Quotes About Life

En nuestra vida podemos tener muy poca influencia sobre las fuerzas que interfieren en nuestro bienestar.

Children who grow up in family situations that facilitate clarity of goals, feedback, feeling of control, concentration on the task at hand, intrinsic motivation, and challenge will generally have a better chance to order their lives so as to make flow possible. Moreover

Observing, recording, and preserving the memory of both the large and small events of life is one of the oldest and most satisfying ways to bring order to consciousness.

Those who always worry about what can go wrong might be well prepared against dangers but will never know how enjoyable life can be.

It is true that if one finds flow in work, and in relations with other people, one is well on the way toward improving the quality of life as a whole.

joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.

Yet we cannot reach happiness by consciously searching for it. "Ask yourself whether you are happy," said J. S. Mill, "and you cease to be so." It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.

In any case, an individual can experience only so much. Therefore, the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it is, in fact, what determines the content and the quality of life.

Hay tantas cosas de las que debemos preocuparnos y tan poco tiempo para atenderlas todas…

Compared to people living only a few generations ago, we have enormously greater opportunities to have a good time, yet there is no indication that we actually enjoy life more than our ancestors did. Opportunities alone, however, are not enough. We also need the skills to make use of them.

el más alto bien, que llamaba alegría, y frecuentemente confianza, es una mente desprovista de temor». En otras palabras, disfrutó de la vida porque había aprendido a controlar su conciencia. Demócrito no fue ni el primer ni el último pensador que se perdió en el flujo de la mente. Frecuentemente

As Democritus said so simply many centuries ago: "Water can be both good and bad, useful and dangerous. To the danger, however, a remedy has been found: learning to swim." To swim in this case involves learning to distinguish the useful and the harmful forms of flow, and then making the most of the former while placing limits on the latter. The task is to learn how to enjoy everyday life without diminishing other people's chances to enjoy theirs.

the information we allow into consciousness becomes extremely important; it in, in fact, what determines the content and quality of life.

El universo no es hostil, pero tampoco es amigable– en palabras de J.H. Holmes–; sencillamente es indiferente.»

When a person's psychic energy coalesces into a life theme, consciousness achieves harmony.

One of the most basic delusions of our time is that home life takes care of itself naturally, and that the best strategy for dealing with it is to relax and let it take its course.

Nosotros siempre estamos luchando por vivir –solía decir Ralph Waldo Emerson–, pero nunca vivimos.» O como la pobre Frances aprendió en el cuento para niños: siempre habrá pan y jamón mañana, pero nunca habrá pan y jamón hoy.

Without challenge, life had no meaning.

Purpose gives direction to one's efforts, but it does not necessarily make life easier. Goals can lead into all sorts of trouble, at which point one gets tempted to give them up and find some less demanding script by which to order one's actions. 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. The

Esta paradoja de las expectativas en alza sugiere que mejorar la calidad de vida es una tarea inacabable.

To improve life one must improve the quality of experience.

Even the approach of death itself can serve to create harmony in consciousness, rather than despair.

Si realmente queremos vivir, sería mejor que empezáramos de una vez a intentarlo; Si no queremos, no importa, pero sería mejor que empezáramos a morir.

In the long run optimal experiences add up to a sense of mastery--or perhaps better, a sense of participation in determining the contents of life--that comes as close to what is usually meant by happiness as anything else we can conceivably imagine.