George Leonard
George Leonard
George Burr Leonardwas an American writer, editor, and educator who wrote extensively about education and human potential. He was President Emeritus of the Esalen Institute, past-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, President of ITP International, and a former editor of Look Magazine. He was a former United States Army Air Corps pilot, and held a fifth degree black belt in aikido...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionLawyer
Date of Birth3 July 1729
CountryUnited States of America
For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately the master and the master's path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate - that is, if the path is complex and profound enough - the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels.
If you intend to take the journey of mastery, the best thing you can do is to arrange for first-rate instruction.
How to begin the journey? You need only to take the first step. When? There is always now.
Mastery is a journey, and that the master must have the courage to risk failure.
Even without comparing ourselves to the world's greatest, we set such high standards for ourselves that neither we nor anyone else could ever meet them-and nothing is more destructive to creativity than this. We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It's about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.
Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick.
The ultimate creative capacity of the brain may be, for all practical purposes, infinite.
The universe is continually at its work of restructuring itself at a higher, more complex, more elegant level. The novelty, the new, more complex order, doesn't emerge from the present in a steady stream, nor at all places at the same rate. It comes, as all things do, in rhythmic waves; there will always be times and places of scarcity and stagnation and retrogression. Still, the long-term direction is clear. The intention of the universe is evolution.
Practice is the path of mastery.
Preventing the new generation from changing in any deep way is what most societies require of their educators.
Only the schools’ inefficiency can account for creativity surviving after age 25.
The subtle dance of the body joins us to the world.
Everything was God, holy; as God is total, so the driftwood branch was holy. This must be the stuff religion is made of.
Running, close companion to death, summons us to the most vivid acts of life. Our ancestors (we have forgotten) ran for food and for love, love and lust. For us, a prime symbol of sexuality is the automobile. For the ancients it was the chase, the foot race. Satyr and nymph, maiden and god, hot pursuit. The mythic hunters, Diana and Atalanta, available only to the males, men or gods, who could outrun them; death to all others.