Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity in doubt.

No one is exempt from the rule that learning occurs through recognition of error.

The modern individual is committed to being successful, not to being a person. He belongs rightly to the action generation whose motto is do more but feel less.

As one grows older, the sense of separateness is slowly reduced. Old people do not live on an ego level. Their concerns are not about their individuality but about the river of life, the family, the community, the nation, people, animals, nature, life. They can die easily if they are assured that life will continue positively, for they feel part of the river again, and soon they will be part of the ocean. When they are very old, they no longer belong to our time and space, but to all time and all space.

It is only by making the past alive again for a person that a true growth in the present is facilitated. If the past is cut off, the future does not exist.

Bioenergetics is an adventure in self-discovery. It differs from similar explorations into the nature of the self by attempting to understand the human personality in terms of the human body. Most previous explorations focused their investigations on the mind.

A person does not choose his or her fate; he or she only fulfills it. We are bound by our fate as long as we accept the values that determine it.