Don Miguel Ruiz Quotes

I like to go after the foibles, basically of beliefs that are held without question. If people still want to believe in their stuff after that, that's great - as long as they just have a chance to step back and look at it for a second. Sometimes, you don't even realize what you've been thinking for 20 years.

We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. Look back in your own life and notice how often you have gone through the same experience.

Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.

Some broad themes brought me where I am today. At a very young age, my hobby became thinking and finding connections.

In a sense, there's a great truth to that, but, also I was a great reader.

There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.

Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.

It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.

People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.

It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.

The longer you hold a belief, the less likely it is to be true.

I don't put myself into the category of 'rock star writing his biography.' That's because we live our lives by falling into experiences. Things happen to us. Something you do takes hold of you, and then you do a lot of it.

You have to be careful what you think you know.

I don't really read that much stuff about myself anyways, because I feel as though you then develop this mind-set of just making sure other people would approve of your decisions.

Sometimes it seems like we're all living in some kind of prison, and the crime is how much we all hate ourselves. It's good to get really dressed up once in a while and admit the truth - that when you really look closely, people are so strange and so complicated that they're actually beautiful. Possibly even me.

Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves.

Ask yourself: What forms the decisions you make? What is it that gnaws at you? What are your crucible moments?

If a person is to get the meaning of life he must learn to like the facts about himself -- ugly as they may seem to his sentimental vanity -- before he can learn the truth behind the facts. And the truth is never ugly.

One must be truthful and honest in his approach; a constant independent inquiry and not blindly following a certain blue print laid down by others

We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives.

I may not be able to change the world I see around me, but I can change the way I see the world within me.

Most people grow old within a small circle of ideas, which they have not discovered for themselves. There are perhaps less wrong-minded people than thoughtless.

I'm very honored and thankful if someone says something nice about my playing, but in general I'm very critical of what I do.

To understand our own thinking is to understand all thinking.

If I am not pleased with myself, but should wish to be other than I am, why should I think highly of the influences which have made me what I am?