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And Like No Other Sculpture In The History Of Art, The Dead Engine And Dead Airframe Come To Life At The Touch Of A Human Hand, And Join Their Life With The Pilot's Own.

-Richard Bach

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And Like No Other

Richard Bach

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And Like No Other Sculpture In The History Of Art, The Dead Engine And Dead Airframe Come To Life At The Touch Of A Human Hand, And Join Their Life With The Pilot's Own.

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Never Had I Understood That I Command, With Absolute Authority, The Ship Of My Life! I Decide Its Mission And Rules And Discipline, At My Word Waits Every Tool And Sail, Every Cannon, The Strength Of Every Soul On Board. I'm Master Of A Team Of Passionate Skills To Sail Me Through Hell's Own Jaws The Second I Nod The Direction To Steer.

There Is No Such Thing As A Problem Without A Gift.

What Was The Question? ...oh. Where Do I Get My Crazy Ideas? Answer: Sleep-fairy, Walk-fairy, Shower-fairy. Book-fairy. And In These Last Few Years, From My Wife. Now When I Have Questions I Ask Her And She Tells Me The Answer. If You Haven't Already, I'd Suggest You Want To Find Your Soulmate, As Soon As You Can. Next Question?

The Gulls Who Scorn Perfection For The Sake Of Travel Go Nowhere, Slowly. Those Who Put Aside Travel For The Sake Of Perfection Go Anywhere, Instantly.

An Easy Life Doesn't Teach Us Anything. In The End It's The Learning That Matters: What We've Learned And How We've Grown

Through Default Or Intention, Unaware Or By Design, We Not Only Choose But Create The Visible Outer Conditions That Are Most Resonant To Our Inner State Of Being.

What A Story That Would Make! How Many Men And Women Go Through The Same Rivers, Menaced By The Same Sharp Clichés, The Same Jagged Dangers That Have Threatened Us! If The Idea Stands Up, I Thought, It Would Be Worth Uncovering The Typewriter! How Richard-years-ago Would Have Wanted To Know: What Happens When We Set Off Searching For A Soulmate Who Doesn't Exist, And Find Her?

I Don't Think Any Of My Books Tell The Reader Anything New. But They Do Remind, In A Time That Is Strident And Screeching About The Limitations Of This World And All The Trouble We Can Get Ourselves Into.

We Love Action And Adventure, But We Use It To Go Out And Start Wars And Kill People.

Children Are Not Our Property, And They Are Not Ours To Control Any More That We Were Our Parents' Property Or Theirs To Control.

I'm Absolutely Convinced That This Is A World Of Appearances, Not Reality. There's One Reality And That's Light And Love. When Some Say, We Create Our Own Reality, I Always Demur And Say, "please, Would You Mind Adjusting That A Little Bit? We Create Our Own Appearances." We Become Master Of Appearances And As We Change Our Thought, We Will See The Appearances Around Us Change. That Gives Us This Huge Sense Of Dominion And Power And Control Over Our World.

I've Learned That It Is What I Do Not Know That I Fear, And I Strive, Outwardly From Pride, Inwardly From The Knowledge That The Unknown Is What Will Finally Kill Me, To Know All There Is To Be Known About My Airplane. I Will Never Die.

Flyers Have A Sense Of Adventures Yet To Come, Instead Of Dimly Recalling Adventures Of Long Ago As The Only Moments In Which They Truly Lived.

I Don't Think Creativity Is Mine To Maintain. It Automatically Comes When We Declare That "i Am An Expression Of Life, And Life Will Express Itself Through Me In The Most Playful And Wonderful Of Ways, If I Let It."

Anyone Desperate Enough For Suicide... Should Be Desperate Enough To Go To Creative Extremes To Solve Problems: Elope At Midnight, Stow Away On The Boat To New Zealand And Start Over, Do What They Always Wanted To Do But Were Afraid To Try.

Nothing Happens By Chance, My Friend... No Such Thing As Luck. A Meaning Behind Every Little Thing, And Such A Meaning Behind This. Part For You, Part For Me, May Not See It All Real Clear Right Now, But We Will, Before Long.

Here Is The Test To Find Whether Your Mission On Earth Is Finished: If You're Alive, It Isn't.

Languages Are Fluffy Big Pillows Stuffed Between Nations - What Others Say Is Muffled And Nearly Lost In Them, And When We Speak Their Grammar We Get Feathers In Our Mouth. It's Worth It. What Pleasure To Phrase An Idea, Even In Child's Words, Slowly, And Sail It Across The Gulf In Another Language To A Different-speaking Human Being!

Life Does Not Listen To Your Logic; It Goes On Its Own Way, Undisturbed. You Have To Listen To Life.

You Don't Love Hatred And Evil, Of Course. You Have To Practice And See The Real Gull, The Good In Every One Of Them, And To Help Them See It In Themselves. That's What I Mean By Love.

You Are Always Free To Change Your Mind And Choose A Different Future, Or A Different Past.

What Would Our Lives Be Like Without Tests, Odds Against Us, Adventure, Risk?

And Behind It Lies Not Blind Chance But A Principle That Works To Help Us Understand, A Thousand "coincidences" And Friends Come To Show Us The Way When The Problem Seems Too Hard To Solve Alone. Problems For Overcoming. Freedom For Proving. And, As Long As We Believe In Our Dream, Nothing By Chance.

Whatever Enchants Also Guides And Protects.

I'm Not Approachable By Someone Who Says, "let's Try Some Drugs," Or Something Like That. I'm Absolutely Close-minded About That Kind Of Thing. But I'm Wide Open To Anyone Who Says, "i've Been Wondering Why We're Here And Where We're Going, And I've Got A Few Answers, But I Wondered If Anything Ever Happened To You That Suggests..." Then They Have Me, And I Become A Chatterbox And Can Just Talk Away Literally For Days.

You Are Led Through Your Lifetime By The Inner Learning Creature, The Playful Spiritual Being That Is Your Real Self. Don't Turn Away From Possible Futures Before You're Certain You Don't Have Anything To Learn From Them. You're Always Free To Change Your Mind And Choose A Different Future, Or A Different Past.

Fear Is All The Fear Of Some Loss: "i'm Going To Lose Something." If We Declare, And If We Know In Our Hearts, "i Already Have Everything That I Need: I Have Life, I Have Creativity, I Have Joy, I Have Nourishment. I Have Everything I Need," And If We Just Say, "it Doesn't Depend On My Having A Physical Body To Do It," Then Everything Opens Up.

Reality Lies Far Beyond Space And Time, And I Need To Know Why.

I Think The Source Of Our Sorrow And The Source Of Our Joy Are Intimately Entwined. Our Sorrow Is That We Have Forgotten Who We Are, We Have Forgotten We Are One With That Source Of All Life - Absolutely Indestructible, Perfect, Joyful. The Source Of Our Joy Is When We Remember That.

Your Friends Will Know You Better In The First Minute You Meet Than Your Acquaintances Will Know You In A Thousand Years.

Jonathan Is That Brilliant Little Fire That Burns Within Us All, That Lives Only For Those Moments When We Reach Perfection.

Nothing Happens By Chance, My Friend... No Such Thing As Luck.

It Is By Not Always Thinking Of Yourself, If You Can Manage It, That You Might Somehow Be Happy. Until You Make Room In Your Life For Someone As Important To You As Yourself, You Will Always Be Searching And Lost.

Not Being Known Doesn't Stop The Truth From Being True. You Are Led Through Your Lifetime By The Inner Learning Creature, The Playful Spiritual Being That Is Your Real Self. What The Caterpillar Calls The End Of The World, The Master Calls A Butterfly. Learning Is Finding Out What We Already Know. Doing Is Demonstrating That You Know It. Teaching Is Reminding Others That They Know Just As Well As You. You Are All Learners, Doers And Teachers. The Best Way To Pay For A Lovely Moment Is To Enjoy It.

The River Delights To Lift Us Free, If Only We Dare Let Go.

We Are Each Given A Block Of Marble When We Begin A Lifetime, And The Tools To Shape It Into Sculpture. We Can Drag It Behind Us Untouched, We Can Pound It To Gravel, We Can Shape It Into Glory. Examples From Every Other Life Are Left For Us To See, Lifeworks Finished And Unfinished, Guiding And Warning. Near The End Our Sculpture Is Nearly Finished, And We Can Smooth And Polish What We Started Years Before. We Can Make Our Progress Then, But To Do It We Must See Past The Appearances Of Age.

I Think Our Learning Lies Along The Path Of Whatever It Is We Love.

Anything We Need To Know, We Can Learn It From A Book. Reading, Careful Study, A Little Practice, And We’re Throwing Knives Expertly, Overhauling Engines, Speaking Esperanto Like Natives.

The Mark Of Your Ignorance Is The Depth Of Your Belief In Injustice And Tragedy. What The Caterpillar Calls The End Of The World, The Master Calls The Butterfly.

The Worst Lies Are The Lies We Tell Ourselves.

Lies We Tell Ourselves

Win By Losing. Before Your Outer Walls Break, As Break They Must, Build An Inner Place To Protect Your Truth. Protect That You Are Infinite Life, Choosing Its Playground; Protect That The World You Know Exists With Your Consent And For Your Own Good Reasons; Protect That Your Purpose And Mission Is To Shine Love In Your Own Playful Way, In The Moments You Decide Will Be Most Dramatic.

Evolution Made Civilization Steward Of This Planet. A Hundred Thousand Years Later, The Steward Stood Before Evolution Not Helper But Destroyer, Not Healer But Parasite. So Evolution Withdrew Its Gift, Passed Civilization By, Rescued The Planet From Intelligence And Handed It To Love.

