Week 2022-47: Kyuzo Mifune - Collected Quotes

"A chance to try your technique is in one instant never to be regained, so try it without hesitation." (Kyuzo Mifune, "Canon of Judo: Principle and Technique", 1956)

"Action of a man, for instance, done without the unity of mind and body. may be indecent and cause harm to the people around him. This unity of mind and body creates reason in external presentation." (Kyuzo Mifune, "Canon of Judo: Principle and Technique", 1956)

"Be swift. The center of gravity follows the movement of body; as the center of gravity is the most important center of keeping stability, so if the center of gravity is lost. the body is naturally unbalanced. So always fix your mind and keep your body lightly, and move quickly when needed. fixing the center of gravity so instantly as to admit of no chance to the opponent." (Kyuzo Mifune, "Canon of Judo: Principle and Technique", 1956)

"In explaining Judo, often we say 'Gentleness often controls sturdness' (as 'Ju' or Yawara implies tenderness) : Judo shows free mental-attitude created by gentle and elastic capability, physical and mental, which enables a player in face of emergency to change his position and act or avert a danger in accordance with the requirement of time and place given." (Kyuzo Mifune, "Canon of Judo: Principle and Technique", 1956)

"Judo objective is found in infinite sincerity naturally shown, and is in common with truth. mind and body. And this is universal life of nature. Everything in nature keeps or endeavors to keep stability in motion, and the human beings as one of them are not against reason. But man, having ability to think. judge. select and act. seeks to obtain stability in psychology and the law of nature." (Kyuzo Mifune, "Canon of Judo: Principle and Technique", 1956)

"The revolution of heavens and earth is carried on according to the laws of universe, and such laws correspond to nature. Nature exists without will; consistent with existence. nature is not against fidelity." (Kyuzo Mifune, "Canon of Judo: Principle and Technique", 1956)

"A sphere never loses its center, it moves swiftly without strain, and it does not resist force." (Kyuzo Mifune)

"Do not place hope in finding a secret technique. Polish the mind through ceaseless training; that is the key to effective techniques." (Kyuzo Mifune)

"The mind, if slackened even a little, will cause defeat, the same as fearing the opponent will make you unable to use full strength." (Kyuzo Mifune)

Week 2022-46: Lin Yutang - Collected Quotes

"A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from."  (Lin Yutang, "The Importance of Living", 1937)

"After all, only he who handles his ideas lightly is master of his ideas, and only he who is master of his ideas is not enslaved by them. Seriousness, after all, is only a sign of effort, and effort is a sign of imperfect mastery." (Lin Yutang, "The Importance of Living", 1937)

"Now it must be taken for granted that simplicity of life and thought is the highest and sanest ideal for civilization and culture, that when a civilization loses simplicity and the sophisticated do not return to unsophistication, civilization becomes increasingly full of troubles and degenerates. Man then becomes the slave of the ideas, thoughts, ambitions and social systems that are his own product." (Lin Yutang, "The Importance of Living", 1937)

"Peace of mind is that mental condition in which you have accepted the worst." (Lin Yutang, "The Importance of Living", 1937)

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials." (Lin Yutang)

"Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence." (Lin Yutang)

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." (Lin Yutang)

"Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do." (Lin Yutang)

"This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought." (Lin Yutang)

Week 2022-45: Ken Wilber - Collected Quotes

"The ultimate metaphysical secret, if we dare state it so simply, is that there are no boundaries in the universe. Boundaries are illusions, products not of reality but of the way we map and edit reality. And while it is fine to map out the territory, it is fatal to confuse the two." (Ken Wilber, "No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth", 1979)

"Physics is the most fundamental, and least significant, of the sciences." (Ken Wilber, "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution", 1995)

"Anybody can they say they are being "spiritual" — and they are, because everybody has some type and level of concern. Let us therefore see their actual conception, in thought and action, and see how many perspectives it is in fact concerned with, and how many perspectives it actually takes into account, and how many perspectives it attempts to integrate, and thus let us see how deep and how wide runs that bodhisattva vow to refuse rest until all perspectives whatsoever are liberated into their own primordial nature." (Ken Wilber, "The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad", 1997)

