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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.

-Richard Bach

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The Mark Of Your

Richard Bach

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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.

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

We're The Bridge Across Forever, Arching Above The Sea, Adventuring For Our Pleasure, Living Mysteries For The Fun Of It, Choosing Disasters Triumphs Challenges Impossible Odds, Testing Ourselves Over And Again, Learning Love And Love And Love!

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.

The Only Enlightened Masters I Know Are The People That I See Every Day And The People That I've Seen Through My Life Who Have Had The Understanding, At Some Level, That We're Here To Express Love.

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

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?

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.

Everybody Is Given A Dream... You May Have To Work For It However.

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.

In Spite Of My Study, I Have Learned. Every Grand Religion Begins In Light. Yet Only Hearts Hold Light. Pages Cannot. I Have Paper In My Hands. Give These Words To The World And They Will Be Loved And Understood By Those Who Already Know Their Truth. The Truth Doesn't Burn. The Truth Waits For Anyone Who Wishes To Find It... Only These Pages Will Burn. At One With The Stars... With The Pages And Their Love... One With Everything That Is, That Ever Was Or Will Be. One.

My Airplane Is Quiet, And For A Moment Still An Alien, Still A Stranger To The Ground, I Am 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.

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

In Order To Live Free And Happily You Must Sacrifice Boredom. It Is Not Always An Easy Sacrifice.

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.

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

Law Of Attraction

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

A Tiny Change Today Brings A Dramatically Different Tomorrow.

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

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

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.

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

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

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

There Is No Such Thing As A Problem Without A Gift For You In Its Hands. You Seek Problems Because You Need Their Gifts.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The Worst Lies Are The Lies We Tell Ourselves.

Lies We Tell Ourselves

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.

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.

To Learn Anything, You Must Put Aside The Safety Of Your Ignorance.

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

I'm A Writer As Rarely As Possible, When Forced By An Idea Too Lovely To Let Die Unwritten

There Are Grand Rewards For Those Who Pick The High Hard Roads, But Those Rewards Are Hidden By Years.

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.

Why? What Is So Wonderful About Mass Murder That Nobody In The History Of The World Has Ever Fond Any Smarter Solution To Problems Than Killing Everybody Who Doesn’t Agree? Is That The Limit Of Human Intelligence?

Flying Prevails Whenever A Man And His Airplane Are Put To A Test Of Maximum Performance.

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

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.

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

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.

There’s No Disaster That Can’t Become A Blessing, And No Blessing That Can’t Become A Disaster.

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.

Allow The World To Live As It Chooses, And Allow Yourself To Live As You Choose.

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.

Testing Ourselves Over And Again, Learning Love And Love And Love!

He Who Argues For His Limitations Gets To Keep Them

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

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.

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!

The Best Way To Pay For A Lovely Moment Is To Enjoy It.

Everything In This Book May Be Wrong. - The Savior's Manual

We [americans] Are Game-playing, Fun-loving Creatures; We Are The Otters Of The Universe.

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.

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 Gull Sees Farthest Who Flies Highest

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.

Never Stop Being A Kid, Richard. Never Stop Feeling And Seeing And Being Excited With Great Things Like Air And Engines And Sounds Of Sunlight Within You. Wear Your Little Mask If You Must To Protect You From The World But If You Let That Kid Disappear You Are Grown Up And You Are Dead.

The Meaning I Picked, The One That Changed My Life: Overcome Fear, Behold Wonder.

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.

Compelling Reason Will Never Convince Blinding Emotion.

Compelling Reason

The Only True Law Is That Which Leads To Freedom.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

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.

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.

Happiness Is The Reward We Get For Living To The Highest Right We Know.

Build An Inner Place To Protect Your Truth.

Rarely Do Members Of The Same Family Grow Up Under The Same Roof.

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.

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.

True Love Stories Never Have Endings.

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.

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

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.

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

Whatever Enchants Also Guides And Protects.

If We Believe That We're Separated From Someone, Though They Stand In The Same Room With Us, We're Separated. If We Believe That We're Together, If We Believe That They Are With Us, If We Listen Through Our Inner Senses, There's A Chance We'll Hear.

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.

Those Who Win Are Those Who Think They Can.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

A Soulmate Is Someone Who Has Locks That Fit Our Keys, And Keys To Fit Our Locks.

Sooner I'd Try To Change History Than Turn Political, Than Try Convincing Others To Write Letters Or To Vote Or To March Or To Do Something They Didn't Already Feel Like Doing.

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.

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.

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.

When One Individual Writer Sings Her Song Of Beauty, She Changes The Lives Of A Million Others.

As You Believe, So It Is For You.

We Don't Have Rights Until We Claim Them.

The Best Way To Avoid Responsibility Is To Say, 'i've Got Responsibilities.

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.

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.

