David Richo Quotes

Fate often allows a future to take shape with no regard for our expectation, plan, or readiness. Fate's skillful editing of our life choices is like the careful grooming of lads on their first day of school: combed, polished, scrubbed, newly dressed, and glowing too. This is how we become ready for our life lessons. ~ David Richo

Our identity is like a kaleidoscope. With each turn we reset it not to a former or final state but to a new one that reflects the here-and-now positions of the pieces we have to work with. The design is always new because the shifts are continual. That is what makes kaleidoscopes, and us, so appealing and beautiful. ~ David Richo

Humility means accepting reality with no attempt to outsmart it. ~ David Richo

We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding. Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny. ~ David Richo

True optimism is not the prospect of control over pain or elimination of it but survival through it. ~ David Richo

It is not that practice makes perfect but that practice is perfect, combining effort with an openness to grace. ~ David Richo

In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature.We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both. ~ David Richo

The most exciting part of finding out who we are is discovering our own uniqueness, who we are outside the box, beyond the categories in a Psychology 101 textbook. In our inimitable singularity, there is an infinite range of possibility that cannot be tied to any one description of what it means to be human or healthy. ~ David Richo

In mindful grief, we become the landing strip that allows any feelings to arrive. Some crash, some land softly. Some harm us, but none harm us in a lasting way. We remain as they taxi away or as their wreckage is cleared away. We can trust that we will survive. ~ David Richo

The way we were first loved and the ways we have been loved ever since form our definition of what love means to us. Some people really feel loved when someone gives them a gift. Others experience it when people stand up for them. Still others feel loved when someone goes the extra mile to help them. If our mother showed love by holding us in our pain or joy, without engulfing or controlling us, that will be the behavior that always feels like love to us. We feel love now as we first received it; we give love the way others gave it to us. Thus, since love is unique to each person, we read and write love, receive and give it, in the style designed by our past experience. Yet, like good handwriting, our unique signature can be read by others. ~ David Richo

Once we make our relationship choices in an adult way, a prospective partner who is unavailable, nonreciprocal, or not open to processing feelings and issues, becomes, by those very facts, unappealing. Once we love ourselves, people no longer look good to us unless they are good for us. ~ David Richo

I now understand that all the people I have ever known have come into my life to teach me about love. I am coming to trust that every moment of affection I received has been carefully recorded in me, ready for playback. The love I received from others shows me how to love those who need it from me. This is how the people who loved me have helped write this book.
Specific memories also come through about how much people have had to put up with from me. What did they see in me that made them stick with me when I was so damned afraid to return their love? Maybe they saw something lovable in me that I need to see in myself. Their uninterrupted love also helps me trust that I must have shown more love than I give myself credit for. ~ David Richo

I must admit, however, that this is mostly a book of guesses - as any book on love must be. My guess is that loving is what we are here for, that love is what every one of us deserves to receive and is here to give, that love alone makes this earth the heaven it was meant to be. The guess turns into a conundrum when we realize that so many of us prefer the signs that point to heaven over heaven itself. We yearn for and talk about the love we want. We lament the love we have been deprived of. Yet we sometimes fail to take the steps that can help it happen for us.
The puzzle becomes even more confounding when we sometimes prefer the hell of no love at all, which we bring on by our own unskillful choices or by our endurance of abuse or betrayal, especially from those who say they love us. This book proposes that love is real when we dare to become as loving as we can be toward ourselves and others and as careful as we can be not to confuse a history with someone or a connection that does not work for us with true love. ~ David Richo

In pain with you, and yet I could not go. I stayed since nothing better came along. I loved you by default or just for show, My life a whistled flat unechoed song. I groped for notches in our dun abyss, And looked for more in lonely only less. I shunned the path adorned with signs to bliss, And stood the loyal ground of wait or guess. It took the tender you to shift the scene, Bold arsonist beneath our tinder stage! I then in friendly fire to earth careen And from our props and ashes disengage. I begged you long with such a silent ache In fear of, wish for mercy for my sake. What Love Feels Like ~ David Richo

Evoke one good memory for each bad one from now on. ~ David Richo

The more invested I am in my own ideas about reality, the more those experiences will feel like victimizations rather than the ups and downs of relating. Actually, I believe that the less I conceptualize things that way, the more likely it is that people will want to stay by me, because they will not feel burdened, consciously or unconsciously, by my projections, judgments, entitlements, or unrealistic expectations. ~ David Richo

