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I Gave My Life To Become The Person I Am Right Now. Was It Worth It?
-Richard Bach
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I Gave My Life

Richard Bach
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I Gave My Life To Become The Person I Am Right Now. Was It Worth It?

Understanding the Quote: "i gave my life to become the person i am right now...."

This quote by Richard Bach reflects deeply on the theme of life. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Life, Proud Of Me, Persons, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Richard Bach interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Richard Bach

Richard Bach is celebrated for insightful thoughts on life and proud of me. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Life
Proud Of Me
Persons
More From Richard Bach
Part One: I Do Not Exist To Impress The World. I Exist To Live My Life In A Way That Will Make Me Happy. Part Two: Everybody Else Is Free To Do Whatever They Feel Like Doing, For A Living. Part Three: Responsible Is Able To Respond, Able To Answer For The Way We Choose To Live. There's Only One Person We Have To Answer To, Of Course, And That Is Ourselves.
Two
Three
Answers
Life Does Not Listen To Your Logic; It Goes On Its Own Way, Undisturbed. You Have To Listen To Life.
Doe
Goes On
Way
He Who Argues For His Limitations Gets To Keep Them
Arguing
Limitation
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.
Fear
Loss
Choices
Thanks To You, I Always Am So Happy. Now I Want To Give You All The Happiness On Your Birthday.
Birthday
Giving
Want
Jonathan Sighed. The Price Of Being Misunderstood, He Thought. They Call You Devil Or They Call You God.
Misunderstood
Devil
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
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?
Quality
Earth
Our Love
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.
Years
Choices
Different
True Enjoy Stories Never Ever Have Endings.
Stories
Enjoy
Sometimes When Learning Comes Before Experience It Doesn't Make Sense Right Away.
Inspirational
Learning
Sometimes
I Do Not Exist To Impress The World. I Exist To Live My Life In A Way That Will Make Me Happy.
Life
Happy
World
Remember Where You Came From, Where You're Going, And Why You Created This Mess You Got Yourself Into In The First Place.
Determination
Acceptance
Persistence
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 Into Gravel, We Can Shape It Into Glory.
Block
Tools
Sculpture
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.
Block
Past
Years
You Teach Best That Which You Need Most To Learn.
Needs
Teach
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?
Dream
Real
Sunset
You Don't Tell The Quality Of A Master By The Size Of His Crowds.
Quality
Crowds
Size
Live Never To Be Ashamed If Anything You Say Or Do Is Published Around The World, Even If What Is Said Is Not True.
Life
World
Said
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.
Suicide
Suicidal
Starting Over
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.
Son
Light
Numbers
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.
Expression
Perfect
Body
The Only Way To Avoid All Frightening Choices Is To Leave Society And Become A Hermit, And That Is A Frightening Choice.
Choices
Statistics
Way
Every Gift From A Friend Is A Wish For Your Happiness.
Friendship
Happiness
Real Friends
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.
Jobs
Sick
Unhappy
I'm A Writer As Rarely As Possible, When Forced By An Idea Too Lovely To Let Die Unwritten
Ideas
Lovely
Dies
A Soulmate Is Someone Who Has Locks That Fit Our Keys, And Keys To Fit Our Locks. When We Feel Safe Enough To Open The Locks, Our Truest Selves Step Out And We Can Be Completely And Honestly Who We Are; We Can Be Loved For Who We Are And Not For Who We're Pretending To Be. Each Unveils The Best Part Of The Other. No Matter What Else Goes Wrong Around Us, With That One Person We're Safe In Our Own Paradise.
Wedding
Soulmate
Keys
The Only Thing That's Real In Any Universe [is] That Brilliant Fire Of Love That Burns To The Exclusion Of Everything Else. As We Recognize The Presence Of Love, We Break Through The Wall Of Grief That Would Try To Convince Us That The Dear Soul With Whom We Have Learned And Loved So Much No Longer Exists, Or That She Or He Cannot Speak With Us. There Is No Wall That Love Cannot Vaporize. We May Believe In Death, Love Doesn't.
Wall
Real
Grief
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.
Lynching
Choices
Design
Reputation Is What People Think You Are. Character Is Who You Really Are. Take Care Of Your Character And Your Reputation Will Take Care Of Itself. The More I Want To Get Something Done, The Less I Call It Work.
