Vernon Howard (1918–1992) was an American spiritual teacher and author renowned for his practical and direct approach to self-help and personal development. Emphasizing self-awareness and inner transformation, Howard drew from various spiritual traditions in works such as “The Power of Your Supermind” and “Psycho-Pictography.” His teachings centered on shedding negative thought patterns, understanding the ego’s illusions, and aligning with higher principles to attain a heightened state of consciousness. Though not as widely recognized as some self-help figures, Howard’s influence persists in psychology, philosophy, and spirituality. His enduring works continue to inspire those seeking personal growth and self-discovery.
Vernon Howard Quotes
1. “Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn, and you will.”
— Vernon Howard
2. “Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.”
— Vernon Howard
3. “You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.”
— Vernon Howard
4. “Our freedom can be measured by the number of things we can walk away from.”
— Vernon Howard
5. “A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.”
— Vernon Howard
6. “Be teachable. That is the whole secret.”
— Vernon Howard
7. “You can not escape a prison if you do not know you’re in one.”
— Vernon Howard
8. “You must never fear anything at all.”
— Vernon Howard
9. “We can accept God becoming Man to save Man, but not Man becoming God to save himself.”
— Vernon Howard
10. “Genuine effort is success.”
— Vernon Howard
11. “The terrible immoralities are the cunning ones hiding behind masks of morality, such as exploiting people while pretending to help them.”
— Vernon Howard
12. “The problem is not what other people think, do or say; it is your reaction.”
— Vernon Howard
13. “The miracle of self-healing occurs when the inner patient yields to the inner physician.”
— Vernon Howard
14. “Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives.”
— Vernon Howard
15. “Procrastination is illogical from every viewpoint. It is like the man who wanted to cross the stream, so he sat on the bank to wait for all the water to run by.”
— Vernon Howard
16. “Don’t try to live. Let yourself be lived.”
— Vernon Howard
17. “Awareness of your weakness and confusion makes you strong because conscious awareness is the bright light that destroys the darkness of negativity. Detection of inner negativity is not a negative act, but a courageously positive act that makes you a new person.”
— Vernon Howard
18. “A clear understanding of negative emotions dismisses them.”
— Vernon Howard
19. “Resistance to the disturbance is the disturbance.”
— Vernon Howard
20. “Do not mistake desire for love. Desire leaves home in a frantic search for one gratification after another. Love is at home with itself.”
— Vernon Howard
21. “The power of the present moment is so immense it is capable – when lived in fully – of destroying forever every past mistake and regret.”
— Vernon Howard
22. “Run forward when possible, walk ahead when you can, stagger onward when you must, but never cease your forward movement.”
— Vernon Howard
23. “See human nonsense as nonsense and save years of trying to make sense out of it.”
— Vernon Howard
24. “Do not be impatient with your seemingly slow progress. Do not try to run faster than you presently can. If you are studying, reflecting and trying, you are making progress whether you are aware of it or not. A traveler walking the road in the darkness of night is still going forward. Someday, some way, everything will break open, like the natural unfolding of a rosebud.”
— Vernon Howard
25. “To change what you get you must change who you are.”
— Vernon Howard
26. “The outer storm ceases the moment the inner storm ends, for they are the same storm.”
— Vernon Howard
27. “What you really want for yourself is always trying to break through, just as a cooling breeze flows through an open window on a hot day. Your part is to open the windows of your mind.”
— Vernon Howard
28. “Genuine kindness is not what we do, it is what we are.”
— Vernon Howard
29. “Anger or bitterness toward those who have hurt you will block your path to higher ground. You can have anger toward people or you can have freedom from people, but you can’t have both.”
— Vernon Howard
30. “Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty.”
— Vernon Howard
31. “All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied.”
— Vernon Howard
32. “Instead of fighting your problems, picture your way out of them.”
— Vernon Howard
33. “Change is never a loss – it is change only.”
— Vernon Howard
34. “Don’t try to be unafraid. That is impossible. Rather, go ahead while being afraid. That is the entire secret for abolishing fear. The Supermind teaches us to have no self-concern at all. Whatever happens to you, act as though it happened to someone else.”
