Lars Toomre

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

Life is the game that must be played.

May I never miss a sunset or a rainbow because I am looking down.

Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.

Pivital to self-expression is the idea that there is a benevolent, interested Universe that wants us to expand. Without such belief, we may buy into our self-doubt and by doing so sharply limit what we are able to attain. We may think, "Wouldn't it be lovely" — but perhaps it could. We must keep focused on the "Perhaps it could."

What you do, matters. The words you speak, the things you feel, the thoughts you hold, and the actions you take all have an influence on the quality of your life.

You cannot escape the consequences of the way you choose to live. So your best strategy is to make those consequences magnificent. Instead of having to pay a price for your actions, you can be reaping the rewards of your actions. The choices you make in each moment are what make the difference. If you carry around negative thoughts and feelings, and then express that negativity in your actions, you make your whole world a darker, more dismal place. Choose instead to adopt a positive perspective, seeing the best in other people and in the situations you encounter, and you’ll be adding new, meaningful value to your world.

In every little moment, the way you choose to be truly matters. Make a little positive difference, again and again, and it all soon adds to a life of real fulfillment and joy. You have a very powerful influence on the world in which you live, and on the life you experience. Live as though everything matters, because it does, and bring your own magnificent consequences to life.

The journey is filled with ups and downs. Don't confuse the two as ever being everlasting. Get up everyday and apply yourself, be authentic, trust your instincts and know that the more you apply yourself the better you get day by day. The day you are waiting for is the day you want to give up, that is when you MUST keep going. That's the barrier between normal and greatness.

"Art" is a form of the verb "to be." It is not mere cleverness to point this out. At its core, life is artful and creative, each moment contains choice as much as each brush stroke in a painting, each syllable in a poem, each note in a melodic line. It is because of this, its insistence on choice, choice, choice, that art demolishes the victim position. When bullying life demands of us some injustice: "You want to make something of it?" the artful answer is yes.

When we make withdrawls from the Emotional Bank Account, we need to apologize and we need to do it sincerely. Great deposits come in the sincere words: "I was wrong.", "That was unkind of me.", "I showed you no respect.", and "I gave you no dignity, and I'm deeply sorry."

Don't you wish that you were as good a person as your dog thinks you are?

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed — I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise, there wouldn't be religious people.