OUR FAVORITE QUOTES
from the bebetter book club
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
“You have given your mind an impossible task by asking it to manipulate the world in order to fix your personal inner problems. If you want to achieve a healthy state of being, stop asking your mind to do this. Just relieve your mind of the job of making sure that everyone and everything will be in the way you need them to be so that you can feel better inside. Your mind is not qualified for that job. Fire it and let go of your inner problems instead.” pg. 94
“Because you resisted, it got stuck, and now you have a problem.” Pg. 52
“…what that question really means is “Do you want to be happy from this point forward for the rest of your life, regardless of what happens?” Pg. 142
“This is the human predicament. Events have happened and we continue to hold their energy inside of us by resisting them.” Pg. 151
“We think we’re supposed to figure out how life should be, and then make it that way.” pg. 72
“You can do one of two things with fear: you can recognize that you have it and work to release it, or you can keep it and try to hide from it.” pg. 71
“It’s safe to say that the only thing people know for sure about enlightenment is that they are not there.” Pg. 111
“See what happens to you when you don’t do the things that make you comfortable. What you’ll see is why you’re doing them.” Pg. 121
“Don’t you understand that every minute you’re a step closer to death? This is how you live your life.” Pg. 164
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Loti Gottlieb
Pg. 9 – “Often, though, people carry around the belief that the majority of their problems are external…”
Pg. 9 – “That’s right – sometimes Hell is us.”
Pg. 57 – “Why would we choose a profession that requires us to meet unhappy, distressed, abrasive, or unaware people and sit with them, one after the other, alone in a room?”
Pg. 9 – “If we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens”
Pg. 65 – “Don’t judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don’t be afraid of the truth.”
Pg 134 – “Happiness equals reality minus expectations.“
Pg 79 – “People tend to dream without doing.“
Pg 112 – “You are not the best person to talk about you right now.“
Pg 114 – “We all have a deep yearning to understand ourselves and be understood.“
Pg 115 – “He’s as mysterious to me as I am to him, and yet here we are, joining forces to unravel the story of how I ended up here.“
Pg 116 – “People want to be understood and to understand, but for most is us, our biggest problem is that we don’t know what our problem is.“
Pg 116 – “Why do I do the very thing that will guarantee my own unhappiness over and over again?“
Pg 120 – “Therapy can’t help people who aren’t curious about themselves.“
Pg 122 – “The hardest patients are the ones who keep coming back but doesn’t change.“
Pg 125 – “What makes therapy challenging is that is required people to see themselves in ways they normally choose not to. A therapist will hold up the mirror in the most compassionate way possible, but it’s up to the patient to take a good look at the reflection, to stare back at it and say, “Oh, isn’t that interesting! Now what?” instead of turning away.“
Pg 142 – “Once we know what we’re feeling, we can make choices about where we want to go with them. But if we push them away the second they appear, often we end up veering off in the wrong direction, getting lost yet again in the land of chaos.“
Pg 142 – “It’s impossible to grow without first becoming vulnerable.“
Pg 143 – “Love can often look like so many things that don’t seem like love.”
Pg 151 – “Part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself – to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and now the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.”
152 – “We feel completely stuck, trapped in our emotional cells, but there is a way out – as long as we’re willing to see it.”
Pg. 336 – “You can’t get through your pain by diminishing it…”
Pg. 344 – “But feelings are actually more like weather systems – they blow in and they blow out… Everything you feel – anxiety, elation, anguish – blows in and out again.”
Pg. 369 – “I think of something else Wendell once said: The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change.”
Pg. 380 – “Even in the best possible relationships, you’re going to get hurt sometimes, and no matter how much you love somebody, you will at times hurt that person, not because you want to, but because you’re human.”
Pg. 380 – “If you sign up for intimacy, getting hurt is part of the deal.”
Pg. 385 – “Falling in love never gets old.”
“Sensitive people… They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom.” pg. 36
“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” pg. 20
“At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most… it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.” pg. 23
“Every single step became real torture” pg. 27
“Those who have not gone through a similar experience can hardly conceive of the soul-destroying mental conflict and clashes of will power which a famished man experiences.” pg. 31
“Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.” Pg. 37
“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved, it finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self/ Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.” Pg. 38
“Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation.” pg. 43
“We were grateful for the smallest of mercies… The meager pleasures of camp life provided a kind of negative happiness – “freedom from suffering”…” pg. 47
“…proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” pg. 66
“It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful” pg. 67
“…the most depressing influence of all was the prisoner could not know how long his term of imprisonment would be. He had been given no date for his release” Pg. 70
“…people forget that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.” Pg. 72
“It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future – sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.” Pg. 73
“What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life.” Pg. 77
“We had to learn ourselves, … that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” Pg. 77
“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” Pg. 77
“…therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment.” Pg. 77
“Rilke spoke of “getting through suffering” as others would talk of “getting through work”.” Pg. 78
“…there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.” Pg. 78
“What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.” Pg. 82
“…this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death.” Pg. 83
“The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying these men were angels and those were devils.” Pg. 86
“We all said to each other in camp that there could be no earthly happiness which could compensate for all we have suffered. We were not hoping for happiness – it was not that which gave us courage and gave meaning to our suffering, our sacrifices and our dying. And yet we were not prepared for unhappiness.” Pg. 92
“According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.” Pg. 99
“This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning.” Pg. 99
“Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy.” Pg. 102
“…suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration.” Pg. 102
“What man actually needs is not a tension less state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” Pg. 105
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.” Pg. 111
“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation… For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph…” Pg. 112
“To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.” Pg. 113
Our favorite quotes coming soon :)
More of our favorite book quotes from the Book Club coming soon!
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