There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Recommended reading: The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Action seems to follow feeling, but really actions and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.

Recommended reading: Pragmatism and Other Writings.

For every ailment under the sun, There is a remedy, or there is none, If there be one, try to find it; If there be none, never mind it.

Recommended reading: Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose.

Virtue is our aim and purpose. The virtue that leads to enduring happiness is not a quid pro quo goodness (I’ll be good “in order to” get something). Goodness in and of itself is the practice and the reward. Goodness isn’t ostentatious piety or showy good manners. It’s a lifelong series of subtle readjustments of our character. We fine-tune our thoughts, words, and deeds in a progressively wholesome direction. The virtue inheres in our intentions and our deeds, not in the results. Why should we bother being good? To be good is to be happy; to be tranquil and worry-free. When you actively engage in gradually refining yourself, you retreat from your lazy ways of covering yourself or making excuses. Instead of feeling a persistent current of low-level shame, you move forward by using the creative possibilities of this moment, your current situation. You begin to fully inhabit this moment, instead of seeking escape or wishing that what is going on were otherwise. You move through your life by being thoroughly in it.

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

This is our predicament: Over and over again, we lose sight of what is important and what isn’t. We crave things over which we have no control, and are not satisfied by the things within our control. We need to regularly stop and take stock; to sit down and determine within ourselves which things are worth valuing and which things are not; which risks are worth the cost and which are not. Even the most confusing or hurtful aspects of life can be made more tolerable by clear seeing and by choice.

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

When a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.

Recommended reading: Pragmatism and Other Writings.

If a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries usually evaporate in the light of knowledge.

Recommended reading: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

Think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass… if we do not take [tasks] one at a time and let them pass…slowly and evenly, then we are bound to break our own…structure.

Recommended reading: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

The best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.

Recommended reading: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness. The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: “I think, therefore I am”. He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error: to equate thinking with being and identity with thinking. The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects that ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind. Enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being ‘at one’ and therefore at peace. Atone with life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self and life unmanifested – at one with being. 

Recommended reading: The Power of Now.