Quotes About Life

sexuality, like any other aspect of life, can be made enjoyable if we are willing to take control of it, and cultivate it in the direction of greater complexity.

Subjective experience is not just one of the dimensions of life, it is life itself.

You could say that I worked every minute of my life, or you could say with equal justice that I never worked a day.

What is the meaning of life?" turns out to be astonishingly simple. The meaning of life is meaning: whatever it is, wherever it comes from, a unified purpose is what gives meaning to life. The

Everything we experience—joy or pain, interest or boredom—is represented in the mind as information. If we are able to control this information, we can decide what our lives will be like. The

When people start believing that progress is inevitable and life easy, they may quickly lose courage and determination in the face of the first signs of adversity.

But how enjoyable an activity is depends ultimately on its complexity. The small automatic games woven into the fabric of everyday life help reduce boredom, but add little to the positive quality of experience. For that one needs to face more demanding challenges, and use higher-level skills.

La tarea consiste en aprender a disfrutar de la vida cotidiana sin disminuir las oportunidades de las demás personas para que disfruten con las suyas.

The price one pays for changing goals whenever opposition threatens is that while one may achieve a more pleasant and comfortable life, it is likely that it will end up empty and void of meaning.

if we accept the fact that optimal experience is what gives real value to life, then we must conclude that politicians who strive to realize the common good are actually smarter, because they are taking on the higher challenges, and thus have a better chance to experience real enjoyment.

This is where the presumed advantage of a contemplative life comes in. Detached reflection upon experience, a realistic weighing of options and their consequences, have long been held to be the best approach to a good life.

Energy is power, but power is only a means. The goals to which it is applied can make life either richer or more painful.

the universe was not created to answer our needs. Frustration is deeply woven into the fabric of life. And whenever some of our needs are temporarily met, we immediately start wishing for more.

s come true. The time channeled into such a task is perceived as time subtracted from the total available for our life. Many people consider their jobs as something they have to do, a burden imposed from the outside, an effort that takes life away from the ledger of their existence. So even though the momentary on-the-job experience may be positive, they tend to discount it, because it does not contribute to their own long-range goals.

Nosotros siempre estamos luchando por vivir –solía decir Ralph Waldo Emerson–, pero nunca vivimos.»

People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives

And, finally, the last step will be to describe how people manage to join all experience into a meaningful pattern (chapter 10). When that is accomplished, and a person feels in control of life and feels that it makes sense, there is nothing left to desire.

Preoccupation with the self consumes psychic energy because in everyday life we often feel threatened.

In the past few centuries economic rationality has een so successful that we have come to take for granted that the "bottom line" of any human effort is to be measured in dollars and cents. But an exclusively economic approach to life is profoundly irrational; the true bottom line consists in the quality and complexity of experience

Attention can be invested in innumerable ways, ways that can make life either rich or miserable.

De todas las virtudes que podemos aprender no hay otra característica más útil, más necesaria para la supervivencia y con más probabilidades de mejorar la calidad de vida que la capacidad de transformar la adversidad en un desafío que pueda proporcionarnos disfrute.

Unfortunately, while free time might be a necessary condition for happiness, by itself it is not sufficient to guarantee it. Learning how to use it beneficially turns out to be more difficult than expected. Nor does it seem that more of a good thing is necessarily better; as is true of so many other things, what enriches life in small quantities might impoverish it in larger doses.

The lack of inner order manifests itself in the subjective condition that some call ontological anxiety, or existential dread. Basically, it is a fear of being, a feeling that there is no meaning to life and that existence is not worth going on with.

What would really satisfy people is not getting slim or rich, but feeling good about their lives. In the quest for happiness, partial solutions don't work.