— Vernon Howard
35. “It is against the law to permit weak people to steal your strength. Never permit it.”
— Vernon Howard
36. “Study carefully the law of cause and effect.”
— Vernon Howard
37. “It is utterly useless to try to change the outer world, for it is but a reflection of inner causes. The true seeker seeks to change himself.”
— Vernon Howard
38. “Interpretation blocks reception while masquerading as reception. Rightness does not need interpretation; it requires simple acceptance and nothing else.”
— Vernon Howard
39. “We are exactly where we have chosen to be.”
— Vernon Howard
40. “The only reason you do not do great things is because you timidly cling to small things. Will you let loose of small things and bear the uncertainty of having nothing for a while? Do this and eventually you will do great things.”
— Vernon Howard
41. “The world consists of imaginary people, claiming imaginary virtues and suffering from imaginary happiness.”
— Vernon Howard
42. “Don’t look for someone in whom to believe. Believe in yourself. The only authentic authority is your own original nature.”
— Vernon Howard
43. “The reason why most people are frustrated is because a lie cannot be turned into a truth.”
— Vernon Howard
44. “You know what is right. Deep down, you know. The battle between your true wisdom and the counterfeit wisdom of society is what causes frustration. Refuse to compromise with what you know is right-with what is right for you.”
— Vernon Howard
45. “We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.”
— Vernon Howard
46. “Truth is not a matter of personal viewpoint.”
— Vernon Howard
47. “Self awakening enables you to see the human scene as it is, not as it appears to be, which frees you of its chaos.”
— Vernon Howard
48. “Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it.”
— Vernon Howard
49. “The genuinely spiritual person is one who has lost all desire to be anyone but exactly who he is, without labels and without apologies. He is what he is and that’s all there’s is to it. Such a man is undivided, uncomplicated and contented.”
— Vernon Howard
50. “A desperation to escape a problem is the wrong way. A passion to understand it is the right way.”
— Vernon Howard
51. “Mysticism is not this or that particular cup on the table; it is the water poured into all of them.”
— Vernon Howard
52. “Remember above all that mental stability comes by examining the contents of the mind, not by avoidence.”
— Vernon Howard
53. “There exists a special self which takes every event as if it were the very thing you wanted to happen. That self is the Supermind, which is never upset by anything. Your goal is to nourish it into greater strength. Then, every step is sunlit.”
— Vernon Howard
54. “A perfect method for awakening is to examine the results of our daily actions. If they are harmful, we know we need more consciousness.”
— Vernon Howard
55. “When you are genuinely strong, you neither attack nor defend and so retain your energy.”
— Vernon Howard
56. “Can you think of anything more permanently elating than to know that you are on the right road at last?”
— Vernon Howard
57. “Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.”
— Vernon Howard
58. “Your level of mental awareness attracts the habitual life you lead.”
— Vernon Howard
59. “You command a condition by having no negative attitudes toward it.”
— Vernon Howard
60. “Happiness is liberty from everything that makes us unhappy.”
— Vernon Howard
61. “Society is like a crowd in carnival costumes with everyone fearful that others will see through his disguise.”
— Vernon Howard
62. “Truth does not really hurt, rather it is our resistance to its message that causes us pain.”
— Vernon Howard
63. “It is a true miracle when a man finally sees himself as his only opposition.”
— Vernon Howard
64. “Inner guidance is heard like soft music in the night by those who have learned to listen.”
— Vernon Howard
65. “Worried thought prevents practical thought which could prevent worried thought.”
— Vernon Howard
66. “No one can tell you what is right for you except yourself. So start telling yourself what to do. If you blunder for ten years while thinking for yourself, that is rich treasure when compared with living these ten years under the mental domination of another.”
— Vernon Howard
67. “Ignorant people remain ignorant because they have a secret agreement to call one another intelligent.”
— Vernon Howard
68. “We are slaves to whatever we don’t understand.”
— Vernon Howard
69. “All heartache is caused by wrong viewpoints.”
— Vernon Howard
70. “Our life-transformation is in exact proportion to the amount of truth we can take without running away.”
