This is the place for inspiration. I, like many others, have been saving quotes from people that inspire me in daily life. After a while I realized that I have some thoughts or sayings that I don't want to be lost in time. Below are some original thoughts distiled from meditative sessions, discussions, or maybe just a feeling I had in the past. I have included some quotes I found helpful in one way or another and hope you might as well.




Quotes Category View




Click on category

Anger

Beauty

Education / Experience

Fun / Funny

Greatness

Happiness

Inspiration

Kindness

Life

Love

Moving Forward

Music

Pain

Politics

Success

Vices

Writing

Alphabetical View




Anger


Back to Top

Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
     ~ Buddha

Ambition and anger will disappear when you stop concerning yourself with the fruit of your actions.
     ~ Buddha

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by it.
     ~ Buddha

Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind.
     ~ Evan Esar

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. Develop the mind of equilibrium. You will always be getting praise and blame, but do not let either affect the poise of the mind: follow the calmness, the absence of pride.
     ~ Sutta Nipata

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.
     ~ Chuang Tzu




Beauty


Back to Top

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
     ~ Sir Francis Bacon

The grass can be like the soul/spirit. If unkempt it will be rough and worthless but if maintained and mowed it can be natures carpet. The soul/spirit will be as a cushion rather then a snare.
     ~ Kenny Say, 7.14.09




Education / Experience


Back to Top

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
     ~ Aristotle

In this world the wise one holds onto confidence and wisdom. Those are the greatest treasures; all other riches are pushed aside.
     ~ Buddha

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
     ~ Buddha

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
     ~ Buddha

A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals a secret of hidden treasure.
     ~ Buddha

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
     ~ Thomas Carlyle

All things are difficult before they are easy.
     ~ Dr. Thomas Fuller

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
     ~ Mahatma Gandhi

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.
     ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.
     ~ Aldous Huxley

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
     ~ Aldous Huxley

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
     ~ Thomas H. Huxley

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
     ~ Samuel Johnson

All understanding begins with our not accepting the world as it appears.
     ~ Alan C. Kay

There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.
     ~ Alfred Korzybski

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
     ~ Søren Kierkegaard

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
     ~ Barry LePatner

A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.
     ~ Wilson Mizner

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
     ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
     ~ Bertrand Russell

Your mind wanders without a leader. When your mind becomes it's own leader it can't help but follow.
     ~ Kenny Say , 9.18.07

A teacher will stop teaching if their student refuses to learn.
     ~ Kenny Say, 9.18.07

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
     ~ George Bernard Shaw

Success comes from good judgement. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience often comes from bad judgement.
     ~ Unknown

Discipline breeds discipline.
     ~ Unknown

When you do the "do"s you don't have time for the "don't"s.
     ~ Unknown

The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
     ~ Daniel Webster

Wise men don't judge: they seek to understand.
     ~ 'Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon' by Wei Wu Wei

In order to be effective truth must penetrate like an arrow - and that is likely to hurt.
     ~ 'Posthumous Pieces' by Wei Wu Wei

Only the curious will learn, only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The Quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
     ~ Eugene S. Wilson



Fun / Funny


Back to Top

Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there.
     ~ Scott Adams

What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
     ~ Woody Allen

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
     ~ Joe Ancis

When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.
     ~ Bernard Bailey

If it's not fun, you're not doing it right.
     ~ Bob Basso

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
     ~ Charles Bukowski

If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.
     ~ Jimmy Buffett

Indecision may or may not be my problem.
     ~ Jimmy Buffett

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
     ~ Robert X. Cringely

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
     ~ E.E. Cummings

A splayd to me is like a clown.
     ~ Remy DeBarbarack

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.
     ~ Philip K. Dick

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
     ~ Albert Einstein

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
     ~ Nora Ephron

If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it.
     ~ W.C. Fields

Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have.
     ~ Ernest Haskins

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
     ~ Heraclitus

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.
     ~ Hermann Hesse

Confusion is always the most honest response.
     ~ Marty Indik

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur.
     ~ Doug Larson

If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.
     ~ Alice Roosevelt Longworth

The average person thinks he isn't.
     ~ Father Larry Lorenzoni

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
     ~ Robert McCloskey

No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why.
     ~ Mignon McLaughlin

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
     ~ Marshall McLuhan (1911 - 1980)