Character
Thinking
People
What The Caterpillar Calls The End Of The World The Master Calls A Butterfly.
Inspirational
Change
Inspiring
Reason And Intellect Are Opening Wedges In An Understanding Of Reality.
Reality
Understanding
Reason
When One Individual Writer Sings Her Song Of Beauty, She Changes The Lives Of A Million Others.
Song
Individual
Millions
If Your Happiness Depends On What Somebody Else Does, I Guess You Do Have A Problem.
Happiness
Being Happy
Inspiration
That Which Most Concerns And Worries You - Your Survival - Is The Only Certainty You Have.
Worry
Survival
Certainty
There's This Wonderful And Very Important Event When We're Born, And We Forget Everything That's Gone Before, Or Else We'd Be Such A Mass Of Rememberings That We Couldn't Operate Successfully On This Planet.
Forget Everything
Important Events
Gone
The Big Thing About Writing Is Three Commands: Have Fun. Don't Think. Don't Care.
Fun
Writing
Thinking
We Love Action And Adventure, But We Use It To Go Out And Start Wars And Kill People.
War
Adventure
People
Jonathan Seagull Discovered That Boredom And Fear And Anger Are The Reasons That A Gull's Life Is So Short, And With Those Gone From His Thought, He Lived A Long Fine Life Indeed.
Fear
Long
Boredom
You Are Life, Inventing Form. No More Can You Die On Sword Or Years Than You Can Die On Doorways Through Which You Walk, One Room Into Another. Every Room Gives Its Word For You To Speak, Every Passage Its Song For You To Sing.
Song
Years
Giving
You'd Chosen To Be An Upright Biped On The Surface Of A Small Planet Of A Minor Sun On The Edge Of A Minor Galaxy Of One Of The Multiple Trillions Of Universes. That's Ok. It Doesn't Matter What Form You Take.
Matter
Sun
Form
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?
Wish
Credit
Blame
Character Comes From Following Our Highest Sense Of Right, From Trusting Ideas Without Being Sure They’ll Work.
Character
Ideas
Following
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.
Inspirational
Motivational
Education
Flying Has Always Been To Me This Wonderful Metaphor. In Order To Fly You Have To Trust What You Can't See. Up On The Mountain Ridges Where Very Few People Have Been I Have Thought Back To What Every Flyer Knows. That There Is This Special World In Which We Dwell That's Not Marked By Boundaries, It's Not A Map. We're Not Hedged About With Walls And Desks. So Often In An Office The Very Worst Thing That Can Happen Is You Could Drop Your Pencil. Out There's A Reminder That Are A Lot Worse Things, And A Lot Greater Rewards.
Wall
Order
Office
The First Prerequisite Of An Advanced Being Is A Sense Of Humor.
Firsts
Sense Of Humor
Prerequisites
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
Long
Realizing
One Must First Learn To Fall If One Would Fly.
Fall
Firsts
Ifs
Do You Ever Have The Feeling You're A Tourist On Earth?
Feelings
Tourists
Earth
Everybody Is Given A Dream... You May Have To Work For It However.
Dream
Swimming
May
Think About These Once In Awhile, And Watch Your Answers Change.
Thinking
Watches
Answers
The One Thing We Fear Most Is The One Thing That Is Not Possible: We Cannot Die, We Cannot Be Destroyed.
Immortality
Dies
One Thing
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.
Inspirational
Deserving It
Matter
Strong Beliefs Win Strong Men, And Then Make Them Stronger.
Being Strong
Believe
Winning
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.
Marriage
Hope
World
We Thought Humble And Proud At The Same Time, All At Once In Love Again With This Painful Bittersweet Lovely Thing Called Flight.
Sweet Love
Humble
Lovely
You Are Led, When You Share Your Loves, To An Enchanted Life Of Inner Happiness, Which Unsharing Others Cannot Know.
Enchanted
Share
Inner Happiness
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.
Wall
Moving
Way
The Opposite Of Loneliness Is Not Togetherness , It's Intimacy.
Love
Life
Loneliness
I Think Our Learning Lies Along The Path Of Whatever It Is We Love.
Spiritual
Lying
Thinking
Happiness Is The Reward We Get For Living To The Highest Right We Know.
