The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

“I call this process the domestication of humans. And through this domestication we learn how to live and how to dream. In human domestication, the information from the outside dream is conveyed to the inside dream, creating our whole belief system.”

This quote introduces human domestication and how it makes people who they are. Understanding how humans develop their belief systems is essential in understanding how to create a new one.

“True justice is paying only once for each mistake. True injustice is paying more than once for each mistake.”

Here, Ruiz explains why the Book of Law, Judge, and Victim mentality isn’t a just cycle. According to the Book of Law, the Judge causes the Victim to pay for every mistake multiple times. This feels like justice because we believe we deserve punishment, but Ruiz points out that it’s just the opposite.

“To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are.”

This quote cuts right to the core fear of humans in the dream of the planet. Taking the risk to be alive is what the book is about. The four agreements exist to guide people into a space where they’re truly alive and truly themselves. By placing this quote early in the book, Ruiz prepares people to face deep fears.

“During the process of domestication, we form an image of what perfection is in order to try to be good enough. We create an image of how we should be in order to be accepted by everybody.”

This passage introduces another self-limiting belief learned through domestication: perfection. Ruiz explains that this image of perfection is unattainable and damaging to oneself and others. Throughout the book, Ruiz never discusses achieving perfection but emphasizes the value of simply doing one’s best. Much of the book is dedicated to showing that one can’t be accepted by everybody because of the self-limiting agreements within others.

“There are thousands of agreements you have made with yourself, with other people, with your dream of life, with God, with society, with your parents, with your spouse, with your children. But the most important agreements are the ones you made with yourself. In these agreements, you tell yourself who you are, what you feel, what you believe, and how to behave. The result is what you call your personality.”

In this passage, Ruiz shows the importance and depth of the agreements one makes. Often, people dislike who they are or the life they’re living but don’t know how to change anything. By explaining how someone’s internal agreements make them who they are, Ruiz introduces how people can change themselves and their lives.

“The word is not just a sound or written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life.”

In this quote, Ruiz redefines how people think of their word. Although human domestication teaches that the word isn’t important, Ruiz quickly corrects this thinking. Understanding the power of the word is the first step in understanding the first agreement.

“A sin is anything you do that goes against yourself. Everything you feel or believe or say that goes against yourself is a sin. You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything. Being without sin is exactly the opposite. Being impeccable is not going against yourself. When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.”

This passage summarizes the first agreement. In addition, it challenges traditional religious definitions of sin and prepares people to let go of judgment, which is an important part of the four agreements.

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in.”

This quote summarizes why one shouldn’t take anything personally, which is the second agreement. It highlights how everyone makes their own agreements and sees the world through the lens of those agreements. This quote conveys the importance of letting others think and feel however they want to.

“You create an entire picture movie in your mind, and in that picture you are the director, you are the producer, you are the main actor or actress. Everyone else is a secondary actor or actress. It is your movie.”

In this passage, Ruiz provides an analogy for how each person’s life is made from their own decisions. Ruiz gives people the power to make their lives whatever they want and demonstrates that everyone else has the freedom to do the same thing, which is why one never needs to take another person’s words or actions personally.

“Only by making an inventory of our agreements will we uncover all of the conflicts in the mind and eventually make order out of the chaos of the mitote.”

This quote reminds people not to take every thought that enters their head personally. It references the theme The Necessity of Choice and hints at the approaches Ruiz explains in Chapter 6 to overcoming the parasite and living the new dream, particularly the Art of Transformation: The Dream of Second Attention.

“The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth. We could swear they are real.”

In this quote, Ruiz addresses why assumptions are problematic, which people must understand to make the third agreement. When people believe that the assumptions they make are true, they react accordingly and create situations that have no basis in reality.

“We have millions of questions that need answers because there are so many things that the reasoning mind cannot explain. It is not important if the answer is correct; just the answer itself makes us feel safe. This is why we make assumptions.”

People must understand why they make assumptions before they can establish a habit of not making assumptions. This quote explains why assumptions are so common and so detrimental. Ruiz references how the beliefs in people’s Book of Law determine how they see the world. Even if those beliefs are wrong, they feel safe and therefore remain unchallenged, just like the assumptions one makes.

“We make assumptions that others think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make. And this is why we have a fear of being ourselves around others. Because we think everyone else will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves.”

