Quotes from Toby

• By being yourself, you put something wonderfulin the world that was not there before.
• If you're able to be yourself, then you have no competition.All you have to do is get closer and closer to that essence
• Accept everything about yourself--I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end--no apologies, no regrets
• To be nobody-but-yourself--in a world which is doing its best,night and day, to make you everybody else--meansto fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
• You have a masterpiece inside you, you know. One unlikeany that has ever been created, or ever will be. If yougo to your grave without painting your masterpiece, itwill not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.
• There are many who are living far below their possibilitiesbecause they are continually handing over their individualitiesto others. Do you want to be a power I the world?Then be yourself.
• Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are,what you believe, shine through every sentenceyou write, every piece you finish.
• It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate;I am the captain of my soul.
• Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredomand pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your wayto the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all momentsare key moments, and life itself is grace.
• Life is either a daring adventure or nothingTo keep our faces toward change and behavelike free spirits in the presenceof fate is strength undefeatable.
• Life is difficult. This is a great truth,one of the greatest truths. It isa great truth because once we trulysee this truth, we transcend it. Oncewe truly know that life is difficult--oncewe truly understand and accept it--then life isno longer difficult. Because onceit is accepted, the fact that life isdifficult no longer matters.
• Time is a flowing river.Happy those who allow themselvesto be carried, unresisting, with the current.They float through easy days.They live, unquestioning, in the moment.
• It is only in exceptional moods that we realize how wonderful arethe commonest experiences of life. It seems to me sometimes thatthese experiences have an "inner" side, as well as the outer sidewe normally perceive. At such moments one suddenly sees everythingwith new eyes; one feels on the brink of some great revelation. It is as ifwe caught a glimpse of some incredibly beautiful worldthat lies silently about us all the time.
• What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
• If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can't accomplish it. You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.
• Kill the snake of doubt in your soul, crush the worms of fear in your heart and mountains will move out of your way.
• Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothingyou can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It isnot yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thingwhich keeps you from hope and love?

(These quotes were transleted to me by my best friend, Toby. Neither he nor I claim to have authored these quotes)