The tower of interpretation

Lemony Snicket - Author

Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so.

Bible from the Book of Proverbs, chapter 23, verse 7

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Ellen J. Langer - Professor of psychology at Harvard University

If something is presented as an accepted truth, alternative ways of thinking do not even come up for consideration.

Wayne Dyer - American self-help and spiritual author and a motivational speaker

You'll see it when you believe it.

Ward Farnsworth - Dean of the University of Texas School of Law

The first principle of practical Stoicism is this: we don’t react to events; we react to our judgments about them, and the judgments are up to us.

Mark Twain - American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Genpo Roshi - American Zen and spirituality teacher

In reality, there are an infinite number of perspectives, but we act as if there were only one.

Ervin Seale - Speaker and writer in New Thought era

It is not what is happening to you but rather what is happening in you that determines whether you succeed or fail.

Marie Forleo - American entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author

Just because someone doesn't like what you do doesn't mean no one else will. A person's opinion is not The Truth, it's their truth.

Epictetus - Greek Stoic philosopher

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

Epictetus - Greek Stoic philosopher

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.

David Joseph Schwartz, Jr. - American motivational writer and coach, best known for authoring The Magic of Thinking Big in 1959

The mind is what the mind is fed.

Marcus Aurelius - Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Seneca - Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and—in one work—satirist from the Silver Age of Latin literature

There are more things, Lucilius, that frighten us than injure us, and we suffer more in imagination than in reality. 

Richard John Koch - British management consultant, venture capital investor and author of books on management, marketing and lifestyle

We can change the way that we think about external events, even where we cannot change them. And we can do something more. We can intelligently change our exposure to events that make us either happy or unhappy.

Martin Elias Pete Seligman - American psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books

While you can't control your experiences, you can control your explanations.

Abraham Harold Maslow - American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

William Glasser - American psychiatrist

If everyone could learn that what is right for me does not make it right for anyone else, the world would be a much happier place.

Esther Hicks - American inspirational speaker and author

There is so much more that is going right in your world than wrong.

Eckhart Tolle - Spiritual teacher and best-selling author. the tower

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

Carlos Castaneda - American author. Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his training in shamanism, particularly with a group whose lineage descended from the Toltecs

Things don't change, only the way you look at them.

Bill Harris - Involved in personal development for nearly 40 years as a seeker, teacher, public speaker, author, musician, composer, therapist, workshop leader, and business owner

Nothing has any intrinsic meaning. But if you are going to place a meaning on what is happening, which meaning would you want, the happiness meaning, or the unhappiness meaning? It is your choice, though most people don’t realize it is a choice. This whole discussion, and the idea that you could really choose to be happy and peaceful, may sound utopian to you. Becoming conscious enough to notice when you’re suffering, to notice what meaning you’ve placed on a situation, and to consciously change that meaning, doesn’t come easily.

Don Miguel Ruiz - Mexican author of Toltec spiritualist and neoshamanistic texts. His work is best-received among members of the New Thought movement that focuses on ancient teachings as a means to achieve spiritual enlightenment

You see everything is about belief, whatever we believe rules our existence, rules our life.

Stephen Covey - American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are - or, as we are conditioned to see it.

Ryan Holiday - American marketer and author. He is the former director of marketing for American Apparel and a media columnist and editor-at-large for the New York Observer

There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. 

Ryan Holiday - American marketer and author. He is the former director of marketing for American Apparel and a media columnist and editor-at-large for the New York Observer

The pretense of knowledge is our most dangerous vice, because it prevents us from getting any better.

Richard Feynman - American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as his work in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.

Donald Robertson - Cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, writer, and trainer. He specializes in the treatment of anxiety and in the relationship between ancient philosophy and modern psychotherapy

Evil is to be found not within things, but in the value judgements which people bring to bear upon things. People can therefore be cured of their ills only if they are persuaded to change their value judgements.

Pierre Hadot - French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism

“It is not things that trouble us,” as Epictetus said, “but our judgment about things.”

OliviaFox Cabane - American author, public speaker, and the co-founder of Kindearth.Tech

One of the main reasons we’re so affected by our negative thoughts is that we think our mind has an accurate grasp on reality, and that its conclusions are generally valid. This, however, is a fallacy. Our mind’s view of reality can be, and often is, completely distorted.

Carol Dweck - American psychologist. She is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck is known for her work on mindset

True self-confidence is “the courage to be open—to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source.” Real self-confidence is not reflected in a title, an expensive suit, a fancy car, or a series of acquisitions. It is reflected in your mindset: your readiness to grow.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Hungarian-American psychologist. He recognised and named the psychological concept of flow, a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity

A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe.

Phil Stutz - American psychiatrist and Author

We like to think we react to the world as it is, when really we react to a world that exists in our own minds. This inner world is so powerful, it overwhelms our ability to see reality. John Milton, in Paradise Lost, expressed it this way: “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

Bernard Roth - Professor of Engineering at Stanford University. A longtime veteran of the Stanford design scene, he first came to the Stanford Design Division faculty in 1962

We don’t realize how many of our fixed views of the world are based on limited samples of reality.

Neil Pasricha - Canadian author, entrepreneur, podcaster, and public speaker characterized by his advocacy of positivity and simple pleasures

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens and 90% how I react to it.

The Dhammapada - Collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures

You are what you think. All that you are arises from your thoughts. With your thoughts you make your world.

Wallace D. Wattles - American New Thought writer. He remains personally somewhat obscure, but his writing has been widely quoted and remains in print in the New Thought and self-help movements

We must remember that this is not a bad world but a good world in the process of becoming.

Malcolm Gladwell - English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996

Giants are not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to give them strength are often the sources of great weakness.

Will Bowen - Author and speaker who has been featured on/in "Oprah," NBC's "Today Show," ABC's "World News Tonight," CBS "Sunday Morning," "Fox News," "The Wall Street Journal," "Newsweek," "People," "O," "Self," "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and in hundreds of media stories around the world

A belief is an absolute but arbitrary mental stance.

Fred Rogers - American television host, author, producer, and Presbyterian minister. He was the creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001

It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.

Shad Helmstetter - Author of more than twenty books in the field of personal growth. His ground-breaking classic on the subject of self-talk, "What to Say When You Talk to Your Self," is published in over 70 countries, and is in its 45th printing in 30+ years of publication

Belief does not require something to be true. It only requires us to believe that it’s true! That’s powerful stuff! That means most of what reality is, to each of us, is based on what we have come to believe—whether it’s true or not! 

Joseph Campbell - American professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion

Whether you call someone a hero or a monster is all relative to where the focus of your consciousness may be.

Byron Katie - American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry known as "The Work of Byron Katie" or simply as "The Work"

I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.

Byron Katie - American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry known as "The Work of Byron Katie" or simply as "The Work"

We don't attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to be true in the moment.