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
     ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Humor is everywhere, in that there's irony in just about anything a human does.
     ~ Bill Nye

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
     ~ Terry Pratchett

No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
     ~ Bertrand Russell

Sanity is a madness put to good use.
     ~ George Santayana

Never eavesdrop and fill in the blanks. You might not like the filler you use.
     ~ Kenny Say, 11.8.06

It's good to laugh at yourself... But not only yourself.
     ~ Kenny Say, 11.14.06

I never tell people what to do. Just what they should do.
     ~ Kenny Say, 12.27.06

The trouble with the mind is that it is so simple no one understands it.
     ~ Kenny Say, 2.5.07

I find it easy to talk to people. You just open your mouth. It's closing it I have trouble with.
     ~ Kenny Say, 10.8.09

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere... If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good.
     ~ Dr. Seuss, One Fish two fish red fish blue fish, 1960

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
     ~ George Bernard Shaw

Do you ever notice that when you're driving, anyone going slower than you is an idiot and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac?
     ~ Unknown

You think I'm outta my head, But I'm already dead. So come on I'll waste my life.
     ~ Unknown

My life is all math. I am trying to add to my income, subtract from my weight, divide my time, and avoid multiplying.
     ~ Unknown

Unix is user friendly. It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly.
     ~ Unknown

Death sounds realaxing...
     ~ Unknown

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.
     ~ Jane Wagner

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.
     ~ Bill Watterson

There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.
     ~ Bill Watterson

A man who is seeking for realization is not only going round searching for his spectacles without realizing that they are on his nose all the time, but also were he not actually looking through them he would not be able to see what he is looking for!
     ~ 'Ask the Awakened' by Wei Wu Wei

Play your part in the comedy, but don't identify yourself with your role!
     ~ 'Why Lazurus Laughed' by Wei Wu Wei

Duct tape is like the force: It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together.
     ~ Carl Zwanzig




Greatness


Back to Top

The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery. The greatest quality is seeking to serve others. The greatest precept is continual awareness. The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything. The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways. The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. The greatest generosity is non-attachment. The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind. The greatest patience is humility. The greatest effort is not concerned with results. The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go. The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances.
     ~ Atisha

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
     ~ Hermann Hesse

He’s like fire and ice and rage. He’s like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. He’s ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and can see the turn of the universe. And… he’s wonderful.
     ~ Tim Latimer, Doctor Who

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.
     ~ Fran Lebowitz

What may seem insignificant, mundane, routine, or small, is often used by God to show His power over all.
     ~ Sper

We may be powerless, but our God is all-powerful.
     ~ Unknown




Happiness


Back to Top

Live your life in happiness, even though those around you lead lives which are unhealthy, and wish to spread their illness to you. Be Happiness itself.
     ~ Buddha

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
     ~ Buddha

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
     ~ Buddha

Lead a righteous life; lead not a base life. The righteous live happily both in this world and the next.
     ~ Buddha

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.
     ~ Buddha

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
     ~ Buddha

Live your life in happiness, owning nothing. Feed on happiness like lustrous gods. Be Happiness Itself.
     (Happiness, v200)

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
     ~ Søren Kierkegaard

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.
     ~ John Stuart Mill

Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.
     ~ Leo Rosten

Live in the moment enough to be happy but plain ahead enough to be successful.
     ~ Kenny Say, 4.4.07

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?
     ~ Charles M. Schulz

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
     ~ Albert Schweitzer

It is important to recognize the power of our emotions--and to take responsibility for them by creating a light and positive atmosphere around ourselves. This attitude of joy that we create helps alleviate states of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair. Our relationships with others thus naturally improve, and little by little the whole of society becomes more positive and balanced.
     ~ Tarthang Tulku

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.
     ~ Edith Wharton




Inspiration


Back to Top

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.
     ~ Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990)

As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
     ~ M. Cartmill

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
     ~ GK Chesterton

It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
     ~ Ralph Ellison

If you have doubts, look to the word of God and have your doubts turned into faith.
     ~ John MacArthur

The Lord is perfectly in control. The Lord doesn’t do evil. The Lord doesn’t condone evil. The Lord isn’t in the evil. But the Lord uses the evil.
     ~ John MacArthur