Rewards
Knows
Highest
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.
Expression
Perfect
Rebuilding
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.
Fake People
Truth
Integrity
The Simplest Things Are Often The Truest.
Simple
Simplicity
Less Is More
The Only Thing That Shatters Dreams Is Compromise.
Dream
Compromise
Our Soulmate Is The One Who Makes Life Come To Life.
Anniversary
Soulmate
Soul Mate
Care About Understanding And Before You Know It, In Just A Few Decades, You'll Have A System Of Thinking That Gives You Answers Whenever You Ask.
Education
Thinking
Giving
To Learn Anything, You Must Put Aside The Safety Of Your Ignorance.
Ignorance
Safety
You Wait A Lifetime To Meet Someone Who Understands You, Accepts You As You Are. At The End, You Find That Someone, All Along, Has Been You.
Waiting
Lifetime
Accepting
You've Given Up Your Whole Life To Be The Person You Are Now. Is It Worth It?
Given
Whole Life
Persons
How Easy It Is To Be Compassionate When It's Yourself You See In Trouble.
Trouble
Easy
Compassionate
A Moment Later Jonathan's Body Wavered In The Air, Shimmering, And Began To Go Transparent. "don't Let Them Spread Silly Rumors About Me, Or Make Me A God. O.k., Fletch? I'm A Seagull. I Like To Fly, Maybe...
Silly
Air
Rumor
Hell Is A Place, A Time, A Consciousness, In Which There Is No Love.
Inspiration
Consciousness
Hell
Don't Turn Away From Possible Futures Before You're Certain You Don't Have Anything To Learn From Them.
Certain
Turns
Illusions Of Life
Passionately Obsessed By Anything We Love - An Avalanche Of Magic Flattens The Way Ahead, Levels, Rules, Reasons, Dissents, Bears Us With It Over Chasms, Fears, Doubts. Without The Power Of That Love.
Fear
Magic
Doubt
The World's Crazy, When It Comes To Beauty.
Beauty
Crazy
World
Children Are Not Our Property, And They Are Not Ours To Control Any More That We Were Our Parents' Property Or Theirs To Control.
Children
Parent
Parents Love
Thousands Of Volumes Have Been Written About Aviation, But We Do Not Automatically Have Thousands Of True And Special Friends In Their Authors. That Rare Writer Who Comes Alive On A Page Does It By Giving Of Himself, By Writing Of Meanings, And Not Just Of Fact Or Of Things That Have Happened To Him. The Writers Of Flight Who Have Done This Are Usually Found Together In A Special Section On Private Bookshelves.
Writing
Airplane
Giving
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.
Writing
Thinking
Keys
There’s No Disaster That Can’t Become A Blessing, And No Blessing That Can’t Become A Disaster.
Blessed
Blessing
Opportunity
Grief Is No More Necessary When We Understand Death Than Fear Is Necessary When We Understand Flying.
Grief
Flying
Sorrow
Your Harshest Truths Are Dreams, And Your Gentlest Dreams Are True.
Dream
I Don't Want To Do Business With Those Who Don't Make A Profit, Because They Can't Give The Best Service.
Inspirational
Business
Service Culture
Learning Is Finding Out What You Already Know.
Education
Learning Knowledge
Doers
Nothing Happens By Chance, My Friend... No Such Thing As Luck.
Destiny
Luck
Chance
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.
Reality
Our World
Light
Listen,' He Said. 'it's Important. We Are All. Free. To Do. Whatever. We Want. To Do.
Important
Want
Said
That’s Why Love Stories Don’t Have Endings! They Don’t Have Endings Because Love Doesn’t End.
Stories
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Love Story
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!
Princess
Adventure
Thinking
The Great Thing About Writing Is, If You Don't Like The World, We'll Create A Different One.
Writing
Different
World
In Order To Live Free And Happily You Must Sacrifice Boredom. It Is Not Always An Easy Sacrifice.
Happiness
Spiritual
Sacrifice
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.
Love
Life
Happiness
Don't Fear Change. It's Always For The Best.
Uplifting
Some Choices We Live Not Only Once But A Thousand Times Over, Remembering Them For The Rest Of Our Lives.
Choices
Remember
Life Decision
You Teach Best What You Most Need To Learn.
