Top 180 Dan Millman Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Finally, I realized the process of real meditation – to expand awareness, to direct attention, to ultimately surrender to the light of consciousness.”

— Dan Millman

152. “Faith is the recognition that Spirit works in, as and through each and all of us – through every person and every circumstance.”

— Dan Millman

153. “Meditation is a valuable exercise, but eventually you have to open up your eyes and look around.”

— Dan Millman

154. “Make peace within, and there will be no one who can overcome you. And no one you will wish to overcome.”

— Dan Millman

155. “Action is stronger than subjectivity. No matter what you feel or think, you can still act.”

— Dan Millman

156. “Knowing what to do is not usually the problem; the elusive goal becomes translating intentions into action and resolutions into results.”

— Dan Millman

157. “Understanding is the one-dimensional comprehension of the intellect. It leads to knowledge. Realization is three-dimensional – a simultaneous comprehension of head, heart, and instinct. It comes only from direct experience.”

— Dan Millman

158. “Your fears are not walls, but hurdles.”

— Dan Millman

159. “Under the weight of my growing self-knowledge, my self-image was sinking fast.”

— Dan Millman

160. “Silence is the warrior’s art – and meditation is his sword. With it, you’ll cut through your illusions. But understand this: the sword’s usefulness depends upon the swordsman. If you don’t know how to use the weapon properly, it can become a dangerous, deluding, or useless tool. Meditation can initially help you to relax. You may put your ‘sword’ on display, proudly show it to friends. The gleam of this sword distracts many meditators until they abandon it to seek other esoteric techniques.”

— Dan Millman

161. “My ignorance is based on this understanding. Your understanding is based on ignorance. This is why I am a humorous fool, and you are a serious jackass.”

— Dan Millman

162. “We must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence, to find that enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song. But in that dance, and in that song, the most ancient rites of our conscience fulfill themselves in the awareness of being human. – Pablo Neruda, Toward the Splendid City.”

— Dan Millman

163. “First mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. Than mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. Finally mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.”

— Dan Millman

164. “You Don’t need a reason to be happy. If you do that reason can be taken away.”

— Dan Millman

165. “The earth isn’t solid. It is made of molecules and atoms, tiny universes filled with space. It is a place of mystery, light, and magic, if you only open your eyes.”

— Dan Millman

166. “In the real world, those of us who are most productive, successful, and satisfied focus not on fixing feelings or manipulating thoughts, but on what needs to be done-and then doing it-no matter what thoughts or feelings arise.”

— Dan Millman

167. “Every athletic career, no matter how modest or lofty, is a journey.”

— Dan Millman

168. “For example, you have a cold now; its physical symptoms tell you when your body needs to rebalance itself, to restore its proper relationship with sunlight, fresh air, simple food. Just so, stressful thoughts reflect a conflict with reality. Stress happens when the mind resists what is.”

— Dan Millman

169. “Experts devote their life to training. Masters devote their training to life.”

— Dan Millman

170. “Babe Ruth was the home-run king of his time, but also the strikeout king.”

— Dan Millman

171. “He was a thinker, but also a man of action.”

— Dan Millman

172. “You haven’t yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior’s way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability – to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I’ve shown you by example that a warrior’s life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior’s sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.”

— Dan Millman

173. “Ignorance, as well as wisdom, is handed down from one generation to the next like a precious heirloom.”

— Dan Millman

174. “You now see everything through a veil of associations about things, projected over a direct, simple awareness. You’ve ‘seen it all before’; it’s like watching a movie for the twentieth time. You see only memories of things, so you become bored. Boredom, you see, is fundamental nonawareness of life; boredom is awareness, trapped in the mind. You’ll have to lose your mind before you can come to your senses.”

— Dan Millman

175. “I am a warrior! he snapped. Beyond that, who I am depends on who you want me to be.”

— Dan Millman

176. “Humor, in its highest sense, transcends the momentary tension release of laughter, and expands into a profound sense of ease and a relaxed approach to life’s occasional challenges, large or small. When you view your world through this lens of transcendent humor, as if from a distant peak, you discover that life is a game you can play as if it matters – with a peaceful heart and a warrior’s spirit. You can remain engaged with the world but also rise above it, looking beyond your personal dramas.”

— Dan Millman

177. “The rain was a perfectly lawful display of nature. Your ‘upset’ at the ruined picnic and your ‘happiness’ when the sun reappeared were the product of your thoughts. They had nothing to do with the actual events. Haven’t you been ‘unhappy’ at celebrations for example? It is obvious then that your mind, not other people or your surroundings, is the source of your moods. That is the first lesson.”

— Dan Millman

178. “You’ve become bored to things because they exist only as names to you. The dry concepts of mind obscure your direct perception.”

— Dan Millman

179. “Stop being so proud of mediocrity; show some spirit!”

— Dan Millman

180. “Tragedy is very different for the warrior and for the fool.”

— Dan Millman

181. “When a man has learned to live without money, he thought, a few rubles can go a long way.”

— Dan Millman

182. “Moderation? It’s mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It’s the devil’s dilemma. It’s neither doing nor not doing. It’s the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It’s for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation... is lukewarm tea, the devil’s own brew.”

— Dan Millman

183. “And so I awoke to reality, free of any meaning or any search. What could there possibly be to search for? All of Soc’s words had come alive with my death. This was the paradox of it all, the humor of it all, and the great change. All searches, all achievements, all goals, were equally enjoyable, and equally unnecessary.”

— Dan Millman

184. “All these years I had been sustained by an illusion-happiness through victory- and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no more happier, no more fullfilled, for all my achievements. Finally I saw through the clouds I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life i had been busy seeking happiness, but never finding it or sustaining it.”

— Dan Millman

185. “Meditating an action is different from doing it. To do, there is a doer, a self-conscious ‘someone’ performing. But when you meditate an action, you’ve already released attachment to outcomes. There’s no ‘you’ left to do it. In forgetting yourself, you become what you do, so your action is free, spontaneous, without ambition, inhibition, or fear.”

— Dan Millman

186. “I closed my eyes to meditate, but realized that I was always meditating now, with my eyes wide open.”

— Dan Millman

187. “The movements of the highest warriors are relaxed and expansive because they fight for a cause larger than themselves. Only by surrendering to God’s will does one find victory in battle and serenity in life.” Serafim started pacing again, as he did.”

— Dan Millman

188. “Softness triumphs over hardness, gentleness over strength. The flexible is superior over the immovable. This is the principle of controlling things by going along with them, of mastery through adaptation. LAO-TZU.”

— Dan Millman

189. “Never fear the weapon, only the man wielding it. Focus on your opponent while he focuses on his knife or saber or pistol. He invests his power in the weapon but forgets the rest of his body.”

— Dan Millman

190. “How do you know you haven’t been asleep your whole life? How do you know you’re not asleep right now?”

— Dan Millman