Week 2021-27: Meditation is ...

"Do you think that you can clear your mind by sitting constantly in silent meditation? This makes your mind narrow, not clear. Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all places and at all times. That is true meditation. [...] The Tao is clear and simple, and it doesn't avoid the world." (Lao Tzu)

"In fact, the view is to look at one's own mind. Meditation is not to stray from that. Action is not to be separated from that. The fruit is to actualize that. When looking there is nothing to be looked at appearances are mind itself. When meditating there is nothing to meditate on-awareness is self-luminous. When acting there is nothing to act out-action is spontaneous. There is no fruit to accomplish - one's own mind is the buddha." (Rangjung Dorje)

"It's helpful to remind yourself that meditation is about opening and relaxing with whatever arises, without picking and choosing." (Pema Chodron)

"Meditation does not imply only the development of single-pointed concentration, sitting in some corner doing nothing. Meditation is an alert state of mind, the opposite of sluggishness; meditation is wisdom. You should remain aware every moment of your daily life, fully conscious of what you are doing and how you are doing it." (Lama Yeshe)

"Meditation is, first of all, a tool for surveying our territory so we can know what is going on. With the energy of mindfulness, we can calm things down, understand them, and bring harmony back to the conflicting elements inside us." (Thich N Hanh)

"Meditation is not the pursuit of pleasure and the search for happiness. Meditation, on the contrary, is a state of mind in which there is no concept or formula, and therefore total freedom. It is only to such a mind that this bliss comes unsought and uninvited. Once it is there, though you may live in the world with all its noise, pleasure and brutality, they will not touch that mind." (Jiddu Krishnamurti)

"Meditation is not to escape from society, but to come back to ourselves and see what is going on. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. With mindfulness, we know what to do and what not to do to help." (Thich Nhat Hahn)

"Meditation is nothing but an effort to look at reality without the thinking mind - because that is the only way to see reality. If thinking is there it distorts, it corrupts. Drop the thinking mind and see reality - direct, immediate, face to face. And then there is no problem." (Osho)

"Meditation is not about finding the self - quite the contrary: it is about finding one's way beyond the self. Meditation is also not about 'expanding the mind'. It is instead about clearing away clutter created by the mind." (David M White)

"Meditation is not to escape from society, but to come back to ourselves and see what is going on. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. With mindfulness, we know what to do and what not to do to help." (Thich N Hahn)

"Meditation is simply getting to know your mind." (Dzogchen Ponlop)

"Meditation is the awareness that I am not the mind." (Osho)

"Meditation is the way we realize the nature of the mind." (Lama Yeshe)

"The art of meditation is neither mindless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive." (Alan Watts)

"The spirit world is able to get through to you easily when your mind is still and clear. Meditation is often referred to as 'sitting in the silence.' Whenever you want to reach Spirit from this side of life, start by sitting in the silence." (James Van Praagh)

"There are two aspects of mind; the appearances and its essence. Most people are lost in the appearances and projections without ever knowing the true nature of their experiences. Meditation is recognizing and bringing the mind home to its essence of clarity and peace." (Sogyal Rinpoche)

"Thinking is the natural activity of the mind. Meditation is not about stopping your thoughts. Meditation is simply a process of resting the mind in its natural state, which is open to and naturally aware of thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they occur." (Yongey Rinpoche Mingyur & Eric Swanson)

"When the mind, clear and ungraspable like the sky, does not fall into partiality-this is the view. When the mind, self-aware and self-luminous like a mirror, is free from bright and dim - this is meditation. When the mind, uncontrived and natural like a child, is without negation or assertion-this is action." (Dagpo Rinpoche)

Week 2019-24

[#belief, #action]
“Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.” (Chris Prentiss, “Zen and the Art of Happiness”, 2006)

[#truth, #expectations]
"An ignorant man believes that the whole universe only exists for him: as if nothing else required any consideration. If, therefore, anything happens to him contrary to his expectation, he at once concludes that the whole universe is evil. If, however, he would take into consideration the whole universe, form an idea of it, and comprehend what a small portion he is of the Universe, he will find the truth." (Maimonides, "Guide for the Perplexed", cca. 1190)