Just a little progress is freedom from fear. - Bhagavad Gita ~ David Richo

When we feel unsafe with someone and still stay with him, we damage our ability to discern trustworthiness in those we will meet in the future. ~ David Richo

Each given of life comes to us trailing many graces. ~ David Richo

To be adult in relationship is not to be conflict-free, it's to resolve conflicts mindfully. ~ David Richo

Acceptance is approval, a word with a bad name in some psychologies. Yet it is perfectly normal to seek approval in childhood and throughout life. We require approval from those we respect. The kinship it creates lifts us to their level, a process referred to in self-psychology as transmuting internalization. Approval is a necessary component of self-esteem. It becomes a problem only when we give up our true self to find it. Then approval-seeking works against us. ~ David Richo

Most people think of love as a feeling, but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present. ~ David Richo

Mindfulness is both a state of being and a daily spiritual practice, a form of meditation. ~ David Richo

Just as our fingerprints are one-of-a-kind, so is our identity. Each of us is a once-only articulation of what humans can be. We are rare, unmatched, mysterious. This is why the quality of openness is so crucial to our self-discovery. We cannot know ourselves by who we think we are, who others take us to be, or what our driver's license may say. We are fields of potential, some now actualized, most not yet. ~ David Richo

When we notice a connection between our present fears and their origins in early life, we are finding out how much of our identity is designed by fear. Is fear the architect of me? ~ David Richo

A wound does not destroy us. It activates our self-healing powers. The point is not to "put it behind you" but to keep benefiting from the strength it has awakened. ~ David Richo

I see that mankind still survives after all its attempts to destroy itself and so I surmise that it is the law of love that rules mankind. ~ David Richo

Once we understand that what happens beyond our control may be just what we need, we see that acceptance of reality can be our way of participating in our own evolution. ~ David Richo

Relationships are not about how two people can survive each other but about how the whole world becomes more capable of love, with all its dim anguish and glowing rapture. ~ David Richo

Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us. ~ David Richo

Self-actualization is not a sudden happening or even the permanent result of long effort. The eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist poet-saint Milarupa suggested: "Do not expect full realization; simply practice every day of your life." A healthy person is not perfect but perfectible, not a done deal but a work in progress. Staying healthy takes discipline, work, and patience, which is why our life is a journey and perforce a heroic one. ~ David Richo

The human heart holds much more love than it can ever disburse in one lifetime. ~ David Richo

Our higher needs include making full use of our gifts, finding and fulfilling our calling, being loved and cherished just for ourselves, and being in relationships that honor all of these. Such needs are fulfilled in an atmosphere of the five A's by which love is shown: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. ~ David Richo

We were born with four words engraved on our bodies and in our hearts: Love me, hold me. ~ David Richo

It is, of course, true that discrimination in trusting others is necessary if we are to have quality relationships. Selectivity is important for our safety and security, because it means trusting only those who have proven their dependability. This makes sense but only in how we love, not that we love. Thus, our ways of showing love differ according to the commitment we have to various individuals in our lives. But our scope of love does not have to set or be set by limitations. We can be careful about our boundaries when others come close but free of boundaries in how far our love extends. There are boundaries in the topography of love but no barriers. ~ David Richo

Bread takes the effort of kneading but also requires sitting quietly while the dough rises with a power all its own. ~ David Richo

We hear with our ears; we listen with our intution and our heart. ~ David Richo

Though most of us want to move on from our past, we tend to go through our lives simply casting new people into the roles of key people, such as our parents or any significant person with whom there is still unfinished business. ~ David Richo

The Five A's (attention, appreciation, acceptance, affection, allowing) are simultaneously the fulfillment of our earliest needs, the requirements of adult intimacy and of universal compassion, and the essential qualities of mindfulness practice. ~ David Richo

Most people in relationships seldom know what they really want, ask for what they really want, or show what they really feel. Most people avoid or fear intimacy, consistent ~ David Richo

The most baffling mystery about American democracy is why putting such a brilliant idea into practice seems to attract all the wrong people. ~ David Gustafson