I Like That You Can Open Up Any One Of My Books Anywhere And Immediately Be Lost. I Just Love Them So Much.

Good And Evil Are Not What Our Parents Told Us, Not What Our Church Tells Us, Or Our Country, Not What Anybody Else Tells Us! All Of Us Decide Good And Evil For Ourselves, Automatically, By Choosing What We Want To Do!

Respect For Sovereignity, For Privacy, For Total Independence. Gentle Alliances Against Loneliness, They Were, Cool Rational Love-affairs Without The Love.

Each Of Us Is Free To Move Our Consciousness Through That Infinite Pattern Of Possibilities As We Please. If We're Filled With Fears, Or If We Trust The Fears Of Others, We'll Choose A Path In Which Our City Falls Into The Sea, Or A Path In Which A Third World War Vaporizes Us, Or Whatever Other Disaster Is Most Thrilling Or Horrifying Or Fascinating For Us.

Perspective - Use It Or Lose It. If You Turned To This Page, You're Forgetting That What Is Going On Around You Is Not Reality. Think About That.

Use It Or Lose It

Your Harshest Truths Are Dreams, And Your Gentlest Dreams Are True.

If Your Happiness Depends On What Somebody Else Does, I Guess You Do Have A Problem.

There Are No Mistakes. The Events We Bring Upon Ourselves, No Matter How Unpleasant, Are Necessary In Order To Learn What We Need To Learn; Whatever Steps We Take, They're Necessary To Reach The Places We've Chosen To Go.

You Are Led, When You Share Your Loves, To An Enchanted Life Of Inner Happiness, Which Unsharing Others Cannot Know.

Inner Happiness

Thought Plus Belief Equals Manifestation.

I Think There's An Invisible Principle Of Living Too. If We Believe We're Guided Through Every Step Of Our Lives, We Are. It's A Lovely Sight, Watching It Work.

Laughing On The Way To Your Execution Is Not Generally Understood By Less-advanced Life Forms, And They Call You Crazy.

Remember Where You Came

I Have Always Wanted An Adventurous Life. It Took A Long Time To Realize That I Was The Only One Who Could Make An Adventurous Life Happen To Me.

Adventurous Life

Every Problem Has A Gift For You In Its Hands.

Wrong Turns Are As Important As Right Turns. More Important, Sometimes.

Our Disasters Have Been Some Of The Best Things That Ever Happened To Us. And What We Swore Were Blessings Have Been Some Of The Worst.

Remember Where You Came From, Where You’re Going, And Why You Created The Mess You Got Yourself Into In The First Place. You're Going To Die A Horrible Death, Remember. It's All Good Training, And You'll Enjoy It More If You Keep The Facts In Mind. Take Your Dying With Some Seriousness, However. Laughing On The Way To Your Execution Is Not Generally Understood By Less-advanced Life-forms, And They'll Call You Crazy.

Remember Where You Came

The Great Thing About Writing Is, If You Don't Like The World, We'll Create A Different One.

Hate Is Love Without Enough Data.

He Was Not Bone And Feather But A Perfect Idea Of Freedom And Flight, Limited By Nothing At All

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Silly Ideas, Worth The Admission Price In Smiles, But They're True. Is High-energy Physics Interesting Because It's True Or Because It's Crazy?

The World Is Your Exercise Book, The Pages On Which You Do Your Sums. It Is Not Reality, Though You May Express Reality There If You Wish. You Are Also Free To Write Lies, Or Nonsense, Or To Tear The Pages.

Learning Is Finding Out What You Already Know. Doing Is Demonstrating That You Know It. Teaching Is Reminding Others That They Know Just As Well As You. You Are All Learners, Doers, Teachers.

I Want To Be Very Close To Someone I Respect And Admire And Have Somebody Who Feels The Same Way About Me.

Love Relationship

The Highest Art Form Of All Is A Human Being In Control Of Himself And His Airplane In Flight, Urging The Spirit Of A Machine To Match His Own.

I Do Not Enjoy Writing At All. If I Can Turn My Back On An Idea, Out There In The Dark, If I Can Avoid Opening The Door To It, I Won't Even Reach For A Pencil.

Why Fly? Simple. I'm Not Happy Unless There's Some Room Between Me And The Ground.

The Big Thing About Writing Is Three Commands: Have Fun. Don't Think. Don't Care.

You Will Begin To Touch Heaven, Jonathan, In The Moment That You Touch Perfect Speed. And That Isn’t Flying A Thousand Miles An Hour, Or A Million, Or Flying At The Speed Of Light. Because Any Number Is A Limit, And Perfection Doesn’t Have Limits. Perfect Speed, My Son, Is Being There.

Don't Be Dismayed By Good-byes. A Farewell Is Necessary Before You Can Meet Again. And Meeting Again, After Moments Or Lifetimes, Is Certain For Those Who Are Friends.

In The United States Christmas Has Become The Rape Of An Idea.