[#limits, #creativity]
"I dislike frontiers, political or intellectual, and I find that ignoring them is an essential catalyst for creative thought. Ideas should flow without hindrance in their natural course." (Michael Atiyah)

[#models, #growth]
“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.” (John Stuart Mill)

[#experience, #perception]
"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them." (Kahlil Gibran)

[#growth, #life]
"It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow." (Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", 1974)

[#vision, #dreams]
"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens." (Carl Gustav Jung)

[#happiness, #self]
"The great majority of spiritual teachings are based on the idea of seeking happiness while standing in afixated self, whereas Zen states that happiness comes through dissolving and unfixating that self. In other words, by dissolving we mean that act oj true love which is the total giving of one's being to the so called other." (Joshu Sasaki Roshi)

[#knowledge, #self]
"Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms." (Khalil Gibran)

[#learning, #mastery]
"It is known that, when we learn or train in something, we pass through the stages of shu, ha, and ri. These stages are explained as follows. In shu, we repeat the forms and discipline ourselves so that our bodies absorb the forms that our forebears created. We remain faithful to these forms with no deviation. Next, in the stage of ha, once we have disciplined ourselves to acquire the forms and movements, we make innovations. In this process the forms may be broken and discarded. Finally, in ri, we completely depart from the forms, open the door to creative technique, and arrive in a place where we act in accordance with what our heart/mind desires, unhindered while not overstepping laws." (Endō Seishirō)

Week 2018-07

[#timing, #understanding]
"The developed structures at each point in the game are the past, and the possibilities existing in that situation are the future. Together they constitute the present. Properly understanding the past and future in this sense is the essence of good timing." (W. Cobb)

[#religion, #life]
"Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language." (Hilaire Belloc)

[#opportunity, #action]
"The frog lives by the side of the fragrant lotus, but it is the bee who gets the honey." (Ramana Maharshi)

[#education]
"What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give." (Phyllis D James)

[#sorrow, #joy]
"Find expression for a sorrow, and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy." (Oscar Wilde)

[#hope, #wisdom]
"When hope is born, it is necessary to unite courage with wisdom. Only then is it possible to avoid violence." (Óscar Arias Sánchez)

[#reason, #control]
"Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason." (George O Welles)

[#change, #habit]
"Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change." (Herbert G Wells)

[#truth, #experiment]
"Heresies are experiments in man's unsatisfied search for truth." (Herbert G Wells)

[#learning, #change]
"In times of change, the learner will inherit the earth while the learned are beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists." (Eric Hoffer)

Week 2017-46

[#happiness, #love]
"Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it." (Bernard Meltzer)

[#illusion, #solitude]
"Man has the illusion that he talks with the entire world from his computer. He is actually alone." (Octavian Paler)

[#happiness, #attachment]
"If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess  you do have a problem."    (Richard Bach)

[#action, #growth]
"If you wish to move mountains tomorrow, you must start by lifting stones today." (African saying)

[#knowledge, #action]
"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." (Maya Angelou)

[#mastery, #growth]
"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” (Ronald E. Osborn)

[#love, #completeness]
"We love in others what we lack ourselves, and would be everything but what we are.” (Richard Henry Stoddard)

[#happiness, #timing]
"Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.” (William Feather)

[#perception, #learning]
"Some people never learn the art of compromise. Everything is either black or white. They do not recognize, or will not concede, that the equally important color gray is a mixture of black and white.” (Waite Phillips)

[#hardship, #learning]
"Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass – it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” (Anon)

Week 2017-43

"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do." (Michael Porter)

"The greater is the circle of light, the greater is the boundary of the darkness by which it is confined." (Joseph Priestley)

"One of the elementary rules of nature is that, in the absence of a law prohibiting an event or phenomenon, it is bound to occur with some degree of probability. To put it simply and crudely: Anything that can happen does happen." (Kenneth W Ford)

"To choose a road, to stop habitually and ask whether you have not gone astray, that is the true method.” (Louis Pasteur)

"Responsibility is not doing as we are told, that's obedience. Responsibility is doing what is right.” (Simon Sinek)

"The adventurer is within us, and he contests for our favor with the social man we are obliged to be." (William Bