Authentic Living Quotes

More smiling, less worrying. More compassion, less judgment. More blessed, less stressed. More love, less hate.

~ Roy T. Bennett

We are all different. Don’t judge, understand instead.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Don't let the expectations and opinions of other people affect your decisions. It's your life, not theirs. Do what matters most to you; do what makes you feel alive and happy. Don't let the expectations and ideas of others limit who you are. If you let others tell you who you are, you are living their reality — not yours. There is more to life than pleasing people. There is much more to life than following others' prescribed path. There is so much more to life than what you experience right now. You need to decide who you are for yourself. Become a whole being. Adventure.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Keep GoingYour hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses.Focus on your character, not your reputation.Focus on your blessings, not your misfortunes.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Be Brave and Take Risks: You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward.

~ Roy T. Bennett

The outer world is a reflection of the inner world. Other people’s perception of you is a reflection of them, your response to them is an awareness of you.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Focus on your goals, not your fear. Focus like a laser beam on your goals.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Good things happen in your life when you surround yourself with positive people.

~ Roy T. Bennett

If you don't know who you truly are, you'll never know what you really want.

~ Roy T. Bennett

It doesn't matter how many people you meet in your life, you just need the real ones who accept you for who you are and help you become who you should be.

~ Roy T. Bennett

You were born to stand out, stop trying to fit in.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Enthusiasm can help you find the new doors, but it takes passion to open them. If you have a strong purpose in life, you don't have to be pushed. Your passion will drive you there.

~ Roy T. Bennett

What other people think and say about you is none of your business. The most destructive thing you would ever do is to believe someone else's opinion of you. You have to stop letting other people's opinions control you.

~ Roy T. Bennett

You were not born on earth to please anyone; you have to live life to express yourself, not to impress someone. Don't pretend to be someone you're not, and never lose yourself in search of other people's acceptance and approval.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Stop comparing yourself to others. Always strive to improve yourself to become better today than you were yesterday to serve those around you and the world.

~ Roy T. Bennett

The more you believed in yourself, the more you could trust yourself. The more you trust yourself, the less you compare yourself to others.

~ Roy T. Bennett

You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward.

~ Roy T. Bennett

When you open your mind, you open new doors to new possibilities for yourself and new opportunities to help others.

~ Roy T. Bennett

Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.

~ Roy Bennett

Embrace being perfectly imperfect. Learn from your mistakes and forgive yourself, you’ll be happier.

~ Roy Bennett

Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, focus your energy on what you can create.

~ Roy Bennett

When it comes to loving people, let's not allow it to be something we do on the side. Let's make it a lifestyle. Whether we are at the gas station, picking up groceries, even waiting to get our car repaired, there is always an open opportunity to love someone in need.

~ Jarrid Wilson

We need to insist on making culture out of our desire: making paintings, novels, plays and films potent and seductive and authentic enough to undermine and overwhelm the Iron Maiden.

~ Naomi Wolf

Too many people spend their life in fear of making a mistake. However, here is the truth: Fear is the mistake. If you block out all the doubts and listen only to what you feel in your heart, then follow that course, you waste less time in indecision and spend more time being authentic. Life is too short to settle for parttime happiness.

~ Shannon L. Alder

The last thing this world needs is another self-help or feel-good faith book, seven simple steps to whatever. Just the thought makes my stomach turn. The truth is that life is far too complex to be put in a box, labeled, and have the appropriate manual attached. I wonder, have these people who seem to have all the answers ever really experienced hardship or grief, true joy, or adventure? Have they ever really lived? For those of us who venture outside the cookie cutter lives that many settle for, a superficial, plastic faith with the corresponding instruction booklet will do nothing. When we take the brave step from the comfortable mainstream into the unknown, we quickly discover that we are all just travelers on a journey trying to find our way.

~ Erik Mirandette

It takes courage to dream, to face our futures and the limiting forces within us. It takes courage to be determined that, as we slow down physically, we are going to grow even more psychologically and spiritually. Courage, the philosopher Aristotle taught us, is the most important of all the virtues, because without it we can’t practice any of the others. Courage is the nearest star that can guide our growth. Maya Angelou said we must be courageous about facing and exploring our personal histories. We must find the courage to care and to create internally, as well as externally, and as she said, we need the courage “to create ourselves daily as Christians, as Jews, as Muslims, as thinking, caring, laughing, loving human beings.