Most Gulls Don't Bother To Learn More Than The Simplest Facts Of Flight - How To Get From Shore To Food And Back Again

The Simplest Questions Are The Most Profound. Where Were You Born? Where Is Your Home? Where Are You Going? What Are You Doing? Think About These Once In A While And Watch Your Answers Change.

We Design Our Lives Through The Power Of Our Choices. We Feel Most Helpless When We've Made Choices By Default, When We Haven't Designed Our Lives On Our Own.

What A Delighted Fascination It Is, To Stand Aside And Watch Our Dearest Friend Perform On Stage Without Us.

Cherish Yesterday, Dream Tomorrow, Live Today.

Yesterday And Today

It’s Okay Is A Cosmic Truth…it’s Okay. If There Were Nothing Here For Us To Learn, We Wouldn’t Bother To Pay The Fare.

We Choose Our Next World Through What We Learn In This One. Learn Nothing, And The Next World Is The Same As This One, All The Same Limitations And Lead Weights To Overcome.

If You're Always Looking At Someone Else, Trying To Imitate Them, How Can Your Natural Gifts Ever Emerge?

I Am! You Are! And Love: Is All: That Matters!

I’m Here Not Because I Am Supposed To Be Here, Or Because I’m Trapped Here, But Because I’d Rather Be With You Than Anywhere Else In The World.

A Tiny Change Today Brings Us To A Dramatically Different Tomorrow. There Are Grand Rewards For Those Who Pick The High Hard Roads, But Those Rewards Are Hidden By Years. Every Choice Is Made In The Uncaring Blind, No Guarantees From The World Around Us.

No Matter How Qualified You Are, You Won't Reach A Better Life Until You Imagine It.

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Numbers Are Limits, And Perfection Doesn't Have Limits.

Character Comes From Following Our Highest Sense Of Right, From Trusting Ideas Without Being Sure They’ll Work.

Do You Ever Have The Feeling You're A Tourist On Earth?

Rebuilding Us. Isn't That What The Spirit Requires, When We Climb Over The Wreckage Of Our Lives, Sometimes, We Go On To Make Our Lives Our Own Affirmation? We Are Perfect Expressions Of Perfect Love, Here And Now. There Is No Permanent Injury.

Without My Airplane I Am An Ordinary Man, And A Useless One - A Trainer Without A Horse, A Sculptor Without Marble, A Priest Without A God. Without An Airplane I Am A Lonely Consumer Of Hamburgers.

We Wait All These Years To Find Someone Who Understands Us, I Thought, Someone Who Accepts Us As We Are, Someone With A Wizard's Power To Melt Stone To Sunlight, Who Can Bring Us Happiness In Spite Of Trials, Who Can Face Our Dragons In The Night, Who Can Transform Us Into The Soul We Choose To Be. Just Yesterday I Found That Magical Someone Is The Face We See In The Mirror: It's Us And Our Homemade Masks.

I'll Quote The Truth Wherever I Find It Thank You.

Don't Turn Away From Possible Futures Before You're Certain You Don't Have Anything To Learn From Them.

Illusions Of Life

We're Different, We're The Same. You Thought You'd Never Find A Word To Say To A Woman Who Didn't Fly Airplanes. I Couldn't Imagine Myself Spending Time With A Man Who Didn't Love Music. Could It Be It's Not As Important To Be Alike As It Is To Be Curious? Because We're Different, We Can Have The Fun Of Exchanging Worlds, Giving Our Loves And Excitements To Each Other. You Can Learn Music, I Can Learn Flying. And That's Only The Beginning. I Think It Would Go On For Us As Long As We Live.

Whatever Happens On The Surface, It's Leading Us In A Direction. That Beautiful Core Within Us That Is Our Character Will Make Choices That Will Inevitably Leads Us To A Higher Understanding Of Who We Are And Why We're Here. And It's Best To Be Aware Of That While It's Happening.

The Conversation Between Fletcher And Jonathan Livingston Seagull Is Centered On Why Some Have Achieved More Than Others . . . Are They Divine . . . Ahead Of Their Times . . . Fletcher Says, Well, This Kind Of Flying Has Always Been Here To Be Learned By Anybody Who Wanted To Discover It; That's Got Nothing To Do With Time. We're Ahead Of The Fashion, Maybe. Ahead Of The Way Most Gulls Fly. Poor Fletch. Don't You Believe What Your Eyes Are Telling You? All They Show Is Limitations. Look With Your Understanding, Find Out What You Already Know, And You'll See The Way To Fly.

If Perfection Is Stagnation, Then Heaven Is A Swamp.

No Matter How Qualified Or Deserving We Are, We Will Never Reach A Better Life Until We Can Imagine It For Ourselves And Allow Ourselves To Have It.

Everything Is Exactly As It Is For A Reason. The Crumb On Your Table Is No Mystical Reminder Of This Morning's Cookie, It Is There Because You Have Chosen Not To Remove It. No Exceptions.

