Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

A lot of suffering is just getting rid of dross in yourself, and lingering and hanging in the darkness is often - I say this against myself - a failure of imagination, to imagine the door into the light.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we're going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it's our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it's because we're focused on ourselves!