~ Bud Harris

You will never change, unless you are honest with yourself or you are forced to be authentic by someone that was honest with him or herself.

~ Shannon L. Alder

When Dr. Jung said we must be able to look forward in old age to the next day and to look forward to the great adventure that is ahead, he was making life’s “imperative to grow” personal. As long as we are alive, we must be able to dream of the future, of a better world or better ways of life. We are also invited by our greater Self to dream new dreams of creativity and fresh ways of expressing ourselves, as many great artists have into their nineties.

~ Bud Harris

Writing is mental exercise and the preeminent method to train the mind to achieve a desirable state of mental quietude. Meditative writing, a single pointed concentration of mental activity, induces an altered state of consciousness. Writing is studious rumination, a means to converse with our personal muse. Writing entails a period of forced solitude that enables us to meet and conduct a searching conversation with our authentic self. This contemplative dialogue with our true self is transformational. Writing is not a mere act but a journey of the mind into heretofore-unknown frontiers of the self.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

By no longer relying on approval from others for (false) reassurance or acceptance, you access a Divine channel of freedom.

~ Maria Flynn

If we are unfaithful to true self, we will extract a price from others. We will make promises we cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that devolve into nightmares, and other people will suffer - if we are unfaithful to true self.

~ Parker J. Palmer

Getting into the habit of changing who you are to please others, is setting a lifetime marathon of running away from yourself.

~ Dr. Jacinta Mpalyenkana

Often, our relationships become an unrealized quest for what is perfect, unfettered, and free of flaws. We expect our partners, spouses, and our friends to avoid missteps and to be magical mind readers. These secret expectations play a sinister part in many of the great tragedies of our lives: failed marriages, dissipated dreams, abandoned careers, outcast family, deserted children, and discarded friendships.We readily forget what we once knew as children: our flaws are not only natural but integral to our beings. They are interwoven into our soul’s DNA and yet we continually reject the crooked, wrinkled, mushy parts of our life rather than embrace them as the very essence of our beings.I once believed that aiming for perfection would land me in the realm of excellence. This, however, may not be the trajectory of how things happen. In fact, the pursuit of perfection may be the biggest obstacle to becoming whole.It seems essential to value hard work and determination and yet recognize that the road to excellence is littered with mistakes and subsequent lessons. Imperfection and excellence are intertwined. There is joy in our pain, strength in weakness, courage in compassion, and power in forgiveness.

~ Ann Brasco

Few experiences are more satisfying than becoming someone we always imagined we could be.

~ Gina Greenlee

False humility is a form of psychosis which was imprinted on most of us since birth. It is a mental illness because it locks us in a victim state of keeping our light turned down, denying who we really are and silently begging for permission to simply show up as ourselves in the world. But there is good news. This is a jail whose lock is broken. We can walk free whenever we know the truth, and by so doing we show others an example of an end to madness. An example of freedom.

~ Jacob Nordby

A person employs human reason and intellect to guide our earthly expedition. We can stumble through life satisfying the unconscious dictates of the mind or take control of our life by increasing our level of conscious awareness. Philosophy always commences with an act of consciousness. We must follow our moral passions. We create our reality by what we perceive as truth. We imagine a life that we wish to experience. Live the life that you envision. Do not allow other people or external determinates to control your conception of the self, because otherwise you are living someone else’s life.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The spiritual freedom we seek cannot be found by grasping at, retreating to, or protecting our perceived safe spaces. Our freedom lies in remaining open continuously, not only to Life’s changes but also to the Divine Light within us and others. This is our choice. Although often perceived as a weakness, being open and surrendering to the experience of the present moment is our greatest strength. By authentically living Life in the Now, we submit to Divine guidance where we find the freedom to see everything equally and sacred in Truth.

~ Peter Santos

What if we choose not to do the things we are supposed to do? The principal gain is a sense of an authentic act – and an authentic life. It may be a short one, but it is an authentic one, and that's a lot better than those short lives full of boredom. The principal loss is security. Another is respect from the community. But you gain the respect of another community, the one that is worth having the respect of.

~ Stanley Keleman

Living closer to the center of our being is the practice of a lifetime, but so, too, is skillfully living on the horizontal plane-the surface of life-where our purpose for being on the planet is uniquely expressed. Redefining moments are simply energy vortexes that draw the authentic self up (vertically) and out (horizontally) and into present moment awareness, revealing it to the light of day and the gifts it holds.

~ Dennis Merritt Jones