This passage references the information Ruiz presents in Chapter 1, that people abuse themselves more than anyone else abuses them. Because people can’t live up to the image of perfection they created, they abuse themselves and fear others will do the same. Ruiz challenges this belief and reiterates that it’s an assumption with no truthful basis.

“We don’t need to justify love; it is there or not there. Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. If we try to change them, we don’t really like them.”

In this quote, Ruiz challenges people’s perception of love after explaining how assumptions hurt relationships. When one can look at and accept a person fully, one has no need to make assumptions. However, if one has an assumption about one’s partner, one feels the need to change the partner or be disappointed by who the partner really is.

“When you do your best, you don’t give the Judge the opportunity to find you guilty or blame you. If you have done your best and the Judge tries to judge you according to your Book of Law, you’ve got the answer, ‘I did my best.’ There are no regrets.”

This quote summarizes one of the main reasons the fourth agreement, Always Do Your Best, is so important. The whole book aims to silence the inner Judge. Doing one’s best is the best way to fight the Book of Law, Judge, and Victim mentality.

“Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action.”

This quote hinges on the necessity of choice and looking forward to the new dream. While writing about doing one’s best, Ruiz is advising people to make the choice to live their new dream. By urging this action, he’s encouraging people to fight their domestication and create a new reality.

“The best way to say, ‘Thank you, God,’ is by letting go of the past and living in the present moment, right here and now. Whatever life takes away from you, let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment.”

In this passage, Ruiz emphasizes the value of the fourth agreement, Always Do Your Best. To embrace the new dream, one must choose to be fully present. This passage foreshadows the third approach to killing the parasite, The Initiation of the Dead: Embracing the Angel of Death, which forces one to live fully in the present.

“You were born with the right to be happy. You were born with the right to love, to enjoy and to share your love. You are alive, so take your life and enjoy it.”

This quote directly combats what people learn during domestication, which constantly tells them that they’re unworthy. By arguing that people are born with the right to be happy, Ruiz challenges the self-limiting agreements people make and encourages them to live the new dream.

“If we look at the description of a parasite, we find that a parasite is a living being who lives off of other living beings, sucking their energy without any useful contribution in return, and hurting their host little by little. The Judge, Victim, and the belief system fit this description very well. Together they comprise a living being made of psychic or emotional energy, and that energy is alive.”

This passage clearly outlines how detrimental the beliefs learned during human domestication are. Realizing that the Book of Law, Judge, and Victim mindset is a parasite that actively hurts individuals is essential to establishing new agreements. This quote introduces the three Toltec approaches to fighting the parasite and living the new dream.

“One way to change your beliefs is to focus your attention on all those agreements and beliefs, and change the agreements with yourself. In doing this you are using your attention for the second time, thus creating the dream of the second attention or the new dream.”

In this passage, Ruiz introduces the first Toltec approach to killing the parasite, The Art of Transformation: The Dream of Second Attention. It outlines what’s necessary for this approach and points toward the end goal, the new dream. This approach focuses on the necessity of choice in breaking old agreements and forming new ones.

“The decision to adopt the Four Agreements is a declaration of war to regain your freedom from the parasite. The Four Agreements offer the possibility of ending the emotional pain, which can open the door for you to enjoy your life and begin a new dream.”

This quote summarizes the reason Ruiz wrote the book and reiterates its end goal: to help people end emotional pain, enjoy their lives, and begin a new dream. It references all three themes: the parasite that rules through human domestication, the necessity of choice, and the possibility of the new dream.

“First, we need the truth to open the emotional wounds, take the poison out, and heal the wounds completely. How do we do this? We must forgive those we feel have wronged us, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves so much we don’t want to keep paying for the injustice. Forgiveness is the only way to heal.”

This passage summarizes the second Toltec approach to fighting the parasite, The Discipline of the Warrior: Controlling Your Own Behavior. This approach also relies on the book’s second theme, the necessity of choice in breaking old agreements and forming new ones. In this instance, Ruiz presents the choice to forgive, which is contrary to what people learn during domestication.

“We are able to break our domestication, become free again, and heal our mind. We surrender to the angel of death, knowing that the parasite will die and we will still be alive with a healthy mind and perfect reason. Then we are free to use our own mind and run our own life.”

In this passage, Ruiz summarizes the third Toltec approach to fighting the parasite, Initiation of the Dead: Embracing the Angel of Death. This passage references all three themes and highlights how choosing to break old agreements by embracing the Angel of Death will break the self-limiting agreements learned through domestication and free one to live the new dream.