— Vernon Howard
71. “Insight into the two selves within a man clears up many confusions and contradictions. It was our understanding that preceded our victory.”
— Vernon Howard
72. “Aloneness is a wise teacher. Kierkegaard remarked that one sign of spiritual maturity was the ability to be comfortable when alone.”
— Vernon Howard
73. “It is wise to seek immortality for time defeats all other ambitions.”
— Vernon Howard
74. “One of society’s absurd delusions is that the spending of money can cure something.”
— Vernon Howard
75. “The leap is made by dropping vanity over knowledge and by a willingness to become nothing in order to become everything.”
— Vernon Howard
76. “The search for truth is really a lot of good fun.”
— Vernon Howard
77. “Truth breaks you down so it can rebuild you according to its specifications in Heaven.”
— Vernon Howard
78. “When the mind is exhausted in trying to find the answer, the answer dawns.”
— Vernon Howard
79. “The most marvelous experience of life is to transform life according to reality, not imagination.”
— Vernon Howard
80. “We find the light only after total defeat of our attempts to deceive and outwit it.”
— Vernon Howard
81. “Think of happiness as a state of inner liberty. That is exactly what it is. It is never anything else. It will help if you forget the word happiness altogether. Substitute the term inner liberty. It works favorably upon your thinking habits. It connects inner liberty with the genuine meaning of happiness. And that puts you on the right track.”
— Vernon Howard
82. “Doing good to someone in order to reduce self-guilt will only ruin things for both of you.”
— Vernon Howard
83. “A person radiates what he really is, not what he imagines he is, and attracts what he radiates.”
— Vernon Howard
84. “Is the beam from a lighthouse affected by howling wind and rain? It remains perfectly steadfast and unaffected by the storm. Your true self is like that. Nothing can ever harm you once you are consciously aware that it is so.”
— Vernon Howard
85. “A cheery relaxation is man’s natural state, just as nature itself is relaxed. A waterfall is concerned only with being itself, not with doing something it considers waterfall-like.”
— Vernon Howard
86. “When told that man lives in delusion everyone thinks of himself as the exception; hence his delusion.”
— Vernon Howard
87. “Who asks a king for a penny?”
— Vernon Howard
88. “Beauty is only skin deep, but it’s a valuable asset if you’re poor or haven’t any sense.”
— Vernon Howard
89. “Persistence prevails, like a stream that is temporarily blocked by boulders and then collects force enough to overflow onward.”
— Vernon Howard
90. “Your central self is totally untouched by grief, confusion, desperation.”
— Vernon Howard
91. “Learn this great secret of life: What people call interruption or disturbance to their routine is just as much a part of living as the routine. To split life into two parts, one called routine and the other called interruption, is to be caught between them.”
— Vernon Howard
92. “An obvious fact about negative feelings is often overlooked. They are caused by us, not by exterior happenings. An outside event presents the challenge, but we react to it. So we must attend to the way we take things, not to the things themselves.”
— Vernon Howard
93. “The need to impress others causes half the world’s woes.”
— Vernon Howard
94. “Don’t try to be spiritual. That is only a word in the dictionary. Make it your goal to become a normally functioning individual. Let these principles shape you according to your real nature of a simple, decent, honest, unafraid human being.”
— Vernon Howard
95. “We can no more enjoy life by hoping for a future result than we can enjoy music by waiting for the final note.”
— Vernon Howard
96. “A person obsessed with the need to be happy will never be so. The obsession is the obstruction.”
— Vernon Howard
97. “It is a mistake for anyone to think he has lived too long in his old, unsatisfactory ways to make the great change. If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret.”
— Vernon Howard
98. “Cruelty practiced as a matter of social principle or public policy, and presented to the community as a means to a higher goal is the most obscene and decadent phenomenon of any civilization.”
— Vernon Howard
99. “Men have the illusion of having a duty to make the world spin properly, which is precisely what makes it wobble.”
— Vernon Howard
100. “Healing fails to occur because it is much easier to injure another than to heal oneself.”
— Vernon Howard
