Octavio Paz Quotes

In everything I do, whether in business, philanthropy or my personal life, I am guided by my inner truth, my values.

There is a fundamental question we all have to face. How are we to live our lives; by what principles and moral values will we be guided and inspired?

I want my inner truth to be the plumb line for the choices I make about my life - about the work that I do and how I do it, about the relationships I enter into and how I conduct them.

When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.

Some people who've read my story think I had a terrible childhood and that I was neglected or even abused, while others feel that my parents, while certainly flawed, also had truly wonderful qualities. And that's the way it should be, because in real life two people can look at the same president and one will see a hero and the other a villain.

I don't know how you make decisions in your life, but I weigh lots of things, and it's not always the purest of things for why I take a job or do this. I always try to think of the many different factors in my life, and not one is pure greed. One is pure quality of life.

At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.

The point never to lose sight of is to be guided by the correct thing, as you see it. It's the only way to approach such profound matters and retain your integrity.

Everyone has their own different life experiences which make them who they are. No two people's life experiences are the same. And mine are just unique to me.

Everybody has their own rules, and so do I. I have always lived on my own terms. As far as mistakes are concerned, I've made them and acknowledged them as mistakes, not regrets. I consider my life a success. There's nothing that I would re-do. I've always done what I felt was right.

When I decided that I wanted to go to college, I wanted to be a school teacher for 7th and 8th grade boys because I felt that was an important time for them. I had gone astray at that point in my life and really wanted to help keep them from making the same mistake I had made.

So the ethic I was taught in school resulted in the path I chose in my life following school.

Some people think we're adrift without any guidelines. I don't. I think we've had instruction on how to live.

The thing that bothered me when I was in college was that I saw myself rejecting the way of life that got me to where I was.

I lead a normal life and I don't assume there is anything I can impart to people. The only reason to write a book would be to make money, and I don't want to do that. To write a book would be going against how I've lived.

I've reached a point in my life where it's the little things that matter... I was always a rebel and probably could have got much farther had I changed my attitude. But when you think about it, I got pretty far without changing attitudes. I'm happier with that.

There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.

I think everything I have done in my life, my reasons at the time were right no matter how things worked out.

It’s terribly important to write your own history before the historians get a crack at it.

There must be a thread in everything I choose to take on, and I can't say it's a calculated thread, but I think you end up doing the work that's resonating with you.

Poets are always taking the weather so personally. They're always sticking their emotions in things that have no emotions.

To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only obey our own polarity.

I just listened to that inner voice. By the way, it's always a good move to listen to that inner voice... if it doesn't lead to a crime

You need to find a way to live your life, that it doesn't make a mockery of your values.