“To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…”

And indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect — between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.

Recommended reading: Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience.

If we never suffer, there is no basis or impetus for developing understanding and compassion. Suffering is very important. We have to learn to recognize and even embrace suffering, as our awareness of it helps us grow.

Recommended reading: Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise.

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Recommended reading: The Little Prince.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think ‘Okay, this is the limit. As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

Recommended reading: Ayrton Senna: The Whole Story.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Recommended reading: Man’s Search for Meaning.

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

Recommended reading: On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families.

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.

Recommended reading: Pragmatism and Other Writings.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

Recommended reading: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.

Recommended reading: The Avatar Path: The Way We Came.

Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed. Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Participate. Exert yourself.

Recommended reading: Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness.