Hugh Prather > Quotes

“No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves”
― Hugh Prather, I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me

“All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.”
― Hugh Prather

“By approaching my problems with "What might make things a little better?" rather than "What is the solution?" I avoid setting myself up for certain frustration. My experience has shown me that I am not going to solve anything in one stroke; at best I am only going to chip away at it.”
― Hugh Prather, I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me

“If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

“I don't need a "reason" to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown.”
― hugh prather

“Don't strive for love, be it.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“I'm convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I "should be" and what i am. My anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. It seems to begin whenever I smuggle into my mind an expectation about how I or others should be. It is the tension between my desire to control the world and the recognition that I can't. "I will be what I will be" - where is the anxiety in that ? Anxiety is the recognition that I might not reach the rung on the opinion ladder I have just set for my self. I fear death most when I am about to exceed what I believe others think of me; then death threatens to cut me off from myself, because "myself" is not yet.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser?”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.”
― Hugh Prather, I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me

“What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behavior, trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be.”
― Hugh Prather

“I talk because I feel, and I talk to you because I want you to know how I feel.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“Today I acknowledge that I am not in position to judge what mistakes anyone is making or what lessons anyone needs to learn. I don’t know how far someone has come or when that person will have a breakthrough, I simply don’t know what other people should be doing. But when I think I do know, I clearly am not doing what I should be doing, which is taking responsibility for my own life.”
― Hugh Prather

“To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them.”
― Hugh Prather

“Today I don't want to live for, I want to live.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“It's this simple: If I never try anything, I never learn anything. If I never take a risk, I stay where I am.”
― Hugh Prather, I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me

“There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just on thing in life, would kill off large parts of me.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“We feel understood by people who like us; misunderstood by people who don't -- and those feelings are probably realistic.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes on Love and Courage

“Perfectionism is a slow death....If everything were to turn out just as I would want it, just as I would plan, I would never experience anything new. My life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. When I make a mistake I experience something unexpected.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“What I must do is die now. I must accept the justice of death and the injustice of life. I have lived a good life - longer than many, better than most. Tony died when he was twenty. I have had thirty-two years. I couldn't ask for another day. What did I do to deserve birth? It was a gift. I am me - that is a miracle. I had no right to a single hour. And yet I have had thirty-two years. Few can choose when they will die. I choose to accept death now. As of this moment I give up my "right" to live.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.”
― Hugh Prather

“Next time I will ..."
"From now on I will ..."
- What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow?”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“What I want are words that reflect my heart, not my cleverness.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

“Being myself includes taking risks with myself, taking risks on new behaviour,
trying new ways of 'being myself', so that I can see who it is I want to be.”
― Hugh Prather

“You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself

“It's not that "today is the first day of the rest of my life," but that now is all there is of my life.”
― Hugh Prather, I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me

“Selfishness is neither good nor bad—it depends on the way we are selfish as to whether it nourishes or injures.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person