Two Words: Love Leads. Listen To That Ring Of Love Within. If We Follow That Leading Of Love We'll Be Guaranteed An Adventurous, Positive, Joyful Life.

That Which Most Concerns And Worries You - Your Survival - Is The Only Certainty You Have.

Why Had Such A Promising World Been Crucified On The Tree Of Obligation, Thorned By Duties, Hanged By Hypocrisy, Smothered By Customs?

Can Miles Truly Separate You From Friends... If You Want To Be With Someone You Love, Aren't You Already There?

You Are Led Through Your Lifetime By The Inner Learning Creature, The Playful Spiritual Being That Is Your Real Self.

A Cloud Does Not Know Why It Moves In Just Such A Direction And At Such A Speed, It Feels An Impulsion... This Is The Place To Go Now. But The Sky Knows The Reasons And The Patterns Behind All Clouds, And You Will Know, Too, When You Lift Yourself High Enough To See Beyond Horizons.

There Is A Kind Of Silver Spiderweb That's Spun Around The World, And The Strands Of That Web Are Certain Loves And Certain Understandings. And If We Follow Those, And If We Walk Those Strands, We're Going To Meet Others At The Intersections Who Have Been Walking The Same Way Across This Web. And When We Meet, There's A Kind Of "i Know Who You Are."

It Doesn’t Take Time To Change Once You Understand The Problem...somebody Hands You A Rattlesnake, It Doesn’t Take Long To Drop It, Does It?

Anything We Need To Know, We Can Learn It From A Book.

Life Does Not Require Us To Be Consistent, Cruel, Patient, Helpful, Angry, Rational, Thoughtless, Loving, Rash, Open-minded, Neurotic, Careful, Rigid, Tolerant, Wasteful, Rich, Downtrodden, Gentle, Sick, Considerate, Funny, Stupid, Healthy, Greedy, Beautiful, Lazy, Responsive, Foolish, Sharing, Pressured, Intimate, Hedonistic, Industrious, Manipulative, Insightful, Capricious, Wise, Selfish, Kind Or Sacrificed. Life Does, However, Require Us To Live With The Consequences Of Our Choices.

To Me, One Of The Most Profound Questions We Can Ask Is: "so What?" And So What If There's An Indefinite Number Of Worlds With Alternate "us-es" In Them? The "so What," To Me, Comes Alive When I Ask Myself: "what If I Could Find A Way To Get In Touch With Those Alternate Mes Who Made Those Choices?" That Is, Persons Who, If I Saw Them Now, I Wouldn't Even Recognize Because Their Choices, Once Small, Have Multiplied To Make Them Such Different People.

I Do Not Exist To Impress The World. I Exist To Live My Life In A Way That Will Make Me Happy.

Navigate By The Same Star, Unwilling To Change, And You Find Yourself Not Only Off-course But Lost.

Finding Yourself

If Our Body Is A Perfect Expression Of Our Thought About Body, And If Our Thought About Body Is That It’s Condition Has Everything To Do With Inner Image And Nothing To Do With Time, Then We Don’t Have To Be Impatient For Being Too Young Or Frightened Of Being Too Old.

Ask Yourself The Secret Of Your Success. Listen To Your Answer, And Practice It.

Live Enough Of What You've Always Dreamed Of Doing, And There's No Room Left For Feeling Bad.

At Last, The Answer Why. The Lesson That Had Been So Hard To Find, So Difficult To Learn, Came Quick And Clear And Simple. The Reason For Problems Is To Overcome Them. Why, That’s The Very Nature Of Man, I Thought, To Press Past Limits, To Prove His Freedom. It Isn’t The Challenge That Faces Us, That Determines Who We Are And What We Are Becoming, But The Way We Meet The Challenge, Whether We Toss A Match At The Wreck Or Work Our Way Through It, Step By Step, To Freedom.

There Is Something That Is Transcendental About When We Are Immersed In That Which We Most Love.

As You Believe, So It Is For You.

If We Must Lose Wife Or Husband When We Live To Our Highest Right, We Lose An Unhappy Marriage As Well, And We Gain Ourselves. But If A Marriage Is Born Between Two Already Self-discovered, What A Lovely Adventure Begins, Hurricanes And All.

Civilization... Wrecks The Planet From Seafloor To Stratosphere.

For A Moment, Off Balance, Was I Annoyed? Anger Is Always Fear, I Thought, And Fear Is Always Fear Of Loss. Would I Lose Myself If He Made Those Choices? It Took A Second To Settle Down: I'd Lose Nothing. They'd Be His Wishes, Not Mine, And He's Free To Live As He Wants. The Loss Would Come If I Dared Force Him, Tried To Live For Him And Me As Well. There'd Be Disaster Worse Than Life On A Bar Stool.

We Don't Have Rights Until We Claim Them.

