34 Of The Greatest Life Lessons From Morrie Schwartz

“Accept who you are; and revel in it.”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“Society teaches us to be number one, but who ever said there was something wrong with being number two?”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, ‘Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others. Ask for forgiveness from others. Forgiveness can soften the heart, drain the bitterness, and dissolve your guilt.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Grieve and mourn for yourself not once or twice, but again and again.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“As you grow old, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live…”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“It’s okay to cry.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself: All right, it’s just fear, I don’t have to let it control me. I see it for what it is.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it… Take any emotion—love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on t…”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like. In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you’re too used to that. Lov…”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“The biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you’re surrounded by people who say ‘I want mine now,’ you end up with a few people with everything and a…”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community…”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that’s what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it–and have it repeated to us–over and over until nob…”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Accept yourself your physical condition and your fate as they are at the present moment.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Don't stay preoccupied with your body or your illness. Recognize that your body is not your total self, only part of it.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“It's natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as apart of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature… We’re not.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“You don't understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.”

— Morrie Schwartz, amazon.com

“You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hold on too long.”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent.”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all good things still in my life.”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself int…”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com

“Life is a series of pulls back and forth... A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match...Which side win? Love wins. Love always wins.”

— Mitch Albom, amazon.com