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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Martha Beck Quotes

We virtually never feel our age, but thinking that we should can lead to disaster.

– Martha Beck

Creating ways to be happy is your life’s work, a challenge that won’t end until you die.

– Martha Beck

All religious leaders and spiritual teachers emphasize finding a place within us that is true. People who obsessively follow these leaders instead of their own purpose attach to the spiritual leader and become fanatical and controlling. That’s why Jesus tried to tell his followers not to get attached to outward form.

– Martha Beck

If I tell a man he needs to quit his soul-sucking job, he has to go home and fight with his wife or fight with his parents and fight with his in-laws and fight with everybody, because men aren’t supposed to be happy; they’re supposed to do well.

– Martha Beck

Friends, there are many areas in which I need encouragement, but worrying is not one of them. I worry the way Renee Fleming sings high Cs: Effortlessly. Loudly. At length.

– Martha Beck

If you want to end your isolation, you must be honest about what you want at a core level and decide to go after it.

– Martha Beck

Whether you’ve seen angels floating around your bedroom or just found a ray of hope at a lonely moment, choosing to believe that something unseen is caring for you can be a life-shifting exercise.

– Martha Beck

In one century, we’ve added 28 years to our average life span – a change so rapid that our brains couldn’t possibly have evolved to accommodate it.

– Martha Beck

Sometimes a psychic tells you something and it feels wrong and others may be right on the money. It’s your choice about whom to trust, and giving that trust is something we do ourselves.

– Martha Beck

At times in my life, I have been utterly lonely. At other times, I’ve had disgusting infectious diseases. Try admitting these things in our culture.

– Martha Beck

Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we’re not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail and sometimes even when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort more exciting, productive, enjoyable, and powerful. Personally, I think we should start right now.

– Martha Beck

Comparing and contrasting is a valuable human skill – and not just during high school English exams. Our ability to rank-order things is invaluable in making choices and setting priorities.

– Martha Beck

My dog has the intellectual capacity of a lime wedge, yet even he possesses an elaborate set of assumptions, based on his ability to control my behavior through a combination of slavish devotion and incessant howling.

– Martha Beck

Most of my clients don’t realize that the way they look and the way they think about their looks are two separate issues.

– Martha Beck

Anger elicits anger, fear elicits fear, no matter how well meaning we may be.

– Martha Beck

In fact, when care appears, unconditional love often vanishes.

– Martha Beck

Rest until you feel like playing, then play until you feel like resting, period. Never do anything else.

– Martha Beck

I always felt that it was my job to try to help other people get it and deal with it.

– Martha Beck

Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.

– Martha Beck

When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you. But if you can avoid avoidance – if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises – then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe.

– Martha Beck

I cannot count the times I’ve been defeated, humiliated, or physically injured immediately after saying the words, ‘Hey, how hard can it be?’ But that never seems to stop me from saying them again.

– Martha Beck

I really do think that any deep crisis is an opportunity to make your life extraordinary in some way.

– Martha Beck

To live a life that is wrong for you is a form of dying. There are people who have lives that look perfect. They try to be happy, they believe they should be happy, they are trying to like it, but if it’s off course from their north star, they aren’t satisfied.

– Martha Beck

Ten bajillion product ads notwithstanding, your looks are another thing that’s basically genetic.

– Martha Beck

For the vast majority of world history, human life – both culture and biology – was shaped by scarcity. Food, clothing, shelter, tools, and pretty much everything else had to be farmed or fabricated, at a very high cost in time and energy.

– Martha Beck

If you’re living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you.

– Martha Beck

Realizing that we’ve surrendered our self-esteem to others and choosing to be accountable for our own self-worth would mean absorbing the terrifying fact that we’re always vulnerable to pain and loss.

– Martha Beck

Life is full of tough decisions, and nothing makes them easy. But the worst ones are really your personal koans, and tormenting ambivalence is just the sense of satori rising. Try, trust, try, and trust again, and eventually you’ll feel your mind change its focus to a new level of understanding.

– Martha Beck

I’m not saying we have power over everything in our lives – if that were true, my hair would look so, so different – but I am saying that there’s no circumstance in which we are completely powerless.

– Martha Beck

If you’re religious, it gives you a perspective.

– Martha Beck

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