Eric Johnson Quotes

More often than not, anger is actually an indication of weakness rather than of strength.

Can't react every time you're insulted. Free people absorb destructive things and refuse to be destroyed

I don't know what should have happened in my life, but I do know that I'm dancing as fast as I can.

Love never hurts anybody. And if you feel you have been hurt by love, it is something else in you, not your loving quality that feels hurt.

But...as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like that and survive. I mean, I know it could have been worse--a lot worse-- but for me, it was all I could have handled at the time. And I learned from it.

The more something upsets you, the more it is meant for you. When it no longer upsets you, it is no longer needed because the lesson is complete.

When I came up as a United States Attorney, I had no real support group. I didn't prepare myself well in 1986, and there was an organized effort to caricature me as someone I wasn't. True. It was very painful. I didn't know how to respond and didn't respond very well.

Now you see how you are, the wisdom mixed in with all the scars.

To love the truth is to refuse to let oneself be saddened by it.

One learns better than to hand one's choices to fear. With age, with every wound and scar, one learns.

Such honesty comes with a price, but when you get past the hurt and shock of realizing that you're faulted and frequently wrong, you also realize that you are really loved and respected for who you are, and you become a better person.

You build inner strength through embracing the totality of your experience, both the delightful parts and the difficult parts.

There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.

I've learned that every single trial offers us a chance to either turn away from what we know to be true, or to stand strong in who we are...

This is growing up, having to stomp out love, this is how people turn terrible.

Everyone has their set of problems and I'm certainly not going to sensationalize mine or try to evoke pity or sympathy out of people because I don't think they warrant that sort of thing. That's my private karma that I have to work out.

As patience leads to peace, and study to science, so are humiliations the path that leads to humility.

What happens outwardly in your life is not as important as what happens inside you. Your circumstances are temporary, but your character will last forever.

You be greater than your feelings. I don't demand this of you - life does. Otherwise you'll be washed away by feelings. You'll be washed out to sea and never seen again.

As a young man, I yearned for the day when, rooted in the experience that comes only with age, I could do my work fearlessly. But today, in my mid-sixties, I realize that I will feel fear from time to time for the rest of my life. I may never get rid of my fear. But . . . I can learn to walk into it and through it whenever it rises up . . . naming the inner force that triggers . . . fear . . . Naming our fears aloud . . . is the first step toward transcending them.

Rejection reveals your character.

None of us can be free of conflict and woe. Even the greatest men have had to accept disappointments as their daily bread. ... The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.

One must not look inward too much, while the inside is yet tender. I do not wish to frighten myself until I can stand it.