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You cannot stop destructive actions by others, but you can stop your own destructive reactions to them

Vernon Howard

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Vernon Howard
Age: 74 †
Born: 1918
Born: March 16
Died: 1992
Died: August 23
Author
Writer
Haverhill
Massachusetts
Action
Others
Cannot
Reactions
Destructive
Actions
Stop

More quotes by Vernon Howard

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Bitterness is the outcome of a wrong mental movement - the attempt to force external events to conform to internal fantasy. The cure is to see fantasy as fantasy, which will reveal it as neither necessary nor rewarding.
Vernon Howard
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Mysticism is: a. An advanced state of inner enlightenment. b. Union with Reality. c. A state of genuinely satisfying success. d. Insight into an entirely new world of living. e. An intuitive grasp of Truth, above and beyond intellectual reasoning. f. A personal experience, in which we are happy and healthy human beings.
Vernon Howard
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An obvious fact about negative feelings is often overlooked. They are caused by us, not by exterior happenings. An outside event presents the challenge, but we react to it. So we must attend to the way we take things, not to the things themselves.
Vernon Howard
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One false idea is that anyone can hurt you. Events can ruin your reputation, take your money, mistreat you, revenge itself upon you, deceive, betray, abandon you, but cannot hurt you.
Vernon Howard
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Don't try to live. Let yourself be lived.
Vernon Howard
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We can no more enjoy life by hoping for a future result than we can enjoy music by waiting for the final note.
Vernon Howard
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We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.
Vernon Howard
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Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives
Vernon Howard
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We never get upset over what happens. Never. We get upset because of preconceived ideas as to what we think should happen, what we want to happen. When our preference clashes with the reality, we get hurt. Rid yourself of all preconceived ideas as to what should happen. You are then at peace whatever happens.
Vernon Howard
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Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty.
Vernon Howard
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It is a true miracle when a man finally sees himself as his only opposition.
Vernon Howard
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Mysticism is not this or that particular cup on the table it is the water poured into all of them.
Vernon Howard
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We cannot be free of nagging desires through suppression. This is like trying to keep a rubber boat beneath the water. But we remove compulsive desires altogether by understanding their nature.
Vernon Howard
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Aloneness is a wise teacher. Kierkegaard remarked that one sign of spiritual maturity was the ability to be comfortable when alone.
Vernon Howard
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Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality authentic mysticism wants to live it.
Vernon Howard
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Do not mistake desire for love. Desire leaves home in a frantic search for one gratification after another. Love is at home with itself.
Vernon Howard
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Study carefully the law of cause and effect.
Vernon Howard
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Men have the illusion of having a duty to make the world spin properly, which is precisely what makes it wobble.
Vernon Howard
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All we have to do is to receive what we are given...We are given the naturalness to love someone, to be calm in crisis, to ignore self-defeating suggestions, to be pleasant, forgiving, tender, helpful, unworried, brave, energetic.
Vernon Howard
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We are slaves to whatever we don't understand.
Vernon Howard