To comprehend and to understand God above all similitudes, as He is in Himself, is to be God with God, without intermediary, and without any otherness that can become a hindrance or an intermediary. Whosoever wishes to understand this must have died to himself, and must live in God, and must turn his gaze to the eternal light in the ground of his spirit, where the Hidden Truth reveals Itself without means.
     ~ Ruysbroek

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
     ~ Frank Tibolt

No matter who signs your paycheck, you are really working for God.
     ~ Unknown




Kindness


Back to Top

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
     ~ Philo of Alexandria

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
     ~ Buddha

If you do not tend to one another then who is there to tend to you? Whoever who would tend me, he should tend the sick.
     ~ Buddha

Who ranks as the highest? One who does not harm anything. One who never retaliates. One who is always at peace regardless of the other person's disposition.
     ~ Buddha

He, who by good deeds covers the evil he has done, illuminates this world like the moon freed from clouds.
     ~ Buddha

No matter what one does, whether one's deeds serve virtue or vice, nothing lacks importance. All actions bear a kind of fruit.
     ~ Buddha

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
     ~ Samuel Johnson

It is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other.
     ~ J. Krishnamurti

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
     ~ Dalai Lama, 1935 - present

The only real service we can render to that which we perceive and interpret in phenomenal existence as 'others' is by awakening to universal consciousness ourselves.
     ~ Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind.
     ~ John Stuart Mill

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.
     ~ Bertrand Russell

You are the center of the universe. Just remember to be considerate of those in your universe or you wont stay the center.
     ~ Kenny Say, 11.11.06

There are two kinds of light--the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
     ~ James Thurber

Don't be mad if someone gives you a fake smile, at least their trying
     ~ Unknown

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.
     ~ Oscar Wilde




Life


Back to Top

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.
     ~ Christopher Morley

If you do something good, enjoy it, repeat it, and allow it to become a way of life.
     ~ (Bad Conduct, v118)

Turn your mind away from things which are not permanent.
     ~ Buddha

With the relinquishing of all thought and egotism, the enlightened one is liberated through not clinging.
     ~ Buddha

Be wise, disciplined and non-violent and you will find peace. Be aware both night and day, continue your practice, and you will attain Nirvana.
     ~ Buddha

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.
     ~ Buddha

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.
     ~ Buddha

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
     ~ Buddha

Despite the appearance of being seperate individuals, we are all connected to patterns of intelligence governing the cosmos.
     ~ Deepak Chopra

There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are.'
     ~ Frederick L Collins

Ask yourself this; 'Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having a human experience?
     ~ Wayne Dyer, PhD

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
     ~ Umberto Eco

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
     ~ Albert Einstein

There are moments when one feels free from one's own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only Being.
     ~ Albert Einstein

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to the span of life?
     ~ Jesus

The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.
     ~ Foster's Law

Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
     ~ William Goldman

Life... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. You're stuck with this undefinable whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while, there's a peanut butter cup, or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast, the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits, filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, and if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left... is an empty box... filled with useless, brown paper wrappers.
     ~ The Smokeing Guy

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
     ~ Alfred Hitchcock

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
     ~ Carl Jung

Once you label me you negate me.
     ~ Søren Kierkegaard

All human activity is behaviour. Through the centuries we have developed codes of conduct, these become laid down by the society, by the culture, in which we live, and by the so-called saints and religious teachers; this code or pattern, this norm of behaviour, becomes traditional and automatic, that is, mechanical.
     ~ J. Krishnamurti

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
     ~ J. Krishnamurti

With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
     ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

To be enlightened is simply to be absolutely, unconditionally intimate with this moment. No more. No less.
     ~ Scott Morrison

Whenever we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
     ~ John Muir

You are now in control of your life. You see, the ego is never in control. The ego is controlled by wishes for comfort and convenience on the part of the body, by demands of the mind, and by outbursts of the emotions. But the higher nature controls the body and the mind and the emotions. I can say to my body, "Lie down there on that cement floor and go to sleep," and it obeys. I can say to my mind, "Shut out everything else and concentrate on this job before you," and it's obedient. I can say to my emotions, "Be still, even in the face of this terrible situation," and they are still. It's a different way of living. The philosopher Thoreau wrote: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps he hears a different drummer. And now you are following a different drummer--the higher nature instead of the lower.
     ~ Peace Pilgrim

This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love.
     ~ Peace Pilgrim

If you want to have friends, you must be friendly. If you want to make peace, you must be peaceful.
     ~ Peace Pilgrim

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.
     ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Remember if you live life back words, it may appear as evil to others.
     ~ Kenny Say, 12.3.07

It is better to step out of the way willingly then to push others.
     ~ Kenny Say, 7.15.08

Listen to your body. It tells you everything you need to know if you listen.
     ~ Kenny Say, 7.29.08

Don't rush the painter. You end up with some pretty ugly scenes.
     ~ Kenny Say, 11.1.11

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
     ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
     ~ Herbert Spencer

The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.
     ~ Henry Stimson

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
     ~ Mark Twain

If you do something good, enjoy it, repeat it, and allow it to become a way of life.
     ~ Unknown

Let your core beliefs be your guiding light and then you will make the right choices.
     ~ Unknown

Maturity: Do your duty without being suppervised.
     ~ Unknown

Time...
It is free, but it's priceless.
You can't own it, but you can use it.
You can't keep it, but you can spend it.
Once you've lost it, you can never get it back.

     ~ Unknown

Friends...
A friend asks only for time and not money.
A true friend walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

     ~ Unknown

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
     ~ Unknown

The most difficult phase of life is not when no one understands you; It is when you don't understand yourself.
     ~ Unknown

The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness.
     ~ Unknown

Read the Bible to be wise, believe it to be safe, practice it to be holy.
     ~ Unknown

And just as men depend upon A boat for traversing the sea, So does the mental body need The matter-body for occurrence. And as the boat depends upon The men for traversing the sea, So does the matter-body need The mental body for occurrence. Depending each upon the other The boat and men go on the sea. And so do mind and matter both Depend the one upon the other.
     ~ 'Visuddhimagga' (XVIII, 36)

Most people have seen worse things in private than they pretend to be shocked at in public.
     ~ Edgar Watson Howe

We imagine that waking-life is real and that dream-life is unreal, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this belief. Chuang Tzu, in the third century B.C., put it in an amusing way; having dreamed that he was a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, he stated that he was now wondering whether he was then a man dreaming he was a butterfly or whether he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
     ~ 'Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon' by Wei Wu Wei

It is not for us to search but to remain still, to achieve Immobility not Action.
     ~ 'Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon' by Wei Wu Wei

The practice of meditation is represented by the three monkeys, who cover their eyes, ears and mouths so as to avoid the phenomenal world. The practice of non-meditation is ceasing to be the see-er, hearer or speaker while eyes, ears and mouths are fulfilling their function in daily life.
     ~ 'Open Secret' by Wei Wu Wei

Destroy 'the ego', hound it, beat it, snub it, tell it where it gets off? Great fun, no doubt, but where is it? Must you not find it first? Isn't there a word about catching your goose before you can cook it? The great difficulty here is that there isn't one.
     ~ 'Posthumous Pieces' by Wei Wu Wei

As long as there is a 'you' doing or not-doing, thinking or not-thinking, 'meditating' or 'not-meditating' you are no closer to home than the day you were born.
     ~ 'The Tenth Man' by Wei Wu Wei

It is only with total humility, and in absolute stillness of mind that we can know what indeed we are.
     ~ 'The Tenth Man' by Wei Wu Wei

Let us live gladly! Quite certainly we are free to do it. Perhaps it is our only freedom, but ours it is, and it is only phenomenally a freedom. 'Living free' is being 'as one is'. Can we not do it now? Indeed can we not-do-it? It is not even a 'doing': it is beyond doing and not-doing. It is being as-we-are. This is the only 'practice'. 'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living'
     ~ Wei Wu Wei

Past and Future are a duality of which Present is the reality. The now-moment alone is eternal and real.
     ~ 'Why Lazurus Laughed' by Wei Wu Wei

What we know as 'life' is the analytical realization in the seriality of time of our eternal reality.
     ~ 'Why Lazurus Laughed' by Wei Wu Wei

When you give a shilling to a beggar - do you realize that you are giving it to yourself? When you help a lame dog over a stile - do you realize that you yourself are being helped? When you kick a man when he is down - do you realize that you are kicking yourself? Give him another kick - if you deserve it!
     ~ 'Why Lazurus Laughed' by Wei Wu Wei

