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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

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

“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

“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

“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

“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