Werner Erhard Quotations

Ride the horse in the direction that it's going.

Create your future from your future, not your past.

You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from.

Your life works to the degree you keep your agreements.

Life is a game. In order to have a game something has to be more importantthan something else. If what already is, is more important than what isn't the game is over. So, life is a game in which what isn't is more important than what is. Let the good times roll.

Ride the horse in the direction it's going.

Self expression is a function of responsibility.

This is it. There are no hidden meanings. All that mystical stuff is just what's so.

The real purpose of est was to create space for people to participate in life - to experience true space and freedom in life.

The Truth, believed, is a lie.

Begin building the future through "conversation for possibility."

Participation: What I intend to create is the opportunity for people to participate in the transformation of people. For me it is the highest expression of humanity to contribute, to facilitate, to participate in the transformation of humanity.

For an individual we distinguish integrity as a matter of that person's word being whole and complete, and for a group or organizational entity as what is said by or on behalf of the group or organization being whole and complete. In that context, we define integrity for an individual, group, or organization as: Honoring one's word.

Your power is a function of velocity, that is to say, your power is a function of the rate at which you translate intention into reality. Most of us disempower ourselves by finding a way to slow, impede, or make more complex than necessary the process of translating intention into reality.

If you're not all right the way you are it takes a lot of effort to get better. Realize you're all right the way you are,and you'll get better naturally.

Don't change beliefs. Transform the believer.

The important question to ask is not 'Will we surivive?' but 'What if we survive?'

The world is perfect the way it is.

I didn't arrive at the opportunity to make the world work for everyone by figuring out how to do it.

The essence of communication is intention.

What we create together is a relationship in which our work can show up as making a difference in people's lives. I welcome the unprecedented opportunity for us to work globally on that which concerns us all as human beings.

What is is and what isn't ain't.

But that is like saying that the hole in the sand looks like the stick that you made the hole in the sand with. Holes in the sand and sticks are worlds apart. To put what happened into language would be like trying to describe a stick by telling you about the hole in the sand.

I have a lot of feeling for Ron Hubbard. His genius has not been sufficiently acknowledged.

Integrity (in our model) is not about good or bad, or right or wrong, or what should or should not be.

I have a lot of respect for L. Ron Hubbard and I consider him to be a genius and perhaps less acknowledged than he ought to be.

There is something I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.

We can choose to make our love for each other what our lives are really about.

While most managers spend their time attempting to predict the future accurately - and while that's valuable - the best managers are able to generate a future which was not going to happen otherwise - that is, a future which was not predictable.

Who you know yourself to be” is simply one way of being that is available to you, and you are not stuck with that way of being.

In this conversation we discover another possibility: living in a way, now, moment to moment, that makes a difference to life. We discover that as human beings we can live in a possibility instead of in what we have inherited, that instead of just being a human being because we were born that way, we can declare the possibility of being for human beings. This is the work of transformation: bringing forth a breakthrough in the possibility of being human.

Man keeps looking for a truth that fits his reality. Given our reality, the truth doesn't fit.

To take a stand for the future is to bring forth an opportunity not borne of the path we've taken in the past, but borne of a vision which we would create for ourselves.

We distinguish integrity as a phenomenon of the objective state or condition of an object, system, person, group, or organizational entity, and define integrity as: a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, perfect condition.

The only two things in our lives are aliveness and patterns that block our aliveness.

Life is already together, and what you have to experience is experiencing it being together. The striving to put it together is a denial of the truth that it is actually already together and further striving keeps you from getting it together.

Health is a function of participation.

What gives people superiority at a task is true intention. That makes you attuned to everything.

What I recognized is that you can't put it together. It's already together, and what you have to do is experience it being together.

Living is not the story of your life. Living is the process of experiencing right now.

Most of our notions about the world come from a set of assumptions which we take for granted, and which, for the most part, we don't examine or question. We bring these assumptions to the table with us as a given. They are so much a part of who we are that it is difficult for us to separate ourselves from them enough to be able to talk about them. We do not think these assumptions, we think from them.

Until you know that who you are is empty and meaningless, you don't know anything.

If you keep saying it the way it really is, eventually your word is law in the universe.