Sure. I' ll go out and start drinking blood right now . Then I' ll come back with fangs and a melanin deficiency and rule the world. And also, David will
fall so madly in love with me that the Signet will pick me as his Queen and we' ll live happily ever after in bloodsucking bliss among the sparkly
unicorns. ~ Dianne Sylvan

Everything you ever sense, in touch or taste or sight or even thought, has an effect on you that's greater than zero. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Conviction is not repentance; conviction leads to repentance. But you can be convicted without repentance. ~ David Lloyd-Jones

Write something every single day, even if it's just three lines. And it doesn't matter if it's any good - just write something every day. ~ David Mitchell

The bus had a lavatory in the wayback rear, which no one ever made any attempt to use, and I remember consciously deciding to trust that the passengers had good reason for not using it instead of venturing in and discovering that reason for myself. ~ David Foster Wallace

Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it's the right choice to trusting it's the right choice. ~ David Allen

Gratefulness makes us aware of the gift and makes us happy. As long
as we take things for granted they don't make us happy. Gratefulness is
the key to happiness. Practicing gratitude is so central to my spirituality. ~ David Steindl-Rast

Child, I am taking you to The Autumnal Ball."
"The . . . but . . . but . . . I don't have a ticket."
"Don't worry about it."
"But how - "
"Don't worry about it."
"But I don't have a thousand dollars for - "
"I said, don't worry about it."
"But how can I not worry about it? Worrying is what I do! About everything!"
With an unexpectedly calm smile, Coco put I finger to my lips. "And that's why you need a fairy godmother. For the rest of the night you're not allowed to worry about anything. You have one, and only one, responsibility. To have a dream come true and have the sweetass time of your sweetass life. Do you understand me? ~ David Clawson

Liberty has restraints but no frontiers. ~ David Lloyd George

He slipped on the floor and this time his ~ David Baldacci

As a physicist, I can state that none of the 18 physicists who signed the Statement works in this field; nor to my knowledge has ever published a paper on this subject. ~ David Douglass

Since the discovery of the fermented grape, humans have experienced the pain and the frustration of addiction. ~ David W. Earle

I reached out and, with a small move of my body, did something that would change my life forever. I gently moved Amy aside and stepped down ahead of her, putting myself between her and the shadows. ~ David Wong

And my heart was as clean and hungry for promises as a monsoon morning in the gardens of Malabar. ~ Gregory David Roberts

This place of stuck - "I have to" and "I can't" - feels familiar from my spiritual work. We're told to simply "let go" - but when we try to do this, we often seem to get more deeply tangled in the willful web of resistance. In spite of injunctions to the contrary, "letting go" doesn't appear to be something we have conscious control over. Why can't we just let go into the loving arms of the universe? What is this holding back that seems so essential - so imperative? ~ David Rynick

Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most sensitive. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The boys are barely old enough
To grow a beard.
But here's something interesting,
Maybe even a little weird.
One of those boys
Has volunteered!
You're familiar with the type.
Good shoulders.
Good teeth.
Believes his own hype.
And now, just to add a little fun,
Some folks say
That he's my son!
I guess it's possible, you know.
I've had so many one-night stands,
So many whams and bams and thank-me-ma'ams,
I can't keep track of every mademoiselle.
Plus, I'm not the type to kiss and tell.
Well, if I'm honest,
I'm not the type to kiss.
But truth is, his mother,
Aethra, was in a mess -
A sweet young thing, courted, prized.
Next thing you know she's spermatized
By Aegeus, who is King of Athens.
Of course. None other. ~ David Elliott

Faith is the courageous confidence that trusts in the Source of all gifts. ~ David Steindl-Rast

I'm a walking, talking enigma. We're a dying breed. ~ Larry David

A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at. ~ David Sedaris

Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin! ~ Henry David Thoreau

He once told me, Instead of scoring thirty goals a season, why don't you score twenty-five and help someone else to score fifteen? That way the team's ten goals better off. ~ David Peace

The finite interval 0-1 on the Number Line is thus even more inconceivably crowded. There's not only an infinite number of infinite sequences of fractions, but also an infinite number of surds, each of which is itself numerically inexpressible except as an infinite sequence of nonperiodic decimals. Let's pause to consider the vertiginous levels of abstraction involved here. If the human CPU cannot apprehend or even really conceive of (infinity)s, an infinite number of individual members of which are themselves not finitely expressible, all in an interval so finite- and innocent-looking we use it in little kids' classrooms. All of which is just resoundingly weird. ~ David Foster Wallace