Every Problem In Your Life Carries A Gift Inside It.

That’s Why Love Stories Don’t Have Endings! They Don’t Have Endings Because Love Doesn’t End.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

One School Is Finished, And The Time Has Come For Another To Begin.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Seagull

You Teach Best What You Most Need To Learn.

It's Like, At The End, There's This Surprise Quiz: Am I Proud Of Me? I Gave My Life To Become The Person I Am Right Now. Was It Worth What I Paid?

Eating Disorder

One Of The Delights Of The New Age Is That It's A Turning Of Consciousness To Give Us Permission To Look Beyond Appearances. But There Are Traps That Come With It. It's Brave To Throw Off The Old Altars And Churches And Ceremonies That Kept Us From Discovery, It's Not So Brave To Replace Them With Chants And Rituals And New Priests Who Are Retreads Of The Old.

Thanks To You, I Always Am So Happy. Now I Want To Give You All The Happiness On Your Birthday.

There Is A Sense Of Oneness That From Time To Time I'm Aware Of In My Life. Certainly Not All The Time, And There Are Times When I Get Frightened And When I Get Upset. But At The Best Of Times, It's A Personal Oneness.

Don't Believe What Your Eyes Are Telling You. All They Show Is Limitation. Look With Your Understanding, Find Out What You Already Know, And You'll See The Way To Fly.

You've Given Up Your Whole Life To Be The Person You Are Now. Is It Worth It?

I Had Experiences Along The Way That Helped Me To Realize That Letting Go Was The Way That Worked For Me To Find Something That I, Personally, As A Reader, Love To Read.

Your Only Obligation In Any Lifetime Is To Be True To Yourself. Being True To Anyone Else Or Anything Else Is Not Only Impossible, But The Mark Of A Fake Messiah.

That’s What Learning Is, After All; Not Whether We Lose The Game, But How We Lose And How We’ve Changed Because Of It, And What We Take Away From It That We Never Had Before, To Apply To Other Games. Losing, In A Curious Way Is Winning.

Remember The High Board At The Swimming Pool? After Days Of Looking Up At It You Finally Climbed The Wet Steps To The Platform. From There, It Was Higher Than Ever. There Were Only Two Ways Down: The Steps To Defeat Of The Dive To Victory. You Stood On The Edge, Shivering In The Hot Sun, Deathly Afraid. At Last You Leaned Too Far Forward, It Was Too Late For Retreat, And You Dived. The High Board Was Conquered, And You Spent The Rest Of The Day Diving. Climbing A Thousand High Boards, We Demolish Fear, And Turn Into Human Beings.

The More I Want To Get Something Done, The Less I Call It Work.

I Don't Want To Do Business With Those Who Don't Make A Profit, Because They Can't Give The Best Service.

Service Culture

We Think, Sometimes, There’s Not A Dragon Left. Not One Brave Knight, Not A Single Princess Gliding Through Secret Forests... What A Pleasure To Be Wrong. Princesses, Knights, Enchantments And Dragons, Mystery And Adventure... Not Only Are They Here-and-now, They’re All That Ever Lived On Earth!

We [people] Have The Power To Destroy Ourselves As Well As The Environment. As A Species We Love What I'd Call Brinks-person-ship, Going Right To The Edge Of Disaster And Somehow Managing To Pull Back And Recover. But My Bet Is Still On The Creative And Playful And Positive In The Species. I Think We Will Manage To Survive And Gradually Turn Things Around.

A Name Is A Label, And As Soon As There Is A Label, The Ideas Disappear And Out Comes Label-worship And Label-bashing, And Instead Of Living By A Theme Of Ideas, People Begin Dying For Labels... And The Last Thing The World Needs Is Another Religion.

Strong Beliefs Win Strong Men, And Then Make Them Stronger.

A Writer, Or A Beginning Writer, Is Faced By The Huge Walls Of Self-consciousness. Most People Think, "what If I Say The Wrong Thing? What If I Don't Sound Erudite And Sophisticated? I'll Be Considered A Fool." In Time, With A Lot Of Practice, You Realize That's Your Foolishness Is Your Gift.

Have You Ever Felt So At One With The World, With The Universe, With Everything That Is, That You Were Overcome With Love? That Is Reality. That Is The Truth. What We Make Of It Is Up To Us, As The Painting Of The Sunrise Is Up To The Artist. In Our World Humanity Has Strayed From That Love. It Lives Hatred And Power Struggles And Manipulations Of The Earth Itself For Its Own Narrow Reasons. Continue And No One Will See The Sunrise. The Sunrise Will Always Exist, Of Course, But People On Earth Will Know Nothing Of It And Finally Even Stories Of Its Beauty Will Fade From Our Knowing.

Do You Have Any Idea How Many Lives We Must Have Gone Through Before We Even Got The First Idea That There Is More To Life Than Eating, Or Fighting, Or Power In The Flock? A Thousand Lives, Jon, Ten Thousand!

