Week 2017-47

"A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets." (Arthur C. Clarke)

"Truth is not to be found outside. No teacher, no scripture can give it to you. It is inside you and if you wish to attain it, seek your own company. Be with yourself." (Osho)

"People tend to assume everyone else should think the same way they do, and this contributes to much human misery." (Keith Cowan)

"The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions." (Bishop Mandell Creighton)

"A wise man takes a step at a time; he establishes one foot before he takes up the other: an old place should not be forsaken recklessly." (Sanskrit saying)

“No man learns to know his inmost nature by introspection, for he rates himself sometimes too low, and often too high, by his own measurement. Man knows himself only by comparing himself with other men; it is life that touches his genuine worth.” (Goethe)

“Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” (Chuang-Tzu)

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.” (Rene Descartes)

“He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.” (Goethe)

“We all learn by experience, and your lesson this time is that you should never lose sight of the alternative.” (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Return of Sherlock Holmes”, 1905)

Week 2017-45

"In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught." (Baba Dioum)

"Humanity seeks self-sufficiency, while nature demands relationship. Humanity wants to be invulnerable, but nature reminds it that it is bonded to all other things." (Jeremy Rifkin)

"The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one’s eyes." (George Sand)

"The wind blows over the lake and stirs the surface of the water. Thus, visible effects of the invisible are manifest." (I Ching)

"There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore be content." (Swami Sivananda)

"Happiness can exist only in acceptance." (George Orwell)

"People who pride themselves on their 'complexity' and deride others for being 'simplistic' should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth." (Thomas Sowell)

"The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone." (Goethe)

"If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you, and you'll never learn." (Ray Bradbury)

Week 2017-34

[#understanding, #perception]
"When we want to understand something we cannot just stand outside and observe it. We have to enter deeply into it and be one with it in order to really understand." (Thich Nhat Hanh)

[#education, #growth]
"You have to start where people are, because their growth is going to be from there, not from some abstraction or where you are or someone else is." (Myles Horton)

[#flow, #choice]
"Stop choosing between chaos and order and live at the boundary between them where rest and action move together." (Rainer Maria Rilke)

[#understanding, #pain]
"[...] if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less." (James Baldwin)

[#detachment, #awareness]
"This is what Zen means by being detached - not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling is not sticky or blocked, and through whom the experiences of the world pass like the reflections of birds flying over water." (Alan Watts)

[#mind, #meditation]
"The mind has power over the body and speech, and therefore any training of body and speech must begin with the mind." (Dalai Lama, “Stages Of Meditation”)

[#change, #patience]
"To master change, nothing is more important than to know the time; to know the time, nothing is more important than to understand inner design; to understand inner design, nothing is more important than open calm." (Li Daoqun, “The Book of Balance and Harmony”)

[#patience, #acceptance]
"Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind." (David G. Allen)

[#action, #impossible]
"Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible." (M. C. Escher)

[#self, #love]
"There is in fact no self which needs to be negated. We merely manifest self in terms of our affection and love for people and our willingness to work. When we manifest this way, the self that needs to be negated is already negated." (Kyozan Joshu Sasaki)

[#truth, #human nature]
"If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practised, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point." (Ezra Pound)

Week 2017-32

"A man must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere." (Charles F. Kettering)

"There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something." (Henry Ford)

"The universe is a fractal. Whatever energy signature we carry will be repeated infinitely, again and again...until we change that vibration." (Paige Bartholomew)

"Unanticipated side effects arise because we too often act as if cause and effect were always closely linked in time and space." (John Sterman)

"Side effects are not a feature of reality but a sign that our understanding of the system is narrow and flawed." (John Sterman)

"Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively." (Dalai Lama)

"Renunciation is not giving up the things of this world, but accepting that they go away." (Shunryu Suzuki-roshi)

"In the age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still." (Pico Iyer)

"Words are not truth. Truth is like the moon, and words are like my finger. I can point to the moon with my finger, but my finger is not the moon." (Hui Neng)

"The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." (G. K. Chesterton)

Week 2017-29

"If you are looking for a friend who is faultless, you will be friendless." (Rumi)

"This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness." (Mary Oliver)

"A snowflake never falls in the wrong place." (Zen saying)

"It is useless to fight against people’s rigid ways, or to argue against their irrational concepts. You will only waste time and make yourself rigid in the process. The best strategy is to simply accept rigidity in others, outwardly displaying deference to their need for order. On your own, however, you must work to maintain your open spirit, letting go of bad habits and deliberately cultivating new ideas." (Robert Greene)

"In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way — and if we are to live together and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet." (Bertrand Russell)

"Nothing we see or hear is perfect. But right there - in the imperfection is perfect reality." (Shunryū Suzuki)

"We rarely hear the inward music, but we're all dancing to it nevertheless." (Rumi)

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." (Khalil Gibran)

"The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world." (Marianne Williamson)

"We must learn to live with contradictions, because they lead to deeper and more effective understanding." (Edward Teller)

Week 2017-25

[#discovery, #models]
"We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or to other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open." (Shakti Gawain)

[#complexity, #simplicity]
"Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves." (Edwin Way Teale)

[#learning, #perfection]
"Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning." (Edsger W. Dijkstra)

[#complexity, #simplicity]  
"Great truths are simple because they are of universal application. Truth itself is always simple. Complexity is due to man's ignorance." (Swami Vivekananda)

