Bernie Siegel Quotes

Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.

Life is a great university for the unfolding of the mind, for developing character. In choosing our life work, when we are free to choose, we should remember this, and choose that which will call the biggest man or woman out of us and not that from which we can coin the most dollars.

Man is a living duty, a depository of powers that he must not leave in a brute state. Man is a wing.

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

Choose beliefs that serve your soul - choose beliefs that serve the grander dream of who you choose to be.

Inner-life questions are the kind everyone asks, with or without benefit of God-talk: 'Does my life have meaning and purpose?' 'Do I have gifts that the world wants and needs?' 'Whom and what shall I serve?' 'Whom and what can I trust?' 'How can I rise above my fears?'

I think that we all have within us the potential for almost anything. If we play close attention to our lives, then we can get at it somehow.

The more we reduce ourselves to machines in the lower things, the more force we shall set free to use in the higher.

A true knowledge of ourselves is knowledge of our power.

I'm trying to learn how to tap into the power of my own being. I know it sounds corny.

We spend our lives, all of us, waiting for the great day, the great battle, or the deed of power. But that external consummation is not given to many: nor is it necessary. So long as our being is tensed, directed with passion, towards that which is the spirit of all things, then that spirit will emerge from our own hidden, nameless effort.

O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

For me, life isn't about being recognized or having everyone know who I am. That's not why I'm here. To me, my foundation is the most important thing I do or have ever done. That's what my life is about.

I know who I am and what I'm doing in my life and what I've accomplished and continue to accomplish as a performer, as a writer, as an artist, as a person, as a human being.

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

Most of us are raised to believe we are ordinary. The anchor of the universe is present in every child. A parent only needs to guide and step aside and let them fulfill their dharma. Help children remember that they can do or be anything.

I just think my own ambition would not allow me to sit on the gifts that my creator had given me. And so that's when I realized that I could actually go away.

I think every individual has his or her own power, and it's a matter of working, taking time and defining what that power is.

I worshipped dead men for their strength, forgetting I was strong.

I'm not a weight lifter. I'm a seeker. Weight lifting is so insignificant in my life.

I can't point to a single person or incident that changed my life, but the recognition that there is a certain world order, has been consequential. It has empowered me to do things my way. I found an inner truth by which I abide.

On some level, we as human beings can be who we want to be.

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.