Marilyn French Quotes

One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life.

I don't think things happen for a reason, but I think it's perfectly possible to experience life meaningfully.

I think when I was two years old in the sandbox. I think I formulated my basic philosophy there, and I haven't really had to alter it very much ever since.

Being a writer is an endless study in human transition and lessons learned or forgotten or misapplied.

I believe that this life is all we have. I don't believe in anything after this, so I think the choices we make here are so important and the relationships we choose are crucial, especially in that time when we are developing ourselves and we're becoming adults.

I want to know why this is such a part of me. I want to know why this thing that happened to other people has happened so much to me. I keep looking for the lesson.

A plant needs roots in order to grow. With man it is the other way around: only when he grows does he have roots and feels at home in the world.

In order to know what he is, a man must first know what the sum of this mysterious humanity is, a humanity made up of people who, like himself, do not understand what they are.

My parents were only one part of my lineage. I also met a number of mentors, one of whom I nicknamed "Socrates" after the ancient Greek, and wrote about in my first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior. That book emerged in 1980, as a result of travels around the world and decades of preparation, eventually leading to 15 other books written over the years, culminating in my newest offering, The Four Purposes of Life.

I would encourage people to realize that you don't have to panic if you're not part of a mainstream, or if you find yourself outside the flow. If it doesn't suit you, don't go along with it. Just sit it out and get your stuff done. Don't just sit moaning or getting drunk—I spent some years doing that. But if you can just come up with something of your own, however minor it is, that's going to be easier to live with when you're at the end of your life.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

Try things. Laugh a lot. Mess up. Apologize. Hug people. Take chances. Trust yourself. Lose things. Get over it.

Youth is the period of harsh judgments, and a man seldom learns until he reaches thirty that human nature is made up not of simples, but of compounds.

The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.

People press toward the light not in order to see better but in order to shine better.--We are happy to regard the one before whomwe shine as light.

Sometimes your higher self will guide you to make mistakes so you can learn lessons.

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself. From within, I couldn't decide what to do. Unable to see, I heard my name being called. Then I walked outside.

There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.

It takes a lot of things to work together in order to be wealthy but with a little luck, a lot of luck... You've got to be good at something. For a 20-year-old, you don't have to know exactly what you want to do, you've just got to go find something you can be great at, and then go be great at it.

From where you sit, it may seem that certain people should know better. People are who they are and do what they do whether or not you like it or agree with them. We each have different lessons to learn. We each take a different path to our lessons.

It took me years to learn that character is fate and that no one can be made over.

In order to help people, you have to first learn how to help yourself.

I don't see what's so triffic about creating people as people and then gettin' upset cos' they act like people", said Adam severely. "Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.

I think people will become more and more aware that we are all more than we seem.

Very often the lessons you learn are more important than the things you accomplish