Quotes about Personal Growth

Education should be the process of helping everyone to discover his uniqueness.

I'm uncomfortable when I'm comfortable ... I can't help it, it's my personality.

Skills vary with the man. We must... strive by that which is born in us.

The great law of culture: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

The defense force inside of us wants us to be cautious, to stay away from anything as intense as a new kind of action. Its job is to protect us, and it categorically avoids anything resembling danger. But it's often wrong.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

I've learned to take time for myself and to treat myself with a great deal of love and respect 'cause I like me.... I think I'm kind of cool.

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

Contentment, and indeed usefulness, comes as the infallible result of great acceptances, great humilities-of not trying to conform to some dramatized version of ourselves.

To find the good life you must become yourself.

A sobering thought: what if, right at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?

At thirty a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities. ... And above all, accept these things.

We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.

A man needs self-acceptance or he can't live with himself; he needs self-criticism or others can't live with him.

It's OK if you mess up. You should give yourself a break.

Who we are never changes. Who we think we are does.

Transformation also means looking for ways to stop pushing yourself so hard professionally or inviting so much stress.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

The delights of self-discovery are always available.

I am learning that if I just go on accepting the framework for life that others have given me, if I fail to make my own choices, the reason for my life will be missing. I will be unable to recognize that which I have the power to change.

Ruin and recovery are both from within.

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. ... Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow.

You are the handicap you must face. You are the one who must choose your place.