A beloved spiritual leader and self-development author of more than 40 books, Dr. Wayne Dyer, passed away on August 30. He inspired millions of us to live a better life by pursuing our passions, beginning each day with gratitude, manifesting our desires by contemplating what we want instead of what we don’t have, choosing love over fear, and so much more. He taught us about virtues such as purposefulness with these words: “Don’t die with your music still in you”, meaning that inside all of us is our music, our purpose calling us to follow our dreams, take risks and use our unique talents to fulfill our destinies. He also taught us about the virtue of service, encouraging us to ask ourselves, “How may I serve?” instead of “How can I get what I want?” He said that when we shift our attention from ourselves onto others, from our ego to our higher selves, new possibilities open up for greater joy and fulfillment.
Through his own life experience, Dr. Dyer shared a profound lesson about the virtue of forgiveness. In 1974, he had the opportunity to visit his father’s grave in Mississippi, a father he never knew, who had died 10 years earlier. His father had left his mother when he was just a little boy so he carried anger and hatred towards him his whole life. When he arrived at the gravesite, he stood there for three hours still feeling angry and then something came over him. He said to his father, “From this moment on I send you love, and I forgive you for everything that you have done.” After that day, he said, everything in his life changed. He wrote his first book, Your Erroneous Zones, in just 14 days, which became a worldwide best-seller. He stopped drinking and got back into shape. He also started attracting the right people into his life. He was able to forgive for a better life.
Dr. Dyer said in his memoir, I Can See Clearly Now, that the day he forgave his father was the most significant day of his life. That day was August 30 and on the same day, 41 years later, he passed away. He believed that there were no accidents in life and this may have been a parting message from him to notice the synchronicities in life calling for our attention to something.
Here’s to Dr. Wayne Dyer, an extraordinary man, who lived his music, his inner calling and, consequently, served humanity, inspiring and enlightening the many people he encountered to live a more fulfilling and joyful life.
To honor his memory and timeless wisdom, below are 25 of his quotes on virtues to inspire us to live a better life.
Acceptance
1. “When you’re at peace with yourself and love yourself, it is virtually impossible to do things to yourself that are destructive.”
Authenticity
2. “Authentic empowerment is the knowing that you are on purpose, doing God’s work, peacefully and harmoniously. Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself.”
3. “I will attract into my life what I am, not what I want.”
Confidence
4. “Self-worth comes from one thing―thinking that you are worthy.”
Courage
5. “When you stay on purpose and refuse to be discouraged by fear, you align with the infinite self, in which all possibilities exist.”
6. “Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.”
Forgiveness
7. “I forgive myself, and then I move on. You can sit there forever, lamenting about how bad you’ve been, feeling guilty until you die, and not one tiny slice of that guilt will do anything to change a single thing in the past.”
8. “You practice forgiveness for two reasons: to let others know that you no longer wish to be in a state of hostility with them and to free yourself from the self-defeating energy of resentment. Send love in some form to those you feel have wronged you and notice how much better you feel.”
Gratitude
9. “There’s always something beautiful to be experienced wherever you are. Right now, look around you and select beauty as your focus.”
10. “Be in a state of gratitude for everything that shows up in your life. Be thankful for the storms as well as the smooth sailing. What is the lesson or gift in what you are experiencing right now? Find your joy not in what’s missing in your life but in how you can serve.”
Joyfulness
11. “Remember that your natural state is joy.”
12. “Most people are searching for happiness outside of themselves. That’s a fundamental mistake. Happiness is something that you are, and it comes from the way you think.”
Imaginative
13. “The greatest gift you were ever given is your imagination. Within it is the capacity to have all your wishes fulfilled. Look around you. Everything that you can experience with your senses was once in someone’s imagination.”
Kindness
14. “When the choice is to be right or kind, always make the choice that brings peace.”
15. “You can’t expect to draw people into your life who are kind, confident, and generous if you’re thinking and acting in cruel, weak, and selfish ways. You must be what it is that you’re seeking―that is, you need to put forth what you want to attract.”
16. “How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours.”
Love
17. “Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.”
18. “Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”
19. “We are not our bodies, our possessions, or our career. Who we are is Divine Love and that is Infinite.”
Peace
20. “Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.”
Purposefulness
21. “When you stay on purpose and refuse to be discouraged by fear, you align with the infinite self, in which all possibilities exist.”
22. “Don’t die with your music still inside you. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul.”
Service
23. “The more we give away, the more is given to us.”
24. “If you ask with kindness in your voice and in your heart, ‘How may I serve you?,’ the universe’s response will be “How may I serve you as well.”
Trust
25. “When you trust in yourself, you are trusting in the wisdom that created you.”
What is your favorite quote of Dr. Dyer’s? What, about the quote, resonates with you?
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