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Miguel Ruiz uses the word “agreement” as a technical term for “belief.” An agreement is a belief that a person has agreed to hold. A person who believes in God, for example, has agreed to adopt the belief that there is a God, and to act in accordance with that belief in their life. Ruiz emphasizes that beliefs are actually agreements because people can choose to reject beliefs or stop agreeing with something they accepted as true in the past. A person’s beliefs about the world are technically agreements that children make blindly when they are very young, because they trust their caregivers and believe everything they are told. In adulthood, however, a person can change their beliefs or make new agreements. In The Four Agreements, Ruiz’s aim is to convince readers to revoke their prior agreements and adopt four new ones that he believes will increase their happiness and their freedom.
Agreement Quotes in The Four Agreements
The The Four Agreements quotes below are all either spoken by Agreement or refer to Agreement. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Introduction: The Smokey Mirror
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Everything is God.
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Chapter 1. Domestication...
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The only way to store information is by agreement.
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Chapter 2. The First Agreement
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The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word.
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When we see the world through a computer virus, it is easy to justify the cruelest behavior.
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Chapter 3. The Second Agreement
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The second agreement is don’t take anything personally.
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Chapter 4. The Third Agreement
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The third agreement is don’t make assumptions.
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Chapter 5. The Fourth Agreement
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The fourth agreement is about the action of the first three: Always do your best.
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“If you meditate four hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in ten years.”
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“If you meditate eight hours a day, perhaps you will transcend in twenty years.”
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I did my best.
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Agreement Term Timeline in The Four Agreements
The timeline below shows where the term Agreement appears in The Four Agreements. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1. Domestication and the Dream of the Planet
...other things. These concepts “hook” us through language, which is like a code full of agreements that we all understand.
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Ruiz says that when human beings are domesticated, we internalize all our “agreements” into a mental “Book of Law” which we use to constantly judge ourselves and others....
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...and constantly punish ourselves or create “emotional poison.” Ruiz believes that 95 percent of the agreements we have internalized are false and that “we suffer because we believe all these lies.”
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...these things are already within and around us, but we can’t see them because the agreements and beliefs we have stored within us—or the dream that we have been taught—obscures our...
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Each person—including you—makes thousands of agreements with others, including your parents, partners, children, God, and society. However, the most important ones...
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...of power that rebuilds every night. We usually spend all our power on keeping the agreements we have made, so we feel powerless and trapped in “the dream of the planet.”...
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Chapter 2. The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word
The “first agreement” Ruiz believes to be necessary is both simple and powerful: “be impeccable with your word.”...
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...attention” and tell you that you’re not stupid, which enables you to make a new agreement. On the other hand, if you are surrounded by people who say you are stupid,...
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...and so on. Because the mother misuses words (uses “black magic”), her daughter makes an agreement not to express herself in order to be accepted and loved. Ruiz says that we...
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Ruiz is planting the seed for you to accept the first agreement in your mind. He believes that if you nurture it—by using the word to share...
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Chapter 3. The Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally
The rest of the agreements follow from the first agreement. The second agreement is “don’t take anything personally.” For example,...
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...direct personal insults have nothing to do with you: they come from the other person’s agreements, their programming during domestication. Taking something personally is like taking someone else’s “emotional garbage” and...
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...right and for others to be wrong. But everything you believe just reflects your own agreements (or your own “dream”). Instead, Ruiz says you could do as he does, and believe...
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...way to calm this chaos, according to Ruiz, is to make an inventory of our agreements, expose the conflicts among them, and make order out of the chaos.
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Practicing the second agreement makes you immune to the triggers that “trap you in the dream of hell.” It...
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Chapter 4. The Third Agreement: Don’t Make Assumptions
...just creates problems and drama, and we should avoid doing that. As such, the third agreement is, “don’t make assumptions.” Often, we are “afraid to ask for clarification,” so we make...
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...may sound harsh, but that style of communication is more “impeccable,” as per the first agreement.
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...differently—over and over again—until we form new habits. Ruiz thinks that if you make this agreement a habit, you will transform from a “black magician” into a “white magician” and you’ll...
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Chapter 5. The Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best
The fourth agreement, “always do your best,” is important because it enables the others to become habits. No...
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Doing your best is the key to achieving the other agreements. As you try to change your habits, you won’t always be impeccable with your word,...
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Ruiz means that you can’t just daydream or meditate on the agreements to reap their benefits—you have to act by feeding, cleaning, and healing your body; exercising;...
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Ruiz says it’s impossible to “live in hell” when you practice the four agreements, because you’ll be 100 percent in control of your life. Toltec wisdom says that together,...
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