Practicing Magick Quotes

When I say 'practice' I don't mean
repeating an act until you get it right. In this use, it means to instill regular discipline to accomplish a specific task, ritual without which we feel incomplete, or that our experience of each day is less. ~ S. Kelley Harrell

Some of us can accept others right where they are a lot more easily than we can accept ourselves. We feel that compassion is reserved for someone else, and it never occurs to us to feel it for ourselves. My experience is that by practicing without 'shoulds,' we gradually discover our wakefulness and our confidence. Gradually, without any agenda except to be honest and kind, we assume responsibility for being here in this unpredictable world, in this unique moment, in this precious human body. ~ Pema Chodron

My first job. Ah, the memories. I'm hired for minimum wage as the cleaner at an ice cream parlor and quickly realize that the big boss's methods duplicate effort. I do it my way, finish in one hour instead of eight, and spend the rest of the time reading kung-fu magazines and practicing karate kicks outside. I am fired in a record three days, left with the parting comment, "Maybe someday you'll understand the value of hard work." It seems I still don't. ~ Timothy Ferriss

One of the lessons I learned in all those years practicing karate is that progress only comes in small incremental portions. ~ Georges St-Pierre

No matter how hard you try, after the Day there will always be a Night ... ~ Luis Marques

After 'Click, Clack, Moo' was published, I was still practicing law and had no plans to make a career change. ~ Doreen Cronin

A rather insistent cross-examiner asks a pathologist whether he can be absolutely sure that a certain patient was dead before he began the autopsy. The pathologist says he's absolutely certain. Oh, but how can you be so sure? Because, the pathologist says, his brain was in a jar sitting on my desk. But, says the cross-examiner, could the patient still have been alive nevertheless? Well, comes the answer, it's possible he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere. ~ Ian McEwan

SIMPLICITY is practicing a lifestyle that is increasingly free of excess, greed, covetousness, and other forms of dependence on the things of this world. The Holy Spirit works through simplicity to release spiritual gifts such as hospitality, mercy, and giving ... to live free of anxiety, and to better take care of this Earth. ~ Siang-Yang Tan

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

If you have friends or family who are not practicing, give them your company and not your judgment. They need your patience and your love. Allah is sufficient for judgment and He subhanahu wa ta'ala is a perfect Judge. We are not. ~ Nouman Ali Khan

I paid you five thousand instead and promised the balance only if you made the match. As it turns out, this is your lucky day because I've decided to write you the full check, whether the match comes from you or from Portia. As long as I have a wife and you've been part of the process, you'll get your money." He toasted her with his beer mug. "Congratulations."

She put down her fork. "Why would you do that?"

"Because it's efficient."

"Not as efficient as having Powers handle her own introductions. You're paying her a fortune to do exactly that."

"I'd rather have you."

Her pulse kicked. "Why?"

He gave her the melty smile he must have been practicing since the cradle, one that made her feel as though she was the only woman in the world. "Because you're easier to bully. Do we have a deal or not?"

"You don't want a matchmaker. You want a lackey."

"Semantics. My hours are erratic, and my schedule changes without warning. It'll be your job to cope with all that. You'll soothe ruffled feathers when I need to cancel at the last minute. You'll keep my dates company when I'm going to be late, entertain them if I have to take a call. If things are going well, you'll disappear. If not, you'll make the woman disappear. I told you before. I work hard at my job. I don't want to have to work hard at this, too."

"Basically, you expect me to find your bride, court her, and hand her over at the al ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

What we do internally affects the world around us and the world around us affects our inner world. With this notion, nothing is separate, and our inner and outer worlds are intricately tied to one another. ~ Mat Auryn

I suspect that every teacher hears the same complaints, but that, being seldom a practicing author, he tends to dismiss them as out of his field, or to see in them evidence that the troubled student has not the true vocation. Yet it is these very pupils who are most obviously gifted who suffer from these disabilities, and the more sensitively organized they are the higher the hazard seems to them. Your embryo journalist or hack writer seldom asks for help of any sort; he is off after agents and editors while his more serious brother-in-arms is suffering the torments of the damned because of his insufficiencies. Yet instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked. ~ Dorothea Brande

Struggle is not optional - it's neurologically required: in order to get your skill circuit to fire optimally, you must by definition fire the circuit suboptimally; you must make mistakes and pay attention to those mistakes; you must slowly teach your circuit. You must also keep firing that circuit - i.e., practicing - in order to keep myelin functioning properly. After all, myelin is living tissue. ~ Daniel Coyle