Isn't It Strange How Much We Know If Only We Ask Ourselves Instead Of Somebody Else.

The Original Sin Is To Limit The Is. Don't.

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

Sense Of Family Is Enormously Important To Me. In The Larger Sense, We're All Of Us Family; We're All Of Us Soulmates.

Sometimes When You Say Goodbye, That's The Right Thing To Do In A Relationship.

In Order To Win, You Must Expect To Win.

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!

Grief Is No More Necessary When We Understand Death Than Fear Is Necessary When We Understand Flying.

There's So Much To Learn! And Just When We Think, "i've Got It. I Really Understand What's Going On," We're Shown A Whole New Stage Set On Which To Play.

Sometimes When Learning Comes Before Experience It Doesn't Make Sense Right Away.

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.

My Way Of Writing A Book Is Completely Disorganized - To Hurl Myself At The Problem, Over And Over.

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

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.

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

Not Being Known Doesn't Stop The Truth From Being True.

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.

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

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

What If Somebody Came Along Who Could Teach Me How My World Works And How To Control It What If I Could Meet A Super-advanced ... What If A Siddhartha Or A Jesus Came Into Our Time, With Power Over The Illusions Of The World Because He Knew The Reality Behind Them And What If I Could Meet Him In Person, If He Were Flying A Biplane, For Instance, And Landed In The Same Meadow With Me.

Get This In Mind Early: We Never Grow Up.

We Know Nothing Until Intuition Agrees.

Think About These Once In Awhile, And Watch Your Answers Change.

Yesterday Is History, Tomorrow Is A Mystery, Today Is A Gift, That's Why We Call It The Present. If I Am Not For Myself, Who Will Be For Me? And If I Am Only For Myself, What Am I? And If Not Now, When? A Brick Alone Is Nothing But A Brick. It Takes A Collection Of Bricks To Build A House. Instructor, What?? You Mean You Teach Best What You Most Need To Learn

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?

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.

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

Inner Happiness

One Must First Learn To Fall If One Would Fly.

Mortalhood Is A Fine State To Visit, But You'd Better Not Call It Home.

The First Prerequisite Of An Advanced Being Is A Sense Of Humor.

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.

The Bond That Links Your True Family Is Not One Of Blood, But Of Respect And Joy In Each Other's Life.

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.

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.

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

I Was A Microscopic Life-form, Infinitely Large, Stumbled Backstage Of Its Playhouse, Caught A Nanosecond Glance Of Its Own Reality And Nearly Vaporized In Shock.

The Man Who Flies An Airplane ... Must Believe In The Unseen.

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.

We [people] Have A Teacher! The Teacher Is Ourselves! We Already Know Everything We Need To Know - Our Challenge Is To Discover That We Know It. Turning To Gurus, I Think, We Become Guru-dependent, No Different From Drug-dependent, Alcohol-dependent - Needing An Outside Force To Control Our Lives.

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!

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.

If You Want Magic, Let Go Of Your Armor. Magic Is So Much Stronger Than Steel.

Every Problem Has A Gift For You In Its Hands.

Perspective - Use It Or Lose It.

Use It Or Lose It

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.

Did You Ever Feel That You Were Missing Someone You Had Never Met?

Missing Someone

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

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

You Don't Want A Million Answers As Much As You Want A Few Forever Questions. The Questions Are Diamonds You Hold In The Light. Study A Lifetime And You See Different Colors From The Same Jewel.

Your Whole Body, From Wingtip To Wingtip," Jonathan Would Say, Other Times, "is Nothing More Than Your Thought Itself, In A Form You Can See. Break The Chains Of Your Thought, And You Break The Chains Of Your Body, Too.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

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.

He Spoke Of Very Simple Things- That It Is Right For A Gull To Fly, That Freedom Is The Very Nature Of His Being, That Whatever Stands Against That Freedom Must Be Set Aside, Be It Ritual Or Superstition Or Limitation In Any Form. "set Aside," Came A Voice From The Multitude, "even If It Be The Law Of The Flock?" "the Only True Law Is That Which Leads To Freedom," Jonathan Said. "there Is No Other.

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.

The Airplane Is Just A Bunch Of Sticks And Wires And Cloth, A Tool For Learning About The Sky And About What Kind Of Person I Am, When I Fly. An Airplane Stands For Freedom, For Joy, For The Power To Understand, And To Demonstrate That Understanding. Those Things Aren't Destructable.

Dying Is Like Diving Into A Deep Lake On A Hot Day. There's The Shock Of That Sharp, Cold Change, The Pain Of It For A Second, And Then Accepting Is A Swim In Reality. But After So Many Times, Even The Shock Wears Off.

To Fly As Fast As Thought, To Anywhere That Is, You Must Begin By Knowing That You Have Already Arrived.