Education
Wisdom
Teaching
In The United States Christmas Has Become The Rape Of An Idea.
Ideas
United States
States
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!
Ignorance
Fishing
Skills
We [americans] Are Game-playing, Fun-loving Creatures; We Are The Otters Of The Universe.
Fun
Games
Otters
You Can't Solve Problems For Someone Whose Problem Is That They Don't Want Problems Solved.
Inspirational
Spiritual
Want
Perspective - Use It Or Lose It.
Use It Or Lose It
Perspective
Use
If You Love Someone, Set Them Free. If They Come Back They're Yours; If They Don't They Never Were.
Love
Inspirational
Moving On
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.
Hiking
Long
Perspective
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.
Reading
Book
Knives
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.
Dream
Lying
Believe
Jonathan Livingston Seagull . . . Was No Ordinary Bird. Most Gulls Don't Bother To Learn More Than The Simplest Facts Of Flight How To Get From Shore To Food And Back Again. For Most Gulls, It Is Not Flying That Matters, But Eating. For This Gull, Though, It Was Not Eating That Mattered, But Flight. More Than Anything Else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull Loved To Fly.
Inspirational
Bird
Flying
Fail At Love, And The Other Tests Don't Matter.
Love
Tests
Matter
He Moves Not Through Distance, But Through The Ranges Of Satisfaction That Come From Hauling Himself Up Into The Air With Complete And Utter Control; From Knowing Himself And Knowing His Airplane So Well That He Can Come Somewhere Close To Touching, In His Own Special And Solitary Way, That Thing That Is Called Perfection.
Distance
Moving
Airplane
The More I Want To Get Something Done, The Less I Call It Work.
Inspirational
Motivational
Positive
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.
Life
Believe
Thinking
Every Real Teacher Is Myself In Disguise.
Teacher
Real
Teaching
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.
Beautiful
Character
Choices
The Worst Lies Are The Lies We Tell Ourselves. We Live In Denial Of What We Do, Even What We Think. We Do This Because We're Afraid.we Fear We Will Not Find Love,and When We Find It We Fear We'll Lose It. We Fear That If We Don't Have Love We Will Be Unhappy.
Love
Fear
Lying
If It's Never Our Fault, We Can't Take Responsibility For It. If We Can't Take Responsibility For It, We'll Always Be Its Victim.
Responsibility
Faults
Victim
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.
Struggle
Artist
Reality
A Soulmate Is Someone Who Has Locks That Fit Our Keys, And Keys To Fit Our Locks.
Soulmate
Keys
Soul Mate
The Meaning I Picked, The One That Changed My Life: Overcome Fear, Behold Wonder.
Fear
Overcoming
Wonder
A Drug For Everything Is Madness. Legal Or Not, Prescribed Or Not, Over-counter Under-counter Bought For Blood On Street-corners-every Pill Separates Us From Knowing Our Own Completion And From Being Taught By What's True.
Blood
Knowing
Drug
Thought Plus Belief Equals Manifestation.
Belief
Plus
Manifestation
The Best Way To Pay For A Lovely Moment Is To Enjoy It.
Love
Good Morning
Happiness
Sometimes When You Say Goodbye, That's The Right Thing To Do In A Relationship.
Goodbye
Sometimes
Things To Do
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.
Inspirational
Blessing
Disaster
The Man Who Flies An Airplane ... Must Believe In The Unseen.
Believe
Airplane
Men
When We Come To The Last Moment Of This Lifetime And We Look Back Across It, The Only Thing That's Going To Matter Is 'what Is The Quality Of Our Love?'
Love
Life
Quality
Nobody Comes To Earth To Dodge Problems. We Come Here To Take 'em On.
Ems
Earth
Dodge
Did You Ever Feel That You Were Missing Someone You Had Never Met?
Missing Someone
Missing
Mets
Two Things I Do Value A Lot, Intimacy And The Capacity For Joy, Didn't Seem To Be On Anyone Else S List. I Felt Like The Stranger In A Strange Land, And Decided I'd Better Not Marry The Natives.
Marriage
Land
Two
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.
Wisdom
Failure
Learning
How Much To Learn If We Could Spend One Hour, Spend Twenty Minutes, With The Us We Will Become! How Much Could We Say To The Us We Were.