[#gaia]
"Constantly regard the universe as a single living being, having one substance and one soul; observe how all creation relates to the cosmic consciousness of this one living being. Observe too how everything moves with its impulse, working together to create all events, continuously spinning its delicate thread in the amazing complexity of its web." (Marcus Aurelius)

[#peacefulness, #change]
"Peace of mind comes from not wanting to change others, but by simply accepting them as they are. True acceptance is always without demands and expectations." (Dr. Gerald Jampolsky, "Love Is Letting Go of Fear", 1979)

[#illness, #human nature]
"Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against Nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear." (Hippocrates)

[#self control, #strength]
"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." (Marcus Aurelius)

[#acceptance]
"When faced with any difficulty of life, resolve it by following these four steps: face it, accept it, deal with it and let it go." (Sheng Yen)

[#learning #acceptance]
"Reading doesn’t mean accepting everything you read, it means reasoning everything you read." (Amit Kalantri)

Week 2017-18

"To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not." (Akhenaton)

"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." (Herbert Agar)

"An act of imagination is an act of self-acceptance." (Richard Hugo, "Triggering Town")

"We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are." (Gene Roddenberry)

"Belief can convert the mundane into the miraculous." (Charles F Glassman)

"Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective." ( Hunter S. Thompson )

"Staring at the light of another blinds the view of our own." (Charles F Glassman)

"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides." (André Malraux)

"I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves." (Louise L. Hay)

Week 2017-17

"Using someone else’s ruler to measure your self-worth will always leave you short." (Charles F Glassman)

"Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free.   
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.  
This is the ultimate." (Chuang Tzu)

"When meditation is mastered,  
the mind is unwavering,  
like the flame of a lamp in a windless place." (Bhagavad Gita)

"What cannot be known is more revealing than what can." (John D. Barrow, "Impossibility", 1998)

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people." (Carl Jung)

"All great things have their origin in that which is small." (Lao Tzu)

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. (Henry David Thoreau)

"Exploring your imagination is the first step to understanding your heart." (Anon)

"Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do." (Voltaire)

"It seldom happens that a man changes his life through his habitual reasoning. No matter how fully he may sense the new plans and aims revealed to him by reason, he continues to plod along in old paths until his life becomes frustrating and unbearable—he finally makes the change only when his usual life can no longer be tolerated." (Leo Tolstoy)

Week 2017-13

[#success, #learning]
"The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well." (Horace Walpole)

[#action, #chance]
"Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great." (Orison Swett Marden)

[#strength, #will]
"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." (Gandhi)

[#errors]
"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes." (Oscar Wilde, "The Picture of Dorian Gray")

[#limits, #chance]
"It is by fighting the limitations, temptations, and failures of the world that we reach our highest possibilities." (Helen Keller)

[#truth, #quest]
"Don’t keep searching for truth. Just let go of your opinions." (Seng Ts'an)

[#acceptance]
"We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

[#altruism, #meaning]
"Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

[#limits, #human nature]
"The greatest enemy of the individual is the individual himself." (Saul Alinsky)

Week 2017-12

[#opportunity]
"[...] if we are to have any future, we must create that future ourselves." (Beatrice Bruteau)

[#love, #altruism]
"People who exude love are in every way like rivers - they stream. And when they collect possessions and things that they like, they are apt to give them to other people. Did you ever notice that when you give things away, you keep getting more? That, as you create a vacuum, more flows in?" (Alan Watts)

[#control, #change]
"Nature is not a force over which we must triumph, but the medium of our transformation." (Marilyn Ferguson)

[#suffering, #fear]
"To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none." (Francis Bacon)

[#perspective]
"Judge people from where they stand, not from where you stand." (H. Jackson Brown, Jr.)

[#reality, #change]
"To change our realities we have to change our myths." (Riane Eisler)

[#human nature, #control]
"The domination of nature leads to the domination of human nature." (Edward Abbey, "Beyond the Wall”, 1984)

[#quest]
"The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it." (Seneca the Younger)

[#acceptance, #certainty]
"Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow." (Tony Schwartz)

[#limits, #knowledge]
"It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning." (Claude Bernard)

Week 2017-08

"Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves; to like themselves." (Bonaro Overstreet)

"Pick the assumptions to pieces till the stuff they are made of is exposed to plain view - this is the cardinal rule for understanding the basis of our beliefs. (Eric Temple Bell, "The Search for Truth")

"If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much." (Lewis Carroll)

"So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible." (Norton Juster)

"You will, if you’re wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it." (Freya Stark)

"In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it." (Jane Smiley)

"A man's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." (Seneca the Younger)

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." (Herman Melville)

"There can only be one solution to any problem: a change in attitude and in consciousness." (Gregg Braden)

Week 2016-50

"Many men go fishing all their lives not knowing it is not fish they are after." (Henry David Thoreau)

"The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists." (Japanese saying)

"Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." (George Bernard Shaw)  

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." (Khalil Gibran)

"He who spends time regretting the past loses the present and risks the future." (Quevedo)

"We carry within us the wonders we seek without us." (Sir Thomas Browne of Norwich, "Religio Medici")

"The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat." (Napoleon Hill)

"Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we have a clear picture of it." (Benedict Spinoza)

"If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins." (Benjamin Franklin)

"Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us." (Eugène Ionesco)