top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Icelandic Authors
"If you have ever procrastinated and then found yourself energized to complete a task at the last minute, then you have used the beneficial aspect of the fight or flight response (not the procrastinating part, but the energizing part). You see, with all its negative long term effects, the fight or flight response still gives us energy, and if we know how to use that energy, then stress is potentially good, at least in the short term."
"You can tend to a garden every day for 20, 30 or 40 years. But if one day you stop giving it loving attention and care it will rapidly deteriorate. Weeds will start to grow, and in a relatively short period of time the garden will become a jungle. On the other hand, it is much easier to turn things around and start cultivating the garden again if it has flourished in the past. The same is true with the human mind and respectively the actions we take every day. If we cultivate our life with dedication, positive thinking, and consistent actions, it will be much easier to turn away from destructive behavior, however far we stray away from our original course."
"Once we got closer to the origins of these Eastern practices, we found that the monks and swamis were just as dogmatic and paternalistic, just as literal and conservative in their approach to spirituality as the Christian priests and ministers we were trying to get away from."
"In an ideal world, both experifaith and storyfaith would provide spiritual aspirants of all faiths with guidance. Storyfaith would preserve tradition and teach morals through parables and examples. Experifaith would provide the blueprint for a personal path to follow. In the context of chocolate, storyfaith is a lecture about chocolate, including information about origins and fables about positive attributes, while experifaith is the literal act of tasting the chocolate."
"It is imperative that your work habits from school do not make their way into your book writing process. I am talking about the practice of typing the last words just before the deadline every time you would hand in an assignment, a paper, or even a thesis. Your book needs time to mature, and you must allow yourself the luxury of rewriting and editing until you are satisfied."
"Habits equal autopilot. Take brushing your teeth for example. Once that becomes a habit, you don't have to write positive affirmations or remind yourself constantly to brush your teeth. It is simply a habitual part of what you do every day. That is why I emphasize the five habits of stress management, not the five rules or the five goals. If you make these five habits an essential part of your life, then you will be able to manage stress effectively."
"In our youth, we may have ridiculed the cost - of - living - index family, with their house, two cars, and two kids, but today we are pro - family. We have seen the damage done by the previous generation and have doubled our efforts when it comes to caring for our families. Our children come first."
"What I call stupidity is not only lack of knowledge, although much of humanity could be elevated from poverty, dogma, illusions and war through traditional education. A thriving education system is the foundation for progress. But stupidity is not merely ignorance; it can also be a way of acting. If you act contrary to your own goals in life ' you're stupid."
"Experifaith is distinctly different from storyfaith. It does not provide answers to life's big questions. Rather, it proposes a path of discovery through practice, where a person can come to his or her own conclusions. As such, it has more in common with the modern scientific method than storyfaith does, and, when practiced properly, experifaith is mostly verifiable within a community of practitioners."
"The most powerful word in time management is NO."
"Know this Mr. Davis. I am not crazy. I am not sane. I am not alive. I am not dead. I am not even the human being who you call Dr. Vigo Andersen. I was never born and I will never die. I am an eternal being. I am that I am. This, what you call reality, is just a collective dream. I was about to wake up from it permanently when I was yanked back into this temporal space. I did not try to kill myself. I tried to wake up."
"Breaking away from old psychological memes requires a Herculean effort in many cases. In essence, we are outgrowing a worldview while maintaining a relation - ship of sorts. Transcending an ideology can feel like going through a divorce and having to stay friends because of the kids."
"By thinking mostly about everything that has gone wrong, is going wrong, and can possibly go wrong, the thinker is bound to end up in a lousy mental and emotional state."
"Self - confidence can be defined in two sentences. (1) I trust myself to face life's challenges and (2) I trust myself to follow my dreams and goals."
"These superhero and mythical stories have, in many cases, replaced Biblical stories as vehicles for communal myths, but they are hardly any better than ancient magical adventures tinged with mythical archetypes and the decidedly unnuanced black - and - white struggle between good and evil."
"Stress is a natural and normal part of being alive. Stress - free promises set people up for failure. Even when used with good intentions and accompanied by relevant and beneficial ideas and practices, the use of the words stress - free is still ill advised because the approach is infused with an erroneous idea that will never come to fruition. The stress - free idea has become a significant hurdle on the path to real stress management, which is the balance between using stress productively and relieving harmful stress symptoms."
"Meditation is, a state that can best be described as deep dreamless sleep while awake."
"If people think they can 'do meditation, then they become frustrated every time they don't achieve the state. In the same way that making more of an effort to fall asleep - trying to force yourself to sleep - often backfires, the meditative state becomes more elusive the more you try. On the other hand, if people understand that meditation is a state, then their only job is to create the right circumstances. They focus on what they can do - relax, sit still, concentrate - and then sometimes the state comes, while sometimes it does not. Either one is fine."
"The yogic scriptures paint a picture of perfection, and perfection can be your aim, but I can tell you sad stories about myself and others who have entered into a state of premature holiness with unpleasant consequences."
"Your fundamental assumption is wrong. You think you are this vehicle. This naked ape. Homo sapiens. I tell you, you are no more human than a driver is the car he is driving. You would never go to a junkyard to look for the driver would you?"
bottom of page