Quotes from Hugh Prather

Sometimes the only way for me to find out what it is I want to do is go ahead and do something. Then the moment I start to act, my feelings become clear.

The tools of the mind can be wrongly used, but the mind possesses no wrong tools.

The number of things just outside the perimeter of my financial reach remains constant no matter how much my financial condition improves. With each increase in my income a new perimeter forms and I experience the same relative sense of lack.

I live from one tentative conclusion to the next, thinking each one is final. The only thing i know for sure is that I'am confused.

Do I avoid looking a stranger in the eyes because I don't want to make him uncomfortable, or do I turn my eyes so he can't look into me?

It seems that the truth is needed today is always a lie by tomorrow.

To err is human- I'm uncomfortable around gods.

When I get to where I can enjoy just lying on the rug picking up lint balls, I will no longer be too ambitious.

If we knew everything that was ever said about us and if at the same time we took every word at face value, we would remain friends with no one.

It's not that we fear the place of darkness but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.

It makes no sense to hurry up, and so mess up, what I am doing now in order to get started on what I plan to do next. Every moment that I am centered in the future I suffer a temporary loss of this life.

La vita è fatta di problemi irrisolti, vittorie ambigue e vaghe sconfitte, con qualche momento di autentica pace.

No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves

All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.

I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.

By approaching my problems with "What might make things a little better?" rather than "What is the solution?" I avoid setting myself up for certain frustration. My experience has shown me that I am not going to solve anything in one stroke; at best I am only going to chip away at it.

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write

I don't need a "reason" to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now.

perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown.

Don't strive for love, be it.

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.

Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser?

It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.

What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.