Echoes

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole.

When you are content to be simply yourself, everybody will respect you.

Become what you are.

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be oneself.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

I exist as I am, that is enough.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Accept everything just the way it is.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

What cannot be eschewed must be embraced

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.

It would be better for me that the whole world should disagree with me than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.

He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure.

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.