The Four Agreements Quotes

“True justice is paying only once for each mistake. True injustice is paying more than once for each mistake.

How many times do we pay for one mistake?

The answer is thousands of times. The human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for the same mistake. The rest of the animals pay once for every mistake they make. But not us, we have a powerful memory.

We make a mistake, we judge ourselves, we find ourselves guilty and we punish ourselves.

If justice exists then that was enough. We do not need to do it again. But every time we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again and again and again.

If we have a wife or husband, he or she also reminds us of the mistake so we can judge ourselves again, punish ourselves again, and find ourselves guilty again. Is this fair?

How many times do we make our spouse, our children, or our parents pay for the same mistake? Every time we remember the mistake, we blame them again and send them all the emotional poison we feel at the injustice. And then we make them pay again for the same mistake. Is that justice?”
― Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

“There is a value to adversity. We learn more from tough times than from easy ones.”
― Vincent H. O'Neil, The Unused Path: Skills for living an authentic life

“To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive- the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans.”
― Miguel Ruizz

“The word is so powerful that one word can change a life or destroy the lives of millions of people.”
― Don Miguel Ruiz, Janet Mills