Mark Graham

“These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...].
The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits.
The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.
And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making.”
― Alcoholics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous

“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.”
― Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

“Acceptance is the answer to all my problemskey to all my problems today.When I am distrubed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some facet of my life unacceptable to, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.”
― Dr. Bob Bill W, A.A. Big Book