George Leonard Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, molecular, sub-cellular, and cellular levels. Microscopic movies of these organisms are striking for the ceaseless, rhythmic pulsation that is revealed. In an organism as complex as a human being, the frequencies of oscillation and the interactions between those frequencies are multitudinous.

George Leonard
Ultimately, human intentionality is the most powerful evolutionary force on this planet.

George Leonard
For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately the master and the master's path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate - that is, if the path is complex and profound enough - the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels.

George Leonard
At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.

George Leonard
Perhaps we'll never know how far the path can go, how much a human being can truly achieve, until we realize that the ultimate reward is not a gold medal but the path itself.

George Leonard
If you intend to take the journey of mastery, the best thing you can do is to arrange for first-rate instruction.

George Leonard
History tells us more than we want to know about what is wrong with man, and we can hardly turn a page in the daily press without learning the specific time, place, and name of evil. But perhaps the most pervasive evil of all rarely appears in the news. This evil, the waste of human potential, is particularly painful to recognize for it strikes our parents and children, our friends and brothers, ourselves.

George Leonard
Running, close companion to death, summons us to the most vivid acts of life. Our ancestors (we have forgotten) ran for food and for love, love and lust. For us, a prime symbol of sexuality is the automobile. For the ancients it was the chase, the foot race. Satyr and nymph, maiden and god, hot pursuit. The mythic hunters, Diana and Atalanta, available only to the males, men or gods, who could outrun them; death to all others.

George Leonard
Of what is the body made? It is made of emptiness and rhythm. At the ultimate heart of the body, at the heart of the world, there is no solidity. Once again, there is only the dance.

George Leonard
At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silence pulse of perfect rhythm which is absolutely individual and unique, and yet which connects us to everything else.

George Leonard
Competition provides spice in life as well as in sports; it's only when the spice becomes the entire diet that the player gets sick.

George Leonard
The real juice of life, whether it be sweet or bitter, is to be found not nearly so much in the products of our efforts as in the process of living itself, in how it feels to be alive.

George Leonard
How do you best move toward mastery? To put it simply, you practice diligently, but you practice primarily for the sake of the practice itself.

George Leonard
The essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes.

George Leonard
It's easy to get on the path of mastery. The real challenge lies in staying on it.

George Leonard
Everything was God, holy; as God is total, so the driftwood branch was holy. This must be the stuff religion is made of.

George Leonard
Perhaps the safest prediction we can make about the future is that it will surprise us.

George Leonard
At the root of all power and motion, at the burning center of existence itself, there is music and rhythm.

George Leonard
It's fitting, then, that we begin this exploration of ourselves and of the world with music, and more specifically with a musical quality called vibrato. This pulsation that wells up within the sounded note can lead us to what is most spontaneous and creative in human life, and possibly even to deeper mysteries--to powers of knowing and doing which we have lost or given away during the epoch of civilization, and which perhaps we may now regain.

George Leonard
To love the plateau is to love what is most essential and enduring in your life.

George Leonard