Dan Millman Quotes

Money and fame are trashy and don't guarantee happiness, but we all refuse really to know it.

Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness.

I grew up poor and used to look at people in big houses and thought they had everything. Then, later on, I looked at models in magazines and thought they had it all. When you have the ability to live that life, to some extent you find out that they don't have any magic cure for everything.

I have had four happy days in my life, and three of them turned out to be illusions.

I thought, 'Write a hit, you'll be rich and happy.' Meet one of the most beautiful girls in the world, one of the most talented and I'll be happy. All of that: I'm not happy.

Life is here to Enjoy!

Would I still feel this way on leaving the party tonight? Or would I find cunning ways to latch on to minor defects so they'd start to bother me and allow me to snuff the dream till it tapered off and lost its luster and, with its luster gone, remind me once again, as ever again, that happiness is the one thing that in our lives others cannot bring.

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke.

Success - To rise from the illusion of pursuit to the disillusion of possession.

The truth is I'm not good at enjoying life.

We find that the more a cultivated reason devotes itself to the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the further does man get away from true contentment.

Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?

I think every person should be able to enjoy life. Try to decide what you most enjoy doing, and then look around to see if there is a job for which you could prepare yourself that would enable you to continue having this sort of joy.

I have finally figured out that the purpose of life is to enjoy it.

I've not only pursued the American dream, I've achieved it. I suppose we could say the last few years, I've also achieved the American nightmare.

I try to enjoy what I do, and every moment of the life that I have is a blessing. What else can you do but to be happy and try to bring that joy to the other people around - especially in the tournaments. Everybody has bad days. I'm not always funny or laughing.

The most important thing is to live a fabulous life. As long as it's fabulous I don't care how long it is.

[I] put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!

Trying to be happy in this world is greatest illusion.

I think it is hard to find happiness, as a whole, in anything. The days of tender youth are gone. I think you can be delirious in your youth, but as you get older, things happen.

Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Michael Caine is so happy. Happy and healthy. I think he enjoys life. I think he's 82 now, and I have no clue if I'll be working at that age.

Seeking happiness in material things is a sure way of being unhappy.

I'd rather be a few pounds heavier and enjoy life than be worried all the time.