"Spirit slumbers in nature, awakens in mind, and finally recognizes itself as Spirit in the transpersonal domains."  (Ken Wilber, "A Brief History of Everything", 1998)

"Truth, in the broadest sense, means being attuned with the real. To be authentically in touch with the true, and the good and the beautiful." (Ken Wilber, "A Brief History of Everything", 1998)

"These similarities would seem to suggest, among other things, that there are spiritual patterns at work in the universe, at least as far as we can tell, and these spiritual patterns announce themselves with impressive regularity wherever human hearts and minds attempt to attune themselves to the cosmos in all its radiant dimensions." (Ken Wilber, "An Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World", 2007)

"Reality is a rich tapestry of interwoven levels, reaching from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit." (Ken Wilber)

"The modern West, after the enlightenment, became the first major civilization in the history of humanity to deny almost entirely the existence of the Great Nest (or chain) of Being. In its place was a 'flatland' conception of the universe as composed basically of matter (or matter/energy) and this material universe [...] could be studied by science and science alone." (Ken Wilber)

Week 2022-44: Frank Herbert - Collected Quotes

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"A system has order, flowing from point to point. If something dams that flow, order collapses. The untrained might miss that collapse until it was too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic." (Frank Herbert, "Dune: The Prophet", 1965)

"Growth is limited by that necessity which is present in the least amount. And, naturally, the least favorable condition controls the growth rate." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"Proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"The mind can go either direction under stress - toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"Learning a language represents training in the delusions of that language." (Frank Herbert, "The Bureau of Sabotage: Whipping Star", 1969)

"There are problems in this universe for which there are no answers." (Frank Herbert, "Dune Messiah", 1969)

"Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality." (Frank Herbert, "Dune Messiah", 1969)

"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." (Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune", 1976)

"All proofs inevitably lead to propositions which have no proof! All things are known because we want to believe in them." (Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune", 1976)

"It must certainly be more dangerous to live in ignorance than to live with knowledge." (Frank Herbert, "The White Plague", 1982)

"Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All reconstructions change the original, becoming external frames of reference that inevitably fall short." (Frank Herbert, "Heretics of Dune", 1983)

"Technology is both a tool for helping humans and for destroying them. This is the paradox of our times which we're compelled to face." (Frank Herbert, [interview with Tim O'Reilly], 1983)

"We never completely escape the teachers of our childhood nor any of the patterns that formed us." (Frank Herbert, "Heretics of Dune", 1983)

"Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change." (Frank Herbert, "God Emperor of Dune", 1984)

"History is a constant race between invention and catastrophe." (Frank Herbert, "God Emperor of Dune", 1984)

"The truth always carries the ambiguity of the words used to express it." (Frank Herbert, "God Emperor of Dune", 1984)

"What do such machines really do? They increase the number of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking - there's the real danger." (Frank Herbert, "God Emperor of Dune", 1984)

"Clinging to any form of conservatism can be dangerous. Become too conservative and you are unprepared for surprises. You cannot depend on luck. Logic is blind and often knows only its own past. Logic is good for playing chess but is often too slow for the needs of survival." (Frank Herbert, "Chapterhouse: Dune", 1985)

"Intelligence takes chances with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary." (Frank Herbert, "Chapterhouse: Dune", 1985)

"Order generally was a product of human activity. Chaos existed as a raw material from which to create order." (Frank Herbert, "Chapterhouse: Dune", 1985)

"Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definitions." (Frank Herbert, "Chapterhouse: Dune", 1985)

"The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realize about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche." (Frank Herbert, "Dune: House Atreides", 1999)

"Life - all life - is in the service of life. Necessary nutrients are made available to life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of life increases. The entire landscape comes alive, filled with relationships and relationships within relationships." (Frank Herbert, "Dune: House Corrino", 2001)