Spontaneity is being present in the present. Spontaneity by-passes the processes of the conceptual (aspect of) mind. Re-integration with Nature, which we are, is the recovery of spontaneity.
     ~ 'Why Lazurus Laughed' by Wei Wu Wei

The human being may be no more real than is a cinematograph film. When the projected light is switched off all that remains is a blank screen. That which has been projected by light was a series of 'stills'. Such also is what is being projected by 'life'. The more you consider the analogy the more perfect it seems to be: it could help us to understand.
     ~ Wei Wu Wei

I have argued that every human being is born with an innate drive to experience altered states of consciousness periodically -- in particular to learn how to get away from ordinary ego-centered consciousness. I have also explained my intuition that this drive is a most important factor in our evolution, both as individuals and as a species. Nonordinary experiences are vital to us because they are expressions of our unconscious minds, and the integration of conscious and unconscious experience is the key to life, health, and spiritual development, and fullest use of our nervous systems.
     ~ Andrew Weil, M.D.

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
     ~ Alfred North Whitehead

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.
     ~ Oscar Wilde

If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
     ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein




Love


Back to Top

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
     ~ Buddha

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law.
     ~ Buddha

Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.
     ~ Rabbi Julius Gordon

To experience love, we must go inside. When you experience real love you get into a state which is beyond words. You are filled with a joy that goes beyond all emotions. True love is the love of the inner Self.
     ~ Swami Muktananda

Let your love flow outward through the universe, To its height, its depth, its broad extent, A limitless love, without hatred or enmity. Then as you stand or walk, Sit or lie down, As long as you are awake, Strive for this with a one-pointed mind; Your life will bring heaven to earth.
     ~ Sutta Nipata

Of course I love everyone I meet. How could I fail to? Within everyone is the spark of God. I am not concerned with racial or ethnic background or the color of one's skin; all people look to me like shining lights!
     ~ Peace Pilgrim

You don't have to give me a present. Just give me your presence.
     ~ Kenny Say, 3.17.08

How can we pursue peace in the world if we fight over how to love?
     ~ Kenny Say, 7.21.11

I think you are magical even when you find yourself mundane.
     ~ Unknown




Moving Forward


Back to Top

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
     ~ Douglas Adams

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
     ~ John Quincy Adams

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
     ~ Sir Francis Bacon

Let go of the past! Let go of the future! Let go of the present and cross over to the farther shore of existence. With your mind wholly liberated, you shall come no more to birth and death.
     ~ Buddha

If you find a good companion, who is following the same spiritual path, travel together, overcoming obstacles as they arise.
     ~ Buddha

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.
     ~ Buddha

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
     ~ Buddha

To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny.
     ~ Alan Cohen

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.
     ~ T.S. Eliot

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
     ~ George Eliot

Fall seven times, get up eight.
     ~ Japanese Proverb

After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed.
     ~ De La Lastra's Law

No human thing is of serious importance.
     ~ Plato

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
     ~ George Santayana

If you live in the past you will not reach the future.
     ~ Kenny Say, 9.3.06

When the wind blows, even as hard as it can, the tree only drops ripe fruit.
     ~ Kenny Say, 7.12.09

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
     ~ Dr. Seuss

It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.
     ~ Unknown

The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
     ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.
     ~ Steven Wright

If you do not understand, things won't change and if you do understand things won't change.
     ~ Zen saying




Music


Back to Top

I felt my body move to a will of its own yet I knew that will was mine, a will, an awareness which had remained dormant and silent for all my previous life, yet always waiting to be released, longing to come into its own. Nothing mattered but moving, where my many separate selves united - meeting and touching. Sewn together by the threads of the rhythm, which flowed in a discrete continuity.
     ~ Angeline

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
     ~ Samuel Johnson




Pain


Back to Top

Once you are living your life in awareness, it will be as though you stand high above others, witnessing their suffering, while you do not suffer at all.
     ~ Buddha

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
     ~ Buddha

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
     ~ Buddha

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
     ~ Chinese Proverb

Whatever is flexible and flowing will tend to grow, whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.
     ~ Tao Te Ching

Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you.
     ~ Calvin Coolidge

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
     ~ Marie Curie

Maximise what is beneficial to living beings, minimise what is harmful, and purify the mind, to see the difference more clearly.
     ~ Kenny Say's distilled version of Dhammapada, The Way of Truth

Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose.
     ~ Evan Esar

He's turned his life around. He used to be depressed and miserable. Now he's miserable and depressed.
     ~ David Frost

The only thing worse than living life is watching those you care about live theirs.
     ~ Kenny Say, 9.5.06

If someone ever calls you a name, someone most likely called them it too.
     ~ Kenny Say, 11.8.06

By means of meditation we can teach our minds to be calm and balanced; within this calmness is a richness and a potential, an inner knowledge which can render our lives boundlessly satisfying and meaningful. While the mind may be what traps us in unhealthy patterns of stress and imbalance, it is also the mind which can free us. Through meditation, we can tap the healing qualities of mind.
     ~ Tarthang Tulku

All the evil in the world, and all the unhappiness, comes from the I-concept.
     ~ 'Ask the Awakened' by Wei Wu Wei

We are required to cease looking at objects as events apart from ourselves, And to know them at their source - which is our perceiving of them.
     ~ 'Open Secret' by Wei Wu Wei

On the phenomenal plane we seek pleasure and the avoidance of pain. On the noumenal plane we know the absence of both - which is Bliss.
     ~ 'Why Lazurus Laughed' by Wei Wu Wei




Politics


Back to Top

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
     ~ Franklin P. Adams

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
     ~ Hannah Arendt

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
     ~ Honore de Balzac

No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
     ~ William Jennings Bryan

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
     ~ Buddha

The only thing needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
     ~ Edmund Burke

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
     ~ Samuel Butler

A newspaper consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not.
     ~ Henry Fielding

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
     ~ Ben Hecht

A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices.
     ~ William James

I gave way to delight, as mystics have for centuries when they peeked through the curtains and discovered that this world- so manifestly real was actually a tiny stage set constructed by the mind. We discover abruptly that everything we accept as reality is just social fabrications.
     ~ Timothy Leary, 1966

People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.
     ~ AJ Liebling

Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
     ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
     ~ William G. McAdoo

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
     ~ Edward R. Murrow

Superman is the way America sees itself, but Batman is the way the world sees America.
     ~ Christopher Nolan

The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
     ~ Ronald Reagan

Some wish to know of the diplomacy behind the carnage. Others wish to know of the carnage behind the diplomacy.
     ~ Kenny Say, 11.4.11

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
     ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
     ~ George Bernard Shaw

Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?
     ~ Unknown

Man can never be free of control, for to be free of control is to be controlled by oneself.
     ~ Unknown

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
     ~ Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet)

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.
     ~ Gary Zukav




Success


Back to Top

You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play.
     ~ Warren Beatty

A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
     ~ Robert Browning

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
     ~ Buddha

Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
     ~ Rene Descartes

To gain that worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
     ~ Bernadette Devlin

Conquer the angry man by love. Conquer the ill-natured man by goodness. Conquer the miser with generosity. Conquer the liar with truth.
     ~ The Dhammapada

He who finds a thought that enables him to obtain a slightly deeper glimpse into the eternal secrets of nature has been given great grace.
     ~ Albert Einstein

Keep it simple; as simple as possible, but no simpler.
     ~ Albert Einstein

Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.
     ~ Jim Horning

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
     ~ Samuel Johnson

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.
     ~ Marshall McLuhan

Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.
     ~ Jules Renard

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
     ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Live in the moment enough to be happy but plain ahead enough to be successful.
     ~ Kenny Say, 4.4.07

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.
     ~ George Bernard Shaw

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.
     ~ Mark Twain

Success comes from good judgement. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience often comes from bad judgement.
     ~ Unknown




Vices


Back to Top

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.
     ~ Tallulah Bankhead

A life of pleasure makes even the strongest mind frivolous at last.
     ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The time to relax is -- when you don't have time for it.
     ~ Sidney J. Harris

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
     ~ Bertrand Russell

I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.
     ~ John D. Rockefeller

The mind of a drunkard is no mind at all.
     ~ Kenny Say, 8.26.06




Writing


Back to Top

The cure for writer's cramp is writer's block.
     ~ Inigo DeLeon

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
     ~ Paul Dirac

Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
     ~ Charles McCabe

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun.
     ~ Pablo Picasso

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
     ~ David Sedaris

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
     ~ James Thurber



For alphabetical view of these quotes: Please click here


Please E-Mail Suggestions to: MasterMind@MessedMinds.com