The Space For What You Want Is Already Filled With What You Settled For Instead.

You Are Not The Child Of The People You Call Mother And Father, But Their Fellow-adventurer On A Bright Journey To Understand The Things That Are.

We Thought Humble And Proud At The Same Time, All At Once In Love Again With This Painful Bittersweet Lovely Thing Called Flight.

We Know Nothing Until Intuition Agrees.

Argue For Your Limitations, And Sure Enough They're Yours.

The World Is A Dream, You Say, And It’s Lovely, Sometimes. Sunset. Clouds. Sky.” “no. The Image Is A Dream. The Beauty Is Real. Can You See The Difference?

The Opposite Of Loneliness Is Not Togetherness , It's Intimacy.

Just Be Who You Are, Calm And Clear And Bright. Automatically, As We Shine Who We Are, Asking Ourselves Every Minute Is This What I Really Want To Do, Doing It Only When We Answer Yes, Automatically That Turns Away Those Who Have Nothing To Learn From Who We Are And Attracts Those Who Do, And From Whom We Have To Learn, As Well.

Everything Of This Life As A Mortal Is Fiction. It Seems Real, But...

We Can Start Working With Time If You Wish," Chiang Said, "till You Can Fly The Past And The Future. And Then You Will Be Ready To Begin The Most Difficult, The Most Powerful, The Most Fun Of All. You Will Be Ready To Begin To Fly Up And Know The Meaning Of Kindness And Of Love.

In The Highest Sense, We Are All Creatures Of Light. And I Have A Very Difficult Time Talking With People Who Are Cynical About The World. "the World Is No Damn Good, And We're All Animals," And That Kind Of Thing. Well, I'm An Animal.

Does Anybody Learn Writing, Or Do They Just Touch Someone Who Lets Them See The Power Of The Deleted Word?

Next To God, Love Is The Word Most Mangled In Every Language. The Highest Form Of Regard Between Two People Is Friendship, And When Love Enters, Friendship Dies.

You Can't Solve Problems For Someone Whose Problem Is That They Don't Want Problems Solved.

Part Of Us Is Always The Observer, And No Matter What, It Observes. It Watches Us. It Does Not Care If We Are Happy Or Unhappy, If We Are Sick Or Well, If We Live Or Die. It’s Only Job Is To Sit There On Our Shoulder And Pass Judgment On Whether We Are Worthwhile Human Beings.

The Creative, Loving-something Life Is Also The Healthy One. There Is Healing And Protection In Doing What Makes You Happy.

You're Never Given A Dream Without The Power To Make It True.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

I Belong To A Group Of Men Who Fly Alone. There Is Only One Seat In The Cockpit Of A Fighter Airplane. There Is No Space Alotted For Another Pilot To Tune The Radios In The Weather Or Make The Calls To Air Traffic Control Centers Or To Help With The Emergency Procedures Or To Call Off The Airspeed Down Final Approach. There Is No One Else To Break The Solitude Of A Long Cross-country Flight. There Is No One Else To Make Decisions.

If You Don't Want To Be A Teacher, You'd Better Get Off This Planet.

Learning Is Finding Out What You Already Know.

Learning Knowledge

Humanity Is Not A Gift Of Nature, It Is A Spiritual Achievement To Be Earned.

The One Thing We Fear Most Is The One Thing That Is Not Possible: We Cannot Die, We Cannot Be Destroyed.

Having Made The Decision To Love, Had I Chosen Life Instead Of Death?

Amazing. You Were So Attached To It, And It Still Disappeared For You." “attached! I Was Whocking That Cloud With Everything I Had! Fireballs, Laser Beams, Vacuum Cleaner A Block High...” “negative Attachments, Richard. If You Really Want To Remove A Cloud From Your Life, You Do Not Make A Big Production Out Of It, You Just Relax And Remove It From Your Thinking. That’s All There Is To It.

It Took Time To Learn That The Hard Thing About Writing Is To Let The Story Write Itself, While One Sits At The Typewriter And Does As Little Thinking As Possible. It Happened Over And Over Again, And The Beginner Learned - When You Start Puzzling Over An Idea, And Slowing Down On The Keys, The Writing Gets Worse And Worse.

Just Because Somebody Drops In On You From Another Dimension, Don't Assume They're Wiser Than You About Anything At All, Or That They Can Do Anything Better Than You Can Do Yourself. Discarnate Or Mortal, What Matters About People Is What They Know.

Like Most Writers, We Like To Find What We Know And Pass It Along To Anyone Who Cares. When That's Done, As Soon As We've Said The Best We Can Say, There's Nothing Else About Us That's Remotely Interesting To Anybody Else, And We Go Back Behind The Walls. We Can Be Intimate In Books, We Can Be Intimate In Talks, But Then We Need Time To Be Alone.

