George Saunders Quotes

Happiness is dealing with setbacks with more grace, understanding and acceptance

The awareness is not part of the darkness or the pain; it holds the pain, and knows it, so it has to be more fundamental, and closer to what is healthy and strong and golden within you.

Those who are unconquered in spirit are the real successes in life. If you can so train or condition your mind that you are content regardless of what you have or do not have, and if you can stand the challenge of all your trials and remain calm-that is true happiness.

We can stop thinking that good practice is when it’s smooth and calm, and bad practice is when it’s rough and dark. If we can hold it all in our hearts, then we can make a proper cup of tea.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.

Accept what you cannot control.

God grant me to SERENITY to accept what I cannot change the TENACITY to change what I may and the GOOD LUCK not to f*** up too often

Let pressure pass over and through you. That way you can't be harmed by it.

The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you’re feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in. Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the stories that we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true cause of suffering—yours, mine, and that of all living beings.

When we sit down to meditate, we connect with something unconditional - a state of mind, a basic environment that does not grasp or reject anything. Meditation is probably the only activity that doesn't add anything to the picture. Everything is allowed to come and go without further embellishment. Meditation is a totally nonviolent, non aggressive occupation. Not filling the space, allowing for the possibility of connecting with unconditional openness - this provides the basis for real change.

The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.

Let unexpected incidents roll off you like raindrops dancing down your bedroom window.

Meditation is a tool for helping us accept the profound fact that everything changes all the time.

And let its meaning permeate each day. Whatever comes, This too shall pass away.

By not knowing, not hoping to know and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.

You gotta face the hand you're dealt with and deal with it, and make your problems be the smallest part of who you are.

What I got was not so much gifts and whishes come trues but a feeling of peace. I got peace itself, actually. And when you have peace, you can be strong; and when you are strong, you can get through what you have to get through, and not with exhaustion and frown marks and slumped shoulders but with relative happiness, and humor, and sometimes even gaiety.

Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength.

When I've been open and accepting of where I am, things start opening up.

The thing to do is to keep your mind when the world around you is losing theirs.

Don't worry about what you can't control.

I have learned long ago to possess my soul in patience and accept the inevitable.

Yes, this Purusha consciousness must be maintained; otherwise the calm will not last. The knocks and blows that come from outside cannot disturb one, if this Purusha consciousness remains at the back.

I don't let the hate go to my heart, and I don't let the praise go to my head.

We cannot find peace if we are afraid of the windstorms of life.