As a practicing Jew, I have studied with Christian teachers whom I respect for who they are and what they are, including their positive concern with Jews and Judaism. ~ David Novak

Taj [ Johnson] is the singer in my family. So whenever I would be practicing my warmups in the house, she would let me have it. I could be on the other side of the house doing my voice lessons and she would scream, "Drop your jaw for those long notes." ~ Eddie George

On any given night the stars are endless losses or endless gains. One for the love you experience and one for the love you lose. One for the unfulfilled wish and one for the wish yet to come. ~ Lawren Leo

Her father had been forced to cancel her clarinet lessons after the neighbors complained about the practicing. ~ Jeanne Birdsall

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. ~ Anonymous

Secondary choices are always subordinate to a primary choice. Often there is no reason to make such choices outside the context of the primary choice that calls for them.

Athletes and musicians may not enjoy practicing long hours, but they do so just the same; not out of duty, obligation, or any other form of self-manipulation, but because they are making secondary choices consistent with their primary choice to be able to perform music or excel at sports. ~ Robert Fritz

You have to get into the water and learn against what seems to be the law gravity to float and dancing, or athletics takes you years before you develop a skill. But if you work at it, practicing daily, you can enable your body to do things that are utterly impossible to an untrained physic. ~ Karen Armstrong

When you focus and accept the current moment with love, faith, and joyfulness, you are practicing mindfulness. That is better than controlling the universe. ~ Debasish Mridha

The whole crazy business seemed to pull out of my guts the very worst in me - my worst fears - the worst aspects of my character - my worst insecurities and feelings of shame and guilt. I didn't know it at the time, but that was exactly what was supposed to be happening. That's what Solomonic magick is all about. The worst in me was my problem. The worst in me was the demon. When it finally dawned on me that I had successfully evoked the demon, and I had the worst of me trapped in that magick Triangle, I had no alternative but to harness and redirect its monstrous power and give it new marching orders. From then on, that particular demon would be working for me rather than against me. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette

Visualization is basically the process of making a movie in your mind. You want to see yourself in many different situations, using your martial arts skills or your de-escalation skills to walk away from specific conflicts victoriously. The key to successful visualization is that you always see yourself being victorious. You don't want to visualize yourself screwing up or making mistakes. Visualizing yourself losing or messing up, is like practicing your martial arts skills incorrectly, over and over again. ~ Bohdi Sanders

You're not likely to err by practicing too much of the cross. ~ Alexander Whyte

Traditional Muslims stand at the foot of the ladder, living in guilt for not really practicing Islam. At the top are fundamentalists, the ones you see in the news killing women and children for the glory of the god of the Qur'an. Moderates are somewhere in between. A moderate Muslim is actually more dangerous than a fundamentalist, however, because he appears to be harmless, and you can never tell when he has taken that next step toward the top. Most suicide bombers began as moderates. ~ Mosab Hassan Yousef

I've never understood people who say they're not a practicing Jew. You never hear a black guy say he's not a practicing African-American. What does it even mean? ~ Gilbert Gottfried

There's a great deal of suspicion and misunderstanding about IT among practicing doctors. One hears things like, 'I don't want to be turned into a data entry clerk, and I don't want some machine between me and my patients.' ~ Mitch Kapor

He moved in a dance with the cosmos, practicing the steps that would take him to the places he wanted to see. As he circled, he gained wisdom and became truly more than he'd been. ~ Colleen Houck

My family didn't have very much money, so ballet wasn't even on my radar; I just found it randomly when I was 13 at a Boys & Girls Club. We were practicing in a basketball court in gym clothes with some old socks on. Even though it terrified me at first, I found that I really liked it. ~ Misty Copeland

From one point of view we can say that we have human bodies and are practicing the Buddha's teachings and are thus much better than insects. But we can also say that insects are innocent and free from guile, where as we often lie and misrepresent ourselves in devious ways in order to achieve our ends or better ourselves. From this perspective, we are much worse than insects. ~ Dalai Lama

Gathering wool, are we? (Ewan)
Nay, merely practicing irritating you, and by the looks of your face, I'd say I'm doing a rather remarkable job of it. My mother always says that any effort worth pursuing is worth pursuing well. (Nora) ~ Kinley MacGregor