Don’t be different just to be different. Be different to be better.

The paradox is that we can become wiser and more compassionate and live more fulfilling lives by refusing to be who we have tended to be in the past. But we must also relax, accepting things as they are in the present, as we strive to change ourselves.

You already are everything you are seeking. Do not try to become something else.

At the danger of waxing nostalgic about the ‘old days,’ I don’t want to be like everyone else. I want acceptance, but I want acceptance of my difference, not my sameness. It’s a funny contract. The cultural machine wants to chew everyone up and turn them into this uniform little substance.

When I accept myself as I am, then I change. I believe that I have learned this from my clients as well as within my own experience — that we cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed.

One should not want to be anything but what one is, because it creates unhappiness.

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.

No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now.

We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

People try to accept themselves in order to be different, and try to surrender themselves in order to have more self-respect in their own eyes — or

We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.

we cannot change, we cannot move away from what we are, until we thoroughly accept what we are. Then change seems to come about almost unnoticed.