You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Choosing your thoughts wisely is crucial for personal control and growth.
In this quote, Elizabeth Gilbert emphasizes the importance of consciously selecting our thoughts, similar to how we choose our clothing each day. She suggests that by cultivating this power over our mind, we can gain control over our lives, indicating that our mental state directly influences our experiences and outcomes.
Themes
ThoughtsMindControlPowerChoice
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about mental well-being.
More from Elizabeth Gilbert
All quotes →Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
Elizabeth GilbertRead
And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
Similar quotes
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
George WashingtonRead
Child, you have to learn to see things in the right proportions. Learn to see great things great and small things small.
Corrie Ten BoomRead
Remember: if you can cease all restless activity, your integral nature will appear.
LaoziRead
You can’t look too far ahead. Do that and you’ll lose sight of what you’re doing and stumble. I’m not saying you should focus solely on the details right in front of you, mind you. You’ve got to look ahead a bit or else you’ll bump into something. You’ve got to conform to the proper order and at the same time keep an eye out for what’s ahead. That’s critical, no matter what you’re doing.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Do not overlook tiny good actions, thinking they are of no benefit; even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel. Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.
Gautama BuddhaRead
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
Terry PratchettRead