Lessons from some of my all time fav books

1. Life lessons from 10
lightest yet heaviest
books
Summarized by:
Narita Rai

2. #1. Five people you meet in heaven
~Mitch Albom
The book follows the life and death of a maintenance man named Eddie. Eddie is killed and sent to heaven, where he
encounters five people who had a significant impact upon him while he was alive.
1. Blue Man: Everything happens for a reason. All lives and experiences are interconnected in some way, and even the
little things you do can affect other people's lives and experiences dramatically. The human spirit knows, deep down,
that all lives intersect.
2. The Captain: Sacrifices are a part of life. Everyone makes these sacrifices. Some sacrifices are big, and others are day-
to-day small sacrifices, but they all make an impact in other people's lives.
3. Ruby: The importance of releasing anger and granting forgiveness. There is always more than one side to a story.
4. Marguerite: The power of love, even after death. There are multiple forms of love, some stronger than others. Lost
love is the strongest kind of love, the kind that can be felt even across enormous distances.
5. Tala: There's always a purpose for your life. Where you are today is a combination of all your past actions, decisions,
and the way the people around you have affected you.

3. #2. Tuesdays with Morrie
~Mitch Albom
The author shares lessons learnt from his professor Morrie who was on his deathbed.
1. Live each day as if it were your last
2. Remember to spend quality time with your family
3. Enjoy your emotions to the fullest
4. Money can never buy real happiness
5. Pay attention to the person you talk to
6. Marry the person with the same values to you – and treat them well
7. Decide your own rules; do not let society steer your life
8. Forgive others, as well as yourself

4. #3. As a man thinketh
~James Allen
1. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
2. As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from
the hidden seeds of thought and could not have appeared without them.
3. Man holds the key to every situation and contains within himself that transforming and
regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.
4. There is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err. Luck and
randomness do not determine our life. Our thoughts brought us here and can take us elsewhere if
we choose.
5. Good thoughts and actions can never produce bad results; bad thoughts and actions can never
produce good results. This is but saying that nothing can come from corn but corn, nothing from
nettles but nettles.
6. A man only begins to be a man when he ceases to whine and revile and commences to search for
the hidden justice which regulates his life.

5. #4. Jonathan Livingston Seagull
~Richard Bach
1. Living is so much more than just existing. It is our responsibility to find and follow a meaning,
a higher purpose in life.
2. Never feel sorry for the price you paid to reach your ideal life.
3. The most important thing in living is to reach out and touch perfection in that which we most
love to do.
4. It always works when you know what you are doing
5. We need to keep finding ourselves, a little more each day
6. Love and kindness are the most difficult, most powerful and most fun of all lessons we have
to learn
7. See the good in everyone and help them see in themselves. That’s real love.

6. #5. Man’s search for meaning
~Viktor Frankl
1. He who has a ‘Why’ to live for, can bear almost any ‘How’
2. Success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it
3. Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire
4. There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you’ve none to lose.
5. What man actually need is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a
worthwhile goal
6. That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger
7. Self actualization is possible only as a side effect of self-transcendence
8. Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning

7. #6. The Prophet
~Khalil Gibran
1. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
2. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and
resolution.
3. Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in
sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally
pure and faithful.
4. They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think
my days have a price.
5. To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he
aspires to.
6. The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.
7. Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come
through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

8. #7. The Road less travelled
~M. Scott Peck
1. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult.
2. Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
3. Our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is
only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for
different ways or truer answers
4. If we know exactly where we’re going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we’ll see along the way, we won’t
learn anything.
5. Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and
development of the spirit.
6. Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only
some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.
7. It is not so much what our parents say that determines our world view as it is the unique world they create for us by
their behavior.

9. #8. Tao Te Ching
~Lao-Tzu
1. By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is
beyond the winning.
2. Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is
true power.
3. If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is
nothing you cannot achieve.
4. He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far.
5. He who tries to shine dims his own light.
6. At the center of your being, you have the answer; you know who you are, and you know what you want.
7. The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast.
8. In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong
nothing can surpass it.
9. New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.

10. #9. Peaceful Warrior
~Dan Millman
1. Knowledge is not the same as wisdom. Knowing is how to do something and wisdom is actually doing it.
2. We can spend a whole lifetime without ever being awake.
3. There’s no higher purpose than ‘service to others’
4. Stop gathering information from outside and start gathering it from the inside.
5. People are afraid of what’s inside and that’s the only place they’re ever gonna find what they need
6. Right leverage can be very effective. Our training, our lives is about developing the wisdom to apply the right
leverage in the right place at the right time.
7. There’s never nothing going on. There are no ordinary moments.
8. When you are truly here and now, you’ll be amazed at what you can do.
9. Death isn’t sad. The sad thing is that most people never live at all.
10. Anger, hatred, violence are all just manifestations of fear. Fear, not money is the root of all evil.
11. People who are hardest to love are usually the ones who need it the most

11. #10. The Art of War
~Sun Tzu
1. Choose your battle wisely. He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.
2. Timing is essential. The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it
to strike and destroy its victim.
3. Know Yourself, Know your enemy.
4. Have a unique plan. All warfare is based on deception.
5. Disguise your plan. When able to attack, we must seem unable, when using our forces, we must
seem inactive. When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away.
6. The best way to win is not to fight at all. To win 100 battles is not the height of skill, to subdue the
enemy without fighting is.
7. Change represents opportunity. In the midst of chaos, there is opportunity.
8. Success breeds success. Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
9. No one profits from prolonged warfare.