Jane Fonda Quotes

Great spiritual teachings do not change, but we do. As we grow older and wiser, we can receive the teachings at deeper levels.

The biggest surprise on the soulful journey to authenticity, whether as a philosophy or a spiritual path, is that the path is a spiral. We go up, but we go in circles. Eash time around, the view gets a little bit wider.

Until your mid-twenties, you're still growing up mentally. It's fair to say there's a bigger difference between twenty and twenty-five than between twenty-five and forty in terms of who you are, how you relate to your work, and what you want out of it.

The feelings we all have as 50-year-olds are different than the feelings we all have as 30-year-olds. That informs everything we do.

I think the thing about keeping your character fresh is, when you change as an individual, you have to flow with it.

A man's interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full;so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again.

I don't think that the universal themes of love, compassion, and forgiveness (are present). (You're) searching constantly for the next step, the next level and consciousness in your spirituality, who you are as a human being and what you contribute to society or what God means to you is always a course everyone goes on.

When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit.

Old age spiritualizes people naturally

You grow up and share life experiences. That's one of the best parts of this business. You share how you're mellowing out and your new sense of self.

I notice that as I get rid of the protective covering of the middle years, I am more openly amused and incautious and less careful socially, and that all this makes for increasingly pleasant contacts with the world.

I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it but to embrace all of it.

I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list.

The movement toward gratitude, authenticity, and union is the natural and organic inner work of the second half of our lives.

Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost.

In my heart I mean well. But if you help me to grow, then what I have in my heart will begin to show.

The process of growing up is to be valued for what we gain, not for what we lose.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This 'outgrowing', as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose on the person's horizon, and through this widening of view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency.

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

As we age, there are different things that become important to us and that means that different aspects of our character come to the forefront; certain aspects recede. And that's fun. It would be shitty to have to imitate myself.

It's okay to grow up, it's just slowing down that's the scary part. Running out of time. It's okay to grow up, but it doesn't mean you have to become like your parents.

When you're younger, you tend to be reckless about trying to find out who you are and what you can do and should do. But as you get older you become more accepting of yourself, and with that comes greater contentment.

This is something basic to be understood - the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity - only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved. And this becomes a problem.

Live in this world, because this world gives a ripening, maturity, integrity. The challenges of this world give you a centering, an awareness. And that awareness becomes the ladder. Then you can move from Zorba to Buddha.