Michael Prather > Recent Status Updates

What‟s the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then?

A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.

As it is with a play, so it is with life – what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is. It is not important at what point you stop. Stop wherever you will – only make sure that you round it off with a good
ending.

You want to live – but do you know how to live? You are scared of dying – and, tell me, is the kind of life you lead really any different from being dead?

The only true serenity is the one which represents the free development of a sound mind.

There's nothing to stop you enjoying the company of absent friends, as often as you like, too, and for as long as you like. This pleasure in their company – and there's no greater pleasure – is one we enjoy the more
when we're absent from one another

As it is, instead of traveling, you are rambling and drifting, exchanging one place for another when the thing you are looking for, the good life, is available everywhere.

Do you think you are the only person to have had this experience? Are you really surprised, as if it were something unprecedented, that so long a tour and such diversity of scene have not enabled you to throw off this melancholy and this feeling of depression?

...that no one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable.

The man who looks for the morrow without worrying over it knows a peaceful independence and a happiness beyond all others.
Whoever has said 'I have lived' receives a windfall every day he gets up in the morning

There can be no doubt that the desire lovers have for each other is not so very different from friendship – you might say it was friendship gone
mad. Actual love in itself, heedless of all other considerations, inflames people's hearts with a passion for the beautiful object, not without the hope, too, that the affection will be mutual.

What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.
That is progress indeed. Such a person will never be alone, and you may be sure he is a friend of all.

Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts.

Grapes.

Unripe … ripened … then raisins.

Constant transitions.

Not the “not” but the “not yet.”

Why all this guesswork? You can see what needs to be done. If you can see the road, follow it. Cheerfully, without turning back. If not, hold up and get the best advice you can. If anything gets in the way, forge on ahead, making good use of what you have on hand, sticking to what seems right. (The best goal to achieve, and the one we fall short of when we fail.)

Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions—not outside.

Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer.

Frightened of change? But what can exist without it? What’s closer to nature’s heart? Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed?

Can’t you see? It’s just the same with you—and just as vital to nature.

Not to assume it’s impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it’s humanly possible, you can do it too.

No one could ever accuse you of being quick-witted.

All right, but there are plenty of other things you can’t claim you “haven’t got in you.” Practice the virtues you can show: honesty, gravity, endurance, austerity, resignation, abstinence, patience, sincerity, moderation, seriousness, high-mindedness. Don’t you see how much you have to offer—beyond excuses like “can’t”? And yet you still settle for less.

Friends, I apologize if this is spamming your feed! I'm using Goodreads as a notebook of impactful quotes from this book so I can refer back to them later. (Can others see this?) Anyway, the last one for the day!

"Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all calculation and pretension."