Hugh Prather Quotes

55 Sourced Quotes

Because the results are unpredictable, no effort of mine is doomed to failure.

Hugh Prather
By approaching my problems with "What might make things a little better?" rather than "What is the solution?" I avoid setting myself up for certain frustration. My experience has shown me that I am not going to solve anything in one stroke; at best I am only going to chip away at it.

Hugh Prather
I can not 'make my mark' for all time - those concepts are mutually exclusive. 'Lasting effect' is a self-contradictory term. Meaning does not exist in the future and neither do I. Nothing will have meaning 'ultimately.' Nothing will even mean tomorrow what it did today. Meaning changes with the context. My meaningfulness is here. It is enough that I am of value to someone today. It is enough that I make a difference now.

Hugh Prather
I don't need a "reason" to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now.

Hugh Prather
An argument is always about what has been made more important than the relationship.

Hugh Prather
There were seventy-five people in the lobby and only a seven-year-old girl was finding out what it felt like to sit on the Marble Floor.

Hugh Prather
What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.

Hugh Prather
I can't be found in myself; I discover myself in others. That much is clear. And I suspect that I also love and care for myself in others.

Hugh Prather
Very seldom will a person give up on himself. He continues to have hope because he knows he has the potential for change. He tries again - not just to exist, but to bring about those changes in himself that will make life worth living. Yet people are very quick to give up on friends, and especially on their spouses, to declare them hopeless, and to either walk away or do nothing more than resign themselves to a bad situation.

Hugh Prather
Letting go is freedom. When you find yourself in a useless battle, you merely walk off the battlefield.

Hugh Prather
Fears, indecision, and frustration feed on words. Without words they usually stop.... Words are at times good for looking back, but they are confining when I need to act in the present.

Hugh Prather
Boredom is useful to me when I notice it and think: Oh I'm bored; there must be something else I want to be doing... boredom acts as an initiator of originality by pushing me into new activities or new thoughts.

Hugh Prather
Next time I will..." "From now on I will..." - What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow?

Hugh Prather
The first step of letting go: To remove what obstructs your experience of wholeness and peace, you must first look at the obstruction.

Hugh Prather
Problems assault us to the degree they preoccupy us. The key to release, rest, and inner freedom is not the elimination of all external difficulties. It is letting go of our pattern of reactions to those difficulties.

Hugh Prather
Unless I accept my faults, I will most certainly doubt my virtues.

Hugh Prather
If your reaction to your partner's fear-or any other form of distress- is disdain or irritation, you do not want oneness or even friendship with your partner at that moment.

Hugh Prather
Love, the magician, knows this little trick whereby two people walk in different directions yet always remain side by side....

Hugh Prather
There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen.

Hugh Prather
No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves.

Hugh Prather
All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.

Hugh Prather
It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.

Hugh Prather
Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.

Hugh Prather
I sometimes react to making a mistake as if I have betrayed myself. My fear of making a mistake seems to be based on the hidden assumption that I am potentially perfect and that if I can just be very careful I will not fall from heaven. But a 'mistake' is a declaration of the way I am, a jolt to the way I intend, a reminder I am not dealing with the facts. When I have listened to my mistakes I have grown.

Hugh Prather
When someone disagrees with me, I do not have to immediately start revising what I just said. People don't want me to always agree with them. They can sense this is phony. They can sense I am trying to control them: I am agreeing with them to make them like me. They feel; "I don't want to exist to like you. I DON'T exist to like you."

Hugh Prather