In life, understanding is the booby prize.

Opportunity: it's not really scarce. It's everywhere. If you really were any good, you'd be overwhelmed by it.

The reaction you got was the communication you intended.

[Alan] Watts did two main things for me. He opened up the connections between what I was doing and the traditional Oriental philosophies. And he pointed me toward the distinction between Self and Mind.

I used to be different. Now I'm the same.

Until what is significant is created by you, you aren't living your life, you are living some inherited life.

There are only two things in the world: nothing and semantics.

We assert that integrity (the condition of being whole and complete) is a necessary condition for workability, and that the resultant level of workability determines the available opportunity for performance. Hence, the way we treat integrity in our model provides an unambiguous and actionable access to superior performance (however one wishes to define performance).

Here's my definition of a hero. A hero is an ordinary person given being and action by something bigger than themselves. One thing I'm sure about is I'm real ordinary. Yet I've had the chance to touch the lives of a lotta people.

So long as you do not know who you really are, this will be difficult. You may have to give up a lot of things to which you may be attached. You may have to give up your resentments, your anger, your upset, your annoyance, your desire to punish.

All Knowledge is Divided into Three Domains: "What We Know", "What We Know That We Don't Know", and "What We Don't Know That We Don't Know."

I have no interest in the justification of circumstances or producing guilt in others by assigning obligation. I am interested in providing an opportunity for people to experience mastery in the matter of their own lives and the experience of satisfaction, fulfillment, and aliveness. These are a function of the self as context rather than thing, the self as space rather than location or position, the self as cause rather than self at effect.

For many people, life seems to be a kind of brief candle hardly worth living. But for those who are bold, who are venturesome, who have the humility to deal with what is possible rather than what is predictable, life is an exciting and challenging adventure. Life is no brief candle to me. In a world that can work for everyone, especially in which I can make a difference-that is a life worth living! That is living! That is being alive!

Happiness is a function of accepting what is.

The nature of a breakthrough is for you to stand on what you've gotten, what you've loved, what's been important to you, what's touched you, what's inspired you, what's turned your life on; to stand on the value you've already created for yourself and look out at the possibility for being alive that opens up, like a freedom, in front of you.

If you could really accept that you weren't ok, you could stop proving you were ok. If you could stop proving that you were ok, you could get that it was ok not to be ok. If you could get that it was ok not to be ok you could get that you were ok the way you are. You're ok, get it?

Your life and my life have turned out, and once you get that, life goes on from a position of having turned out. That's called playing the game from win

You will leave this course being a leader and exercising leadership effectively as your natural self-expression in any situation and no matter what the circumstances.

Pay no attention to critics. No one ever erected a statue to a critic

In every human being there is both garbage and gold, it is up to us to choose what we pay attention to.

Just like the front and the back of the hand, being and action are distinct yet inseparable.

If God told you exactly what it was you were to do, you would be happy doing it no matter what it was. What you're doing is what God wants you to do. Be happy.

At all times and under all circumstances, we have the power to transform the quality of our lives.

The quickest way to be happy is to choose what you already have.

Maturity is doing whatever you want, even if your parents want the same thing.

Happiness isn't at the end of the rainbow. Happiness is at the beginning of the rainbow. Following the rainbow is happiness, not getting to the end of it.

Even the truth, when believed, is a lie. You must experience the truth, not believe it.

In a certain sense, all true leaders are heroes. Heroes are ordinary people who are given being and action by something bigger than themselves...... Each of us must make the personal choice to be a hero or not, to be committed to something bigger than ourselves or not, to go beyond the way we “wound up being” and have the purpose of our lives and our careers be about something that makes a difference or not, in other words, to be a leader or not.

Individuals transform when there is a shift in the principle which orients their life from one of gaining satisfaction to one of expressing the satisfaction they've already got.

One creates from nothing. If you try to create from something you're just changing something. So in order to create something you first have to be able to create nothing.

What we are engaged in creating is the opportunity for people to participate in the transformation of peoples' lives and of life itself. This context of transformation is a context of freedom and opportunity, of empowerment and human joy, of contribution and of participation. Participation in this transformation is, for me, the fullest expression of being.

