Quotes by Patricia Sun

“The discoveries of how we can grow and the insights we need to have really come from the inside out. To have genuine empathy, not as a make-nice tool but as an understanding, is essential to the next step.”

“I always say that its much more powerful to be good than to be right. Why? Because good guides us in moving towards that which is good. Being right makes a deadlock, an enemy, and it sucks us down from expanding our perception. It also frightens the other person and makes the position more stubborn.”

“You cant take sides when you know the earth is round”

“There is only one thing keeping us from having heaven on earth: we cant believe it! Why? Because we dont want to be wrong - so well be right and make it hell!”

“We have magnificent brains, but we use a great deal of our brilliance to keep ourselves stuck and ignorant, to keep ourselves from not shining. We are so afraid of our beauty and radiance and brilliance because it scared the adults around us when we were children.”

“When we dont have information, we go to the simplest outlook, to black and white. But then we have to lie to ourselves. Black is never as black as youre painting it and white is never as white.”

“Nothing will ensure war more certainly or entrench rivalries more seriously than for or against thinking!”

“We need to make judgments, of course - to observe what works and what doesnt, but not to be judgmental. Being judgmental is a form of madness that screams powerlessness and ruthlessness. When we can make good judgments and update them and not stay rigid, we come from goodwill and promote goodwill back to us.”

“We mostly feel fearful because we feel powerless. We feel powerless, I contend, because of a style of thinking that splits information in two poles that makes us lose all the operative information we need to solve the problem.”

“I realized that I was planting seeds, and that it was important to stay low-key, because once you say, Ive got it or This is it, then resistance starts to build. But, if you start giving away seeds, people will claim their seeds. Some nurture them and grow them, and that makes a foundational change.”