Like Everything Else, Fletcher. Practice.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Seagull

There Is Something To Astrology For Those Who Believe In Astrology, As There Is Something To Medicine For Those Who Believe In Medicine. Every System Works When We Give Our Heart To It.

Were We, Also, Hiking Along Some Cosmic Journal Page? Were The Events About Us All Part Of A Message We Could Understand, If Only We Found The Right Perspective From Which To Read Them? Somehow, With Our Long Series Of Miracles, I Thought So.

Instead Of Our Drab Slogging Forth And Back To The Fishing Boats, There's Reason To Live! We Can Lift Ourselves Out Of Ignorance, We Can Find Ourselves As Creatures Of Excellence And Intelligence And Skill. We Can Learn To Be Free! We Can Learn To Fly!

From Time To Time It's Fun To Close Our Eyes, And In That Dark Say To Ourselves, 'i Am The Sorcerer, And When I Open My Eyes I Shall See A World That I Have Created, And For Which I And Only I Am Completely Responsible.' Slowly Then, Eyelids Open Like Curtains Lifting Stage-center. And Sure Enough, There's Our World, Just The Way We've Built It.

Some Choices We Live Not Only Once But A Thousand Times Over, Remembering Them For The Rest Of Our Lives.

The Only Thing That Matters, At The End Of A Stay On Earth, Is How Well Did We Love, What Was The Quality Of Our Love?

How Can We Resent The Life We've Created For Ourselves? Who's To Blame, Who's To Credit, But Us? Who Can Change It, Any Time We Wish, But Us?

Choose A Love And Work To Make It True, And Somehow, Something Will Happen, Something You Couldn’t Plan, Will Come Along To Move Like To Like, To Set You Loose, To Set You On The Way To Your Next Brick Wall.

It's Like A Pulsar Inside Me. There Is This Great Burst Of Energy, Forcing Me To Write, And Then The Star Goes Quiet For A Time, And I Think It's Gone, But It's Gathering Energy For Another Burst. And I Seem To Be Almost Unwilling Participants In This.

The Gull Sees Farthest Who Flies Highest

Overcome Space, And All We Have Left Is Here. Overcome Time, And All We Have Left Is Now.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

It Doesn't Matter Whether They [beloved Ones] Are On This Planet Or Not On This Planet Anymore. Once Something Is Bound By Love, As Long As That Love Exists, There Is Nothing That Can Separate Us. There Is The Appearance Of Separation, But The Heart, It Always Treasures And Values That.

When We Put Up With Any Situation We Don’t Have To Put Up With, It’s Not Because We’re Dumb. We Put Up With It, Because We Want The Lesson Only That Situation Can Teach, And We Want It More Than Freedom Myself.

So Much Of What We Said Sounded Crazy, Yet None Of It Was False... As If Two Theoretical Physicists Stood On Stage To Say That When We Travel Near Lightspeed, We Get Younger Than Nontravellers; That A Mile Of Space Next To The Sun Is Differnt Than A Mile Of Space Next To The Earth Because The Sun-mile Space Is Curved More Than The The Earth-mile. Silly Ideas, Worth The Admission Price In Smiles, But They're True. Is High-energy Physics Interesting Because It's True Or Because It's Crazy?

Pain And Adversity Are Powerful Vehicles To Promote Personal Growth. Nothing Helps You Learn, Grow, And Evolve More Quickly. Nothing Offers You As Big An Opportunity To Reclaim More Of Your Authentic Power As A Person.

When You're Flying, An Airplane Doesn't Care Who You Are; It Doesn't Care How Much Money You Make Or Don't Make. All It Cares About Is: How Well Do You Fly? How Well Do You Know The Airplane? How Well Do You Know The Sky?

You Are Free To Smile In The Midst Of Massive Tests And Challenges, Knowing That You Have Chosen To Play This Game, And That You Have Dominion Over All The Appearances Of Earth.

Look In The Mirror And One Thing Is Sure: What We See Is Not Who We Are.

With Every Choice You Risk The Life You Would Have Had; With Every Decision, You Lose It.

In The Path Of Our Happiness Shall We Find The Learning For Which We Have Chosen This Lifetime.

Our Soulmate Is The One Who Makes Life Come To Life.

It Must Happen To Us All…we Pack Up What We’ve Learned So Far And Leave The Familiar Behind. No Fun, That Shearing Separation, But Somewhere Within, We Must Dimly Know That Saying Goodbye To Safety Brings The Only Security We’ll Ever Know.

It’s Not When You Start That Makes Your Success In The World, But When You Quit.

A Tiny Change Today Brings A Dramatically Different Tomorrow.

Jonathan Sighed. The Price Of Being Misunderstood, He Thought. They Call You Devil Or They Call You God.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Real Integrity Is Doing The Right Thing, Knowing That Nobody's Going To Know Whether You Did It Or Not. Sooner Or Later, Those Who Win Are Those Who Think They Can.

You Don't Tell The Quality Of A Master By The Size Of His Crowds.

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