Twenties
Hours
Minutes
Before You'll Change, Something Important Must Be At Risk.
Risk
Important
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.
Animal
Light
Talking
I Like That You Can Open Up Any One Of My Books Anywhere And Immediately Be Lost. I Just Love Them So Much.
Book
Lost
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.
Believe
Ignorance
Butterfly
Avoid Problems, And You'll Never Be The One Who Overcame Them.
Inspirational
Growth
Problem
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!
Children
Ideas
Different
Navigate By The Same Star, Unwilling To Change, And You Find Yourself Not Only Off-course But Lost.
Change
Stars
Finding Yourself
When We're Born On This Planet, We're Taught To Believe That What We See Is Real. But As We Grow In Understanding, We Recognize First That We've Been Hypnotized By That Reaching, And Second That It's Within Our Power To De-hypnotize Ourselves. And As We Do That, The Illusion Appears To Change, To Come In Harmony With What We Most Value. If We Most Value Love, We Will Begin To See More And More Love And Joy And Adventure-creative Expressions Of Life Shimmering Everywhere Around Us.
Real
Believe
Adventure
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.
Discovery
Giving
Brave
Humanity Is Not A Gift Of Nature, It Is A Spiritual Achievement To Be Earned.
Spiritual
Nature
Achievement
Build An Inner Place To Protect Your Truth.
Protect
Playgrounds
You Are Always Free To Change Your Mind And Choose A Different Future, Or A Different Past.
Inspirational
Positive
Future
Next To ‘god’, ‘love’ Is The Word Most Mangled In Every Language.
Love Is
Next
Language
You Seek Problems Because You Need Their Gifts.
Needs
Problem
Small Gifts
That She Won The Game Startled Me Cold. The Way She Won, The Pattern Of Her Thought On The Chessboard, Charmed Me Warm Again And Then Some.
Games
Patterns
Chess
Your Friends Will Know You Better In The First Minute You Meet Than Your Acquaintances Will Know You In A Thousand Years.
Life
Friendship
Best Friend
The Original Sin Is To Limit The Is. Don't.
Limits
Sin
Messiah
Ask Yourself The Secret Of Your Success. Listen To Your Answer, And Practice It.
Success
Practice
Secret
Individuals Somehow Are Led To Find My Books At Times That Are Important To Them. The Mail That I Get Very, Very Often Will Say, "i Was At A Difficult Time In My Life, And Someone Gave Me A Copy."
Book
Important
Mail
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.
Mother
Children
Father
Allow The World To Live As It Chooses, And Allow Yourself To Live As You Choose.
Bullying
Kids
Not Caring
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.
Stars
Writing
Thinking
Within Each Of Us Lies The Power Of Our Consent To Health And Sickness, To Riches And Poverty, To Freedom And To Slavery. It Is We Who Control These, And Not Another.
Inspirational
Motivational
Lying
Flying Prevails Whenever A Man And His Airplane Are Put To A Test Of Maximum Performance.
Airplane
Men
Flying
What A Delighted Fascination It Is, To Stand Aside And Watch Our Dearest Friend Perform On Stage Without Us.
Fascination
Watches
Stage
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.
Learning
Shining
Be Who You Are
She Didn't Mean To Be Sexy That Moment, But Even A Winter Nightgown Couldn't Hide That Lovely Outline. When Will I Outgrow My Simple-minded Fascination With The Form She Had Happened To Choose For Her Body? Never, I Thought
Love
Sexy
Mean
True Love Stories Never Have Endings.
Love
Anniversary
Valentines Day
I Have A Way Of Finding What Is True For Me, And It’s Not Finished Yet.
Way
Findings
Finished
You Have The Freedom To Be Yourself, Your True Self, Here And Now, And Nothing Can Stand In Your Way".
Inspirational
Being Yourself
Unique
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.
Real
Long
Luck
The Only True Law Is That Which Leads To Freedom.
Law
Gulls
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
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.
Fun
Eye
Dark
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.
Names
Ideas
People
Hate Is Love Without Enough Data.
Hate
Data
Enough
We Know Nothing Until Intuition Agrees.
Intuition
Statistics
Agree
Everything You've Said, Everything You Want To Believe Is Already True. You May Not Find Some Of It For A While, And Some Of It Might Take Longer Than That, But That Doesn't Stop It From Being True This Minute!