When watching the news, it's so easy to forget what most of us are like: pleasant, polite, socially shy. We don't want rows, we want a quiet life. We feel inadequate because we don't protest and argue more – we don't stand up for ourselves. And, in feeling that, we forget that the sort of people who do stand up for themselves are cut from the same cloth as the sort of people you have to stand up to. ~ David Mitchell

That was the way with Moldenke, a brightly burning candle with a shortened wick, destined to burn low and give off gas. ~ David Ohle

The lower bunks, both of us longing to be pinned. "You kids think you invented sex," my mother was fond of saying. But hadn't we? With no instruction manual or federally enforced training period, didn't we all come away feeling we'd discovered something unspeakably modern? ~ David Sedaris

I talk to Oprah several times a week, and I see the side of Oprah that's having the time of her life. What she's getting to do with OWN is build a team to create a brand from nothing. ~ David Zaslav

Writing is a highly encoded form of communication that takes place from one mind to another. ~ David Amerland

My peers are my role models, and my role models are my peers. Which is extraordinary. ~ David Levithan

The thing about a spotlight is that you have to step into it. You have to get onto that stage. ~ David Levithan

As Stone says, "This always on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace era has created an artificial sense of constant crisis. What happens to mammals in a state of constant crisis is the adrenalized fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in. It's great when tigers are chasing us. How many of those five hundred emails a day is a tiger?" Despite ~ David Rock

Although they will miss his presence if he dies, his condition is too burdensome to require his continued presence. In such circumstances, what is selfish is the insistence that the prospective suicide remain alive, not that he seek his own demise. The argument about selfishness can backfire in another way. Just as it is sometimes the case that those who kill themselves have accorded insufficient weight to the interests of others, so it is sometimes the case that those who do not kill themselves make this error. Consistent with what I have already said, I do not think that the interests of others are decisive. Nevertheless, there are situations in which a person's interest in continued life is negligible, because he will die soon anyway, and the quality of his life is appalling. If seeing out his days, rather than taking his own life earlier, would spell financial ruin for his family (because of the costs of his medical care), then it may well be unduly selfish not to take one's own life. ~ David Benatar

I want to limit the effects of the power of donors, no question about it. ~ David Brooks

Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Being proud of something is a very tricky word and I sometimes think it has a bad connotation. I don't feel proud, I feel grateful. I'm lucky. ~ David Canary

The author writes that the central conflict within journalist and seller of the American way Henry Luce was between his curiosity and his certitude. ~ David Halberstam

The revival of the U.S. financial system after the crash of 2008 is arguably the Obama administration's biggest domestic policy success. ~ David Ignatius

My take is that the kind of complexity which says we can always generate complexity from simple interactions following for example rules. ~ David Byrne

I'm very good at what I do, and I don't turn my hand to something unless I'm very good at it, frankly. ~ David Bowie

Producing is a thankless task akin to hotel management. Unfortunately, there are not too many good hotel managers. ~ David Hemmings

He actually preferred the idea that one of his victims had sent the messages, there was a risk of the police finding out, a risk of jail or another psychopathic stalker, but having to listen to his mother nag him for the rest of his life seemed infinitely worse. ~ David Jester

Steve Irwin did wonderful conservation work but I was uncomfortable about some of his stunts. Even if animals aren't aware that you are not treating them with respect, the viewers are. ~ David Attenborough

I also learned to play Fruit Ninja on an iPad. It is quite hypnotic, and I hope one day to get past 100 points. I remembered that David Cameron admits to being an addict. I wonder if it helps him in his work. 'Great, just destroyed a pineapple! Reminds me, shall we send those grenades to the Syrian rebels?' ~ Simon Hoggart

We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone. ~ Henry David Thoreau

These so-called bleak times are necessary to go through in order to get to a much, much better place. ~ David Lynch

That which works is authentic. It's a practical truth. What really matters is that we find benefit, regardless of whether it's an ancient traditional approach or some new version, popular or obscure. ~ David F. Swensen

Whitney Houston was a laser beam ... She always gave me better than what I asked for in the studio ~ David Foster