Andrew Weil Quotes

I'm a very positive person, but this whole concept of having to always be nice, always smiling, always happy, that's not real. It was like I was wearing a mask. I was becoming this perfectly chiselled sculpture, and that was bad. That took a long time to understand.

I'm a wonderful disaster. So are you. We're all a mess. We're in this culture that says take this pill and you'll be happy, go on this diet and you'll be thinner, have your teeth whitened, people will love you more.

It is unrealistic to want to be happy all the time.

I think there's so much feeling among young girls where they feel like they have to be this perfect thing - and they don't. Perfect people don't exist. Sometimes people need to be told it.

In a culture obsessed with happiness, Americans may not be allowing for acceptance that it's OK to sometimes not be perky.

People think you should be happy all the time but you can't.

But the center can be a harmful place for one who has lived so long on the edge.... Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.

I can't cheer up — I don't want to cheer up. It's nicer to be miserable!

Over-anxiety ultimately banishes every trace of joy from life.

A well-balanced mind is the best remedy against affliction.

[Penn Jillette] said, 'If a truck is barreling toward you, no amount of positiveness will stop it from hitting you.' I needed to hear that I didn't have to be enthusiastic all the time. Some days you just need to be in a bad mood.

It's all right to sit on your pity pot every now and again. Just be sure to flush when you are finished. Mrs. Miracle

You say you're 'depressed' - all i see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective - it just means you're human.

By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.

I think loads of women have this idea that their life is going to start at some point, once they've busted all these problems of being a woman, once we're thin and we're pretty and we've got all of our clothes and stuff, that's when our life will begin. And you meet people at 48 who are still thinking that, and 58.

One of the most significant characteristics of healthy self esteem is that it is the state of one who is not at war either with himself or with others.

While each of us ... has depressed hours, none of us needs to be a depressed person.

It is a question of our own peace and mental stability.

You should be able to have happiness. If you don't have that, then you're not really bringing your whole self to the relationship.

The solution probably doesn't look like the problem. If we have this propensity to worry, to be anxious, to be depressed, to be angry - focusing on the worry, anxiety, depression, and anger? Probably not gonna be the solution.

Scientists are coming to recognise the effects of the mind on physical health. The sense of relaxation associated with inner peace involves not only being physically at ease. If you are nagged by worry or seething with anger, you’re not really relaxed. The key to relaxation is peace of mind. The relaxation gained from alcohol, drugs or just listening to music may seem attractive, but it doesn’t last.

But each time you use spirit, you're more likely to go crazy.” “Already crazy about you, Sage.

To grieve for evils is often wrong; but it is much more wrong to grieve without them. All sorrow that lasts longer than its cause is morbid, and should be shaken off as an attack of melancholy, as the forerunner of a greater evil than poverty or pain.

Health is the condition of wisdom, and the sign is cheerfulness, - an open and noble temper.