Dan Millman / Carlos Castaneda Quotations
"Conscious evolution begins as we take responsibility for clearingour own obstructions."
(Dan Millman)
"Unless someone truly has the power to say no, they never truly have the power to say yes"
(Dan Millman)
"If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary."
(Dan Millman)
"Every positive change--every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness--involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception."
(Dan Millman)
"To be authentic literally means to be your own author."
(Dan Millman)
"A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.When we feel stuck, going nowhere -- even starting to slipbackward -- we may actually be backing up to get a runningstart."
(Dan Millman)
"Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear."
(Dan Millman)
"You're a prisoner of your own illusions - about yourself and about the world."
(Dan Millman)
"Everything you'll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body. But you haven't learned how to read the wisdom of the body."
(Dan Millman)
"Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will."
(Dan Millman)
"Faith means living with uncertainty - feeling your way through life, letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark."
(Dan Millman)
"There is no way to peace;
Peace is the Way.
There is no way to happiness;
Happiness is the Way.
There is no way to love;
Love is the Way.
"
(Dan Millman)
"I have an almost religious zeal... not for technology per se, but for the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up."
(Dan Millman)
"Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear."
(Dan Millman)
"When you begin your transcendental training, focusing your best efforts, without attachment to outcomes, you will understand the peaceful warrior's way."
(Dan Millman)
"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."
(Dan Millman)
"There are no ordinary moments."
(Dan Millman)
"Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is...The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds."
(Dan Millman)
"Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness--if you had little time left to live--you would waste precious little of it! Well, I'm telling you...you do have a terminal illness: It's called birth. You don't have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason--or you will never be at all."
(Dan Millman)
"Money is neither my god nor my devil. It is a form of energy that tends to make us more of who we already are, whether it's greedy or loving."
(Dan Millman)
"You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability--to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death."
(Dan Millman)
"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."
(Dan Millman)
"I learned that we can do anything, but we can't do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything."
(Dan Millman)
"Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don't demolish them."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Nothing can temper the warriors spirit as much as the challenge of dealing with with impossible people in positions of power. Only under those conditions can warriors aquire the sobriety and serenity to stand the pressure of the unknowable."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"The only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn't do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart.There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length.And there I travel-looking, looking, breathlessly.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"If a warrior wants to pay back for all the favors he has received, and he has no one in particular to address his payment to, he can address it to the spirit of man, That's always a very small account, and whatever one puts in it is more than enough.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"
Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm's length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he's about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, "I haven't touched you yet.""
(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: 'Does this path have a heart?"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself. Detached and at ease, I will dart past the Eagle to be free.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart!
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Only a warrior can survive the path of knowledge because the art of the warrior is to balance the pain of being a man with the wonder of being a man.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge, " he said. "Because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy-it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior never worries about his fear."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
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A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior seeks to act rather than talk.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Well being is a condition one has to groom, a condition one has to become aquainted with in order to seek it.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Dreaming is the vehicle that brings dreamers to this world," the emissary said, "and everything sorcerers know about dreaming was taught to them by us. Our world is connected to yours by a door called dreams. We know how to go through that door, but men don't. They have to learn it.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn't use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"
A warrior knows that he is only a man. His only regret is that his life is so short that he can't grab onto all the things he would like to. But for him, this is not an issue; it's only a pity.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"My benefactor said that when a man embarks on the paths of sorcery he becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been forever left behind; that knowledge is indeed a frightening affair; that the means of the ordinary world are no longer a buffer for him; and that he must adopt a new way of life if he is going to survive. The first thing he ought to do, at that point, is to want to become a warrior...
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"All paths lead nowhere, so it is important to choose a path that has heart."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something it us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"There's no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim. Everything is filled to the brim, and everything is equal.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior doesn't know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing,
when in effect he knows nothing.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
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To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"My benefactor used to say the seeds are the 'sober head' -- the only part that could fortify the heart of man.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The warrior: silent in his struggle, undetainable because he has nothing to lose, functional and efficacious because he has everything to gain.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Dwelling upon the self too much produces terrible fatigue. A man in that position is deaf and blind to everything else. The fatigue itself makes him cease to see the marvels all around.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"
To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that's all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between the average person and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this and stays alert, deliberately waiting, so that when this cubic centimeter of chance pops out, it is picked up.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Our normal expectations about reality are created by a social consensus. We are taught how to see and understand the world. the trick of socialization is to convince us that the descriptions we agree upon define the limits of the real world. What we call reality is only one way of seeing the world, a way that is supported by social consensus.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn't permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor to anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Things don't change. You change your way of looking, that's all.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
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It doesn't matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he's clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn't worry.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior-hunter knows that his death is waiting, and the very act he is performing now may well be his last battle on earth. He calls it a battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A warrior-hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and since he has intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice advantage a warrior-hunter has over his fellow men. A warrior-hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It's only natural that his last act on earth should be the best of himself. It's pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of his fright.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone the question, . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The spirit listens only when the speaker speaks in gestures. And gestures do not mean signs or body movements, but acts of true abandon, acts of largesse, of humor. As a gesture to the spirit, warriors bring out the best of themselves and silently offer it to the abstract.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The world is incomprehensible. We won't ever understand it; we won't ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
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The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior's last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior's last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.
"
(Carlos Castaneda)
"When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites-to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance-there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.
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(Carlos Castaneda)
"The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That's the warrior's way."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect—because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything. He knows his death is stalking him and won’t give him time to cling to anything so he tries, without craving, all of everything."
(Carlos Castaneda)
"The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity."
(Carlos Castaneda)