Let go of the need to be right (quotes)
The ego loves to be right
- There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. The ego loves to make wrong in order to be right. Ego takes everything personally. Emotion arises, defensiveness, perhaps even aggression. Are you defending the truth? No, the truth, in any case, needs no defense. Eckhart Tolle
- We learn to be right and to make everyone else wrong. The need to be right is the result of trying to protect the image we want to project to the outside. We have to impose our way of thinking, not just onto other humans, but even upon ourselves. Don Miguel Ruiz
- The ego says “If you disagree with me, it’s an attack on me and not my ideas.” Anthony Lambert
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Being right can even be an unconscious grasp at immortality
- Each person thinks that he has the formula for triumphing over life’s limitations and knows with authority what it means to be a man, and he usually tries to win a following for his particular patent. Today we know that people try so hard to win converts for their point of view because it is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula. Ernest Becker
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Let go of the need to be right …
- I am not controlled by any unfortunate need to be right. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. Only time and circumstances will show for sure… maybe. Susan Jeffers
- Being right is highly overrated. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Richard Carlson
- I have learned never to ridicule any man’s opinion, however strange it may seem. Arthur Conan Doyle
- Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. Dandemis
- Why do we insist on being right all the time? Try losing arguments. It’s great fun and interrupts patterns in people. Seeing people get confused is a lot of fun. Henri Junttila
- One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Once you have disidentified from your mind, whether you are right or wrong makes no difference to your sense of self at all, so the forcefully compulsive and deeply unconscious need to be right, which is a form of violence, will no longer be there. You can state clearly and firmly how you feel or what you think, but there will be no aggressiveness or defensiveness about it. Your sense of self is then derived from a deeper and truer place within yourself, not from the mind. Eckhart Tolle
- The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. Edward De Bono
- Being right, defending our positions, takes an enormous amount of mental energy and often alienates us from the people in our lives. Needing to be right – or needing someone else to be wrong – encourages others to become defensive, and puts pressure on us to keep defending. Richard Carlson
- No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong. François de La Rochefoucauld
- In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. Neal Shusterman
- Spend less time worrying who’s right, and more time deciding what’s right. Jackson Brown Jr.
- Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right. Ezra T. Benson
- One who is too insistent on his own views finds few to agree with him. Lao Tzu
- Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment. Ralph Marston
- If you are afraid of being lonely, don’t try to be right. Jules Renard
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… and be willing to be wrong
- The secret to being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal. Seth Godin
- No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday. Alexander Pope
- Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected. William Safire
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Above all, avoid arguments about who’s right
- There is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument – and that is to avoid it . Dale Carnegie
- If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will. Dale Carnegie
- It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
- I have to go. I have a finite amount of life left and I don’t want to spend it arguing with you. Jennifer Armintrout
- Argument: An exchange of words between people with diametrically opposed views, all of whom know that they are right. Kevin Boddington
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Not needing to be right brings great rewards…
- Most of our energy goes into maintaining our own importance. If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free ourselves from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe. Deepak Chopra
- A wonderful, heartfelt strategy for becoming more peaceful and loving is to practice allowing others the joy of being right – give them the glory. You don’t have to sacrifice your deepest philosophical truths or most hearfelt opinions, but starting today, let others be “right” most of the time! Richard Carlson
- To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong. John W. Gardner
- Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment. Ralph Marston
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… while always needing to be right has a cost
- If you’re always trying to be right about everything you do and say, you’ll soon find that you have no one around you who’s interested in how right you are. Loretta LaRoche
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Always see the other person’s point of view
- The next time you find yourself in an argument, rather than defend yourself, see if you can see the other point of view first. Richard Carlson
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Stephen Covey
- Today my awareness will remain established in Defenselessness. I will relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I will remain open to all points of view. Deepak Chopra
- I never learned from a man who agreed with me. Robert A. Heinlein
- That is why from the beginning it’s really important that you learn to shift perspectives. That alone is going to help tremendously in your life. Just imagine the next time you get into an argument with your partner or spouse, and you are able to let go of your view and open up to the possibility that there might just be another perspective on the situation—her view, or his view. The moment you do that, it sets you free. Genpo Roshi
- When you remain open to all points of view—not rigidly attached to only one—your dreams and desires will flow with nature’s desires… you can be sure when the season is right, your desires will manifest. Deepak Chopra
- In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against one another, in the final analysis the thing that will strike you the most, is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish…. but who would go to the greatest lengths in considering the other’s perspective. Mike Dooley
- I have one major rule: everybody is right. More specifically, everybody – including me – has some important pieces of the truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace. Ken Wilber
- Opinions are made to be changed or how is truth to be got at? Lord Byron
