Quotes and Reflections

I refrain as far as is possible from using such terms as “posture,” “mental state,” “psycho-

logical complexes,” “body mechanics,” “sub-conscious,” or any of the thousand and one

labeled concepts, which have, like barnacles, become attached to the complicated idea

have of ourselves owing to the kind of education to which we have been subjected.

Instead I prefer to call the psycho-physical organism simply “the self,” and to write of it as something “in use” which “functions” and which “reacts.” My conception of the human organism or of the self is thus very simple, but can be made difficult by needless complication resulting from the preconceived ideas which readers bring to it.

F.M. Alexander, in “Introductory Notes,” The Universal Constant in Living (Downey, CA: Centerline Press, 1941), xxxvi.

Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.

Seneca

“Because I don’t sweat as much as others, or grunt as much as others, or make faces when I hit the ball, and it’s easier on the eye, it’s harder for people to see that I’m actually really trying,”

Roger Federer