Believe
May
Want
As You Believe, So It Is For You.
Believe
Your Only Obligation In Any Lifetime Is To Be True To Yourself.
Inspirational
Life
Self Esteem
I'll Quote The Truth Wherever I Find It Thank You.
Having Made The Decision To Love, Had I Chosen Life Instead Of Death?
Decision
Made
Chosen
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.
Morning
Cookies
Tables
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.
Spiritual
Real
Future
If You Will Practice Being Fictional For A While, You Will Understand That Fictional Characters Are Sometimes More Real Than People With Bodies And Heartbeats.
Real
Character
Practice
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.
Art
Airplane
Machines
Nothing Good Is A Miracle, Nothing Lovely Is A Dream.
Dream
Miracle
Lovely
Of Course I'm A Fake. We're All Fakes On This Whole World, Pretending To Be Something We're Not. We Are Not Just Bodies Walking Around, Not Just Atoms, Molecules. We Are Unkillable, Undestroyable Ideas Of The Is, No Matter How Much We Believe Otherwise.
Believe
Ideas
Fake
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.
Letting Go
Way
Realizing
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.
Writing
Dark
Doors
An Airplane Stands For Freedom, For Joy, For The Power To Understand, And To Demonstrate That Understanding.
Airplane
Joy
Understanding
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.
Life
Change
Home
When I'm Writing It's As If I'm The Observer. It's As If That Computer Screen There -it Used To Be The Typewriter - Just Kind Of Dissolves And There's This Whirling Tunnel Of Mist And There's A Kind Of Proscenium Arch, And Then There Are My Characters, And They Say What They Say, And I Laugh Sometimes In Surprise At What They Say.
Writing
Character
Tunnels
Life Tells You Nothing, It Shows You Everything.
Life
Shows
The Space For What You Want Is Already Filled With What You Settled For Instead.
Space
Want
What You Want
There Are Grand Rewards For Those Who Pick The High Hard Roads, But Those Rewards Are Hidden By Years.
Years
Rewards
Picks
The Bond That Links Your True Family Is Not One Of Blood, But Of Respect And Joy In Each Other's Life.
Life
Family
Spiritual
Two Thousand Years Ago, Five Thousand, They Didn't Have A Word For Imagination, And Faith Was The Best They Could Come Up With For A Pretty Solemn Bunch Of Followers.
Years
Two
Imagination
Everything Of This Life As A Mortal Is Fiction. It Seems Real, But...
Real
Fiction
This Life
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.
Fun
Powerful
Kindness
What Matters Is How I Use What I Know, Every Minute Of Every Day; How I Use It To Remember, In The Midst Of The Game.
What Matters
Games
Use
We Don't Have Rights Until We Claim Them.
Rights
Claims
If We Want To End This Lifetime Higher Than We Began, We Can Expect An Uphill Road.
Want
Lifetime
Ends
Testing Ourselves Over And Again, Learning Love And Love And Love!
And Love
Testing
Adventuring
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.
Numbers
People
Profound
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.
Inspirational
Friendship
Sports
Shop For Security Over Happiness And We Buy It At That Price.
Shops
Security
A Tiny Change Today Brings A Dramatically Different Tomorrow.
Inspirational
Change
Inspiring
All We See Of Someone At Any Moment Is A Snapshot Of Their Life, There In Riches Or Poverty, In Joy Or Despair. Snapshots Don't Show The Million Decisions That Led To That Moment.
Judging
Decision
Joy
Your Life Is A Treasure And You Are So Much More Than You Know.
Treasure
Life Is
Knows
We Look At Some People As If They Were Special, Gifted, Divine. Nobody Is Special And Gifted And Divine. No More Than You Are, No More Than I Am. The Only Difference, The Very Only One, Is That They Have Begun To Understand What They Really Are And Have Begun To Practice It.
Practice
Differences
People
There Is No Such Thing As A Problem Without A Gift For You In Its Hands. You Seek Problems Because You Need Their Gifts.
Happiness
Spiritual
Wisdom
Not Being Known Doesn't Stop The Truth From Being True.
Inspirational
Truth
Statistics
Bad Things Are Not The Worst Things That Can Happen To Us. Nothing Is The Worst Thing That Can Happen To Us!
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
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