- When you understand and are comfortable with yourself, it becomes easier to open yourself to the ideas of others. Stephen Covey
- Many of the “truths” you cling to are simply a result of one point of view—yours. Stephen Covey
- It takes a disciplined person to listen to convictions which are different from their own. Dorothy Fuldman
- A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open. Frank Zappa
- Who do you want to barbecue today? Someone who doesn’t see things quite our way? Bash ‘N the Code
- People are very open-minded about new things–as long as they’re exactly like the old ones. Charles F. Kettering
- It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth. Milan Kundera, Encounter
- A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos. Edward De Bono
- The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new. Pema Chodron
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Choose kindness, love and happiness over being right
- I’d rather be happy than right. Hugh Prather
- Do you prefer that you be right, or that you be happy? A Course in Miracles
- Choose being kind over being right. The reason we are tempted to put others down is that our ego mistakenly believes that if we point out how someone else is wrong, we must be right and therefore we feel better. Richard Carlson
- Attachment to being right creates suffering. When you have a choice to be right, or to be kind, choose kind and watch your suffering disappear. Wayne Dyer
- Being “right” has nothing to do with it. The idea that you call “right” is the idea that someone else calls “wrong.” The solution that you call “perfect” is the solution that another calls “unworkable.” The position that you feel is unassailable is the very position that others assail. What will solve all of this? Not attack, that’s for sure. And not defense, either. So what is left? Simple human love. The kind of love that says, “It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong. It only matters that you are not hurt. And that we both can benefit. All true benefits are mutual. Neale Donald Walsch
- Choose kindness over being right, and you’ll be right every time. Richard Carson
- Why choose to be right instead of happy when there is no way to be right? Hugh Prather
- If you have a choice between right or kind, choose kind. Wayne Dyer
- Concern yourself not with what is right and what is wrong but with what is important.
- Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. Robert Brault
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Keep in mind there are many valuable perspectives
- Right view is having no particular, fixed view, which means seeing that all views are limited, that no particular view is the only view. They’re all restricted, they’re all limited, they’re all fragmented. Actually the right view is no view. Genpo Roshi
- I let go of my need to convince others of my point of view. When I remain open to all points of view, my dreams and desires will flow with nature’s desires. Deepak Chopra
- In reality, there are an infinite number of perspectives, but we act as if there were only one. Genpo Roshi
- Let’s consciously evolve as individuals and as a culture to a “second- tier” level of consciousness. Here, for the first time, we can hold multiple perspectives. No one is smart enough to be 100% wrong. Ken Wilber
- There is no truth. Only points of view. Dame Edith Sitwell
- To believe the world is only as you think it is, is stupid Carlos Castaneda
- If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary. Dan Millman
- Always respect another’s opinion and another’s point of view. Sri Sathya Sai Baba
- We find comfort among those who agree with us–growth among those who don’t. Frank A. Clark
- Over 7 billion people in this world and a single reality? Not very realistic. Open your minds. Lucas T. Andrietti
- You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. Friedrich Nietzsche
- When you live on a round planet, there’s no choosing sides. Wayne Dyer
- I have one major rule: Everybody is right. More specifically, everybody — including me — has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace. Ken Wilber
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Being open to another’s points of view can create great synergy
- The essence of synergy is to value differences—to respect them, to build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses. Once people have experienced real synergy, they are never quite the same again. They know the possibility of having other such mind- expanding adventures in the future. Stephen Covey
- Synergy is celebrating differences, teamwork, open-mindedness, and finding new and better ways together. Synergy means you can literally produce something with another person that neither of you could have produced Stephen Covey
- Differences are an opportunity, not an obstacle. The key is to remain open to hearing ideas so you can determine which ideas to combine to spark a better solution. Stephen Covey
- The Third Alternative is achieved when two or more people work together to create a better solution than those individuals could create separately. It’s 1+1=3 or more. It’s not your way or my way but a better way, a higher way. There are five steps to a Third Alternative: Define the problem or opportunity. Listen to the other person. Share your views. Brainstorm options together. Find the best solution together. Stephen Covey
- The problem is not how to wipe out all differences, but how to unite with all differences intact. Rabindranath Tagore
- Greetings, I am pleased to see that we are different. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us. Vulcan greeting
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Affirmation
- Today I will realize that being myself and letting others be themselves is far more important than being “right.” Value and worth are not dependent on being right, and I’m striving for love in my relationships, not superiority. I won’t hide behind being right, but will just let myself be who I am. Melody Beattie
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On a lighter note
- If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names. Elbert Hubbard
- A handsome reward is offered to anyone who can prove me wrong but refrains from doing so. Ashleigh Brilliant
- I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing. Oscar Wilde
- The fellow who thinks he knows it all is especially annoying to those of us who do. Peter Holmes
- Everyone is entitled to their own incorrect opinion. Brian Vaszily
- Argument: An exchange of words between people with diametrically opposed views, all of whom know that they are right. Kevin Boddington
- It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! Friedrich Nietzsche
- It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right. Moliere
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- Being right is highly overrated. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
- It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. John Maynard Keynes