Living is really pretty simple. Living happens right now; it doesn't happen back then, and it doesn't happen out there. Living is not the story of your life. Living is the process of experiencing right now.

The fastest way to destroy love is to make a goal out of it, because people who are trying to be loved come from a place that they're not loved.

Transformation is the shift of the principle which orients the person’s life, which is ordinarily the principle of gaining satisfaction. Essentially what organizes life for most of us is an attempt to gratify our needs; our psychological needs, our material needs, our personal needs … Individuals transform when there’s a shift in the principle which orients their life from one of gaining satisfaction to one of expressing the satisfaction they’ve already got...

Oversimplifying somewhat, honoring your word as we define it means you either keep your word (do what you said you would do and by the time you said you would do it), or as soon as you know that you will not, you say that you will not to those who were counting on your word and clean up any mess caused by not keeping your word.

Consider that all accomplishment is constituted by a series of resolved breakdowns.

Honoring your word is also the route to creating whole and complete social and working relationships. In addition, it provides an actionable pathway to earning the trust of others.

Heroes are ordinary men and women who dare to see and meet the call of a possibility bigger than themselves. Breakthroughs are created by such heroes, by men and women who will stand for the result while it is only a possibility - people who will act to make possibility real.

Until you've completed your relationship with your parents, all your relationships will be about your parents.

When you've said all of the bad things and all of the good things you haven't been saying, you will find that what you've really been withholding is, "I love you." You don't have to go looking for love when it is where you come from.

Love is granting another the space to be the way they are and the way they are not.

Life is a game. In order to have a game, something has to be more important than something else. If what already is, is more important than what isn't, the game is over. So, life is a game in which what isn't, is more important than what is. Let the good times roll.

The problems we have now in communities and societies are going to be resolved only when we are brought together by a common sense that each of us is a visionary. Each of us must come to the realization that we can function and live at the level of vision rather than following some great leader's vision. Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader in ourselves.

In life you wind up with one of two things - the results or the reason why you don’t have the results. Results don’t have to be explained. They just are.

Instead of looking for a great leader, we are in an era where each of us needs to find the great leader within ourselves.

Human beings did not have rights. Human beings created, from nothing, the domain of human rights. They called it up. They languaged it. They communicated it. Communication has that power. It has the power not only to represent and not only to evoke, but literally to bring something into being. And to know yourself, to know your self, as a context creator, is to transform the quality of your life.

You and I want our lives to matter. We want our lives to make a real difference - to be of genuine consequence in the world. We know that there is no satisfaction in merely going through the motions, even if those motions make us successful, or even if we have arranged to make those motions pleasant. We want to know we have made some impact on the world. In fact, you and I want to contribute to the quality of life. We want to make the world work.

Life is a ripoff when you expect to get what you want. Life works when you choose what you got. Actually what you got is what you chose. To move on, choose it.

There are all kinds of futures. There is a hoped-for future, there is a feared future, there is a predictable future, and there is an unimagined future.

Whatever you are pushing against, you are stuck to.

If its comfort you want, life is not the place to be.

All it takes to make a difference is the courage to stop proving I was right in being unable to make a difference ... to stop assigning cause for my inability to the circumstances outside of myself and to be willing to have been that way, and to see that the fear of being a failure is a lot less important than the unique opportunity I have to make a difference.

What most people do is give space to people's quality and deal with their garbage. Actually, you should do it the other way around. Deal with who they are and give space to their garbage. Keep interacting with them as if they were God. And every time you get garbage from them, give space to the garbage and go back and interact with them as if they were God.

I could always tell when an organization was in good shape. I could tell because the manager of the organization would always be talking about how great the people in the organization were. If the manager was talking about anything other than how great people in the organization were, I knew that the organization was in bad shape. The way to manage an organization successfully is to manage it in such a way that you can be proud of the people with whom you are working. You have to find a way to interact with the people with whom you are working in a way that makes you proud of them.

It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don't want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act.

If you stand in the rain, you get wet, whether you understand water or not.

Happiness is a function of accepting what is. Love is a function of communication. Health is a function of participation. Self expression is a function of responsibility.