We Must Honor Our Dragons, Encourage Them To Be Worthy Destroyers, Expect They'll Strive To Cut Us Down. It Is Their Duty To Ridicule Us, It Is Their Job To Demean Us, To Force Us If They Can To Stop Being Different! And When We Walk Our Way No Matter Their Fire And Their Fury, Our Dragons Shrug When We're Out Of Sight, Return To Their Card-games Philosophical: 'ah Well, We Can't Toast 'em All...'

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.

We're All The Sons Of God, Or Children Of The Is, Or Ideas Of The Mind, Or However Else You Want To Say It.

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.

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

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

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

To Bring Anything Into Your Life, Imagine That It's Already There.

It's Easy To Live The Expected And Conventional. It's When You Live The Unexpected That You Start Having Fun With Your Life.

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

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

If We Change In Different Directions, Then We Don't Have Any Future Anyway, Do We? I Think It's Possible For Two People To Change Together, To Grow Together And Enrich Instead Of Diminish Each Other. The Sum Of One And One, If They're The Right Ones, Can Be Infinity! But So Often One Person Drags The Other Down; One Person Wants To Go Up Like A Balloon And The Other's A Dead Weight. I've Always Wondered What It Would Be Like If Both People, If A Woman And A Man Both Wanted To Go Up Like Balloons!

Flyers Fell A Certain Kinship With The Sight Of The Earth Unencrusted By Humanity, They Want To See It That Way In One Sweeping View, In Reassurance That Nature Still Exists On Her Own, Without A Chain-link Fence To Hold Her.

Boredom Between Two People Doesn't Come From Being Together Physically. It Comes From Being Apart Mentally And Spiritually.

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

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

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.

Before You'll Change, Something Important Must Be At Risk.

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

Finding Yourself

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

There Are Two Tests That We [writers] Have For All Of Our Writing: So What? And Who Cares? There Is An Answer To Both. The Answer To Who Cares Is That A Reader Cares, If The Writing Is Good. The Answer To So What Is That These Ideas Give Us Completely New Understanding, Change Our Sense Of Who We [people] Are And Why We're Here [on This Planet].

The Only Way To Avoid All Frightening Choices Is To Leave Society And Become A Hermit, And That Is A Frightening Choice.

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.

If You Want To Meet Someone Who Can Fix Any Situation You Don't Like, Who Can Bring You Happiness In Spite Of What Other People Say Or Believe, Look In A Mirror, Then Say This Magic Word: 'hello.'

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.

Shop For Security Over Happiness And We Buy It At That Price.

You Are Never Given A Wish Without Also Being Given The Power To Make It Come True. You May Have To Work For It, However.

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

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

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.

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

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

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Here's How The People Live Here, In Big House-shaped Boxes To Keep Off 'rain' And 'snow,' Holes Cut In The Sides So They Can See Out. They Move Around In Smaller Boxes, Painted Different Colours, With Wheels On The Corners. They Need This Box-culture Because Each Person Thinks Of Herself And Himself As Locked In A Box Called A 'body,' Arms And Legs, Fingers To Move Pencils And Tools, Languages Because They've Forgotten How To Communicate, Eyes Because They've Forgotten How To See. Odd Little Planet. Wish You Were Here. Home Soon.

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

Love Relationship

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.

One Of The Great Cosmic Laws, I Think, Is That Whatever We Hold In Our Thought Will Come True In Our Experience. When We Hold Something, Anything, In Our Thought, Then Somehow Coincidence Leads Us In The Direction That We've Been Wishing To Lead Ourselves.

Life Tells You Nothing, It Shows You Everything.

Anybody Who's Ever Mattered, Anybody Who's Ever Been Happy, Anybody Who's Ever Given Any Gift Into The World Has Been A Divinely Selfish Soul, Living For His Own Best Interest. No Exceptions.

What I Love Doing Is Basically Two Things: I Love Flying Airplanes And I Love Communication.

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.

There Were Times In My Life When I Said, "oh God, I'm Making A Terrible, Terrible Mistake Here." And On Another Level It Looked As If That's Exactly What I Had Done. All Of Us Can Look Back Across Our Lives And See What We Thought Was A Disaster Was Actually A Blessing - From A Long-term Perspective, It Was A Blessing. With Practice, We Can Shorten The Length Of Time Between "what A Dumb Mistake I've Made" And "what A Brilliant Choice That Was.

The Ideas Behind The Words Are Simple Ones That Work In Everyday Life; Find What We Most Want To Do; Do It, No Matter What; And In The Doing Be Guaranteed A Very Difficult And A Very Happy Lifetime.

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?

How Is It We’re The Lucky Ones, Living A Life That The Children-we-were Took For Dreams?

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.

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.

What The Caterpillar Calls The End Of The World The Master Calls A Butterfly.

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Christopher Paolini

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