“In one of my earlier books, Sound Mind, Sound Body, I wanted to develop a model of health and the two extremes were Stephen Hawking, who is physically disabled but had a brilliant mind, and Bruce Jenner, who had a great body but by his own description was not exceptionally bright. The best definition I could come up with for health that encompassed both was a life fully and well lived. I always remember that quote from Sir Henry Royce.”

Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.

Sir Henry Royce
English engineer and car designer

“Twenty years ago, a friend of mine took me into a Science of Mind church in San Diego. I had not been in a church for thirty years before that. I avoided it. I remember what the minister said: ‘God is within us and we have the power to change our life by changing our thinking.’ That’s the first time I ever heard that if you change your thoughts, you change your reality. To me that started my whole spiritual growth and then six years later I began my work with Cathy Hawk, working with a system to help you change your thinking to effectiveness.”

God is within us and we have the power to change our life by changing our thinking.

Kathy Hearn, Science of Mind Minister

“This is a quote by my mother and she certainly led her life like that. She was a single mom with six kids and worked two jobs. Even though she came home tired, she always had that attitude in mind. It has inspired me my entire life because even during difficult times it’s only going to matter how I handle it. It doesn’t matter what’s happened; it’s only going to make a difference by how I decide to look at it, how I decide to be with the process, and move to solutions, and create change.”

It doesn’t matter what happens, it only matters how we handle it.

Merlene Tally

“I love that quote because in my work I’ve had to stand up to a community of scientists and skeptics who actually are under informed about what I do but believe that they know that for sure time is in one direction. I say, look, my point of being here is to say that I am who I am and what I want to say is that the evidence exists that time does not work the way you think it does.”

Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said ‘In the coming world, they will not ask me: Why were you not Moses? They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’

Story told by Martin Buber (1878-1965) Austrian-Israel philosopher
of the great Hasidic Rabbi Zusya (1719-1800) early Hasidic luminary

“I think back to an art teacher I had when I was in college and I quote him often. He said to me one day, ‘Anodea, there are no good artists, there are no bad artists. There are just those who really do it.’ In other words, if you’re drawing a hand, you really draw the hand. You don’t just make five little bumps. You draw the fingernail. You look up in an anatomy book what it’s like. I realized that applies to everything. Whether you’re doing yoga, cooking, writing a book, or building a house. No matter what you’re doing, you can pretend to do it or you can really do it. If I’m writing a book, I really have to do the research; I really have to study writing; I have to really do it. I can’t play at. So, whatever you’re really doing, you can become good at. That’s the difference between mediocrity and genius.”

There are no good artists, there are no bad artists. There are just those who really do it.

College Art Teacher

“These are lines from the Heart Sutra that sums up everything that I’m about in terms of structure and then content. You need both. For example a table has form but also has to be made up of some material in order to exist in the world as that form. And the same is true of people. You can’t just be a body; you need to have things going on inside of the body. It’s the intermixing.”

Form is not boundlessness. Boundlessness is not form. Form is boundlessness. Boundlessness is form.

The Heart Sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
In Sanskrit the title of this sutra translates as
“The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom”.

“This quote has always resonated with me because it makes me wonder what a monster is. The word monster is often used to describe the creatures in the ocean. But when you see them, you, like me, might wonder how they developed these huge teeth, gelatinous bodies, or crazy eyes. It’s all about the context and adaptation to the largest ecosystem on Earth. And when you’ve seen these fish with fangs from the deep ocean you’ll think they’re straight from Nightmare central casting. But when you see them with your own eyes [in their habitat] they’re two inches long and adorable. So, the word monster is a kind of Othering. These are all Earthlings and what’s monstrous to some is beautiful to others. I have to say, the monsters of the deep are among the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen in my life.”

“In a deeply tribal way, we love our monsters.”

E.O. Wilson, Ph.D. (1929-3031) was an American biologist,
naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist
known for developing the field of sociobiology.
Author of many books including Half-Earth:
Our Planet’s Fight for Life

“This is my favorite quote because I understand that we all have a highest self, and throughout the course of our lives, we can have parts of us that block access to who we truly are. Therapy, learning, insight, and self-help are all ways to understand who we truly are. To be that being in this precious lifetime that we have on this planet is a privilege.”

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Joseph Campbell (1904-19870 Mythologist and
author of Hero with a Thousand Faces

“Home can be many things—it can be a place, an idea, a memory, a person or an experience that somehow makes us feel complete. Yes, home means different things for everyone.  And yet in an era where relationships are disembodied and ideas are transmitted at the speed of light, we all need a refuge—a place to slow down and reconnect with ourselves. Where is your sanctuary?  What does home mean to you? In what daily tasks of living do you find peace?”

I have found a way to live here, as part of nature, to live in my own time.  People are always living as if something better is about to happen…they are up in the head and don’t think to live their lives.   

C.G. Jung spoken in an interview
with San Francisco analyst Elizabeth Osterman
at Bollingen in 1958

“Imagine each day, despite the news on CNN, despite the devastation of storms, despite all the suffering in the world which we have to acknowledge as part of our witnessing of the world that every day has a moment of eternity trying to awaken before us. This is important as we go through these dark times. I don’t think there’s a quick fix for this, but we have to be connected to the eternal or the divine, whatever you want to call it, the ecstatic. If we don’t have that touch of the eternal that awakens this deep connection to life’s capacity to renew itself all the time, we can get lost in the darkness of what’s going on and feel discouraged which really means to lose heart and to lose spirit. So, I say it to myself a lot, “Every day has a moment of eternity waiting for me, waiting for you. Let’s make sure we catch that moment.”

Every day has a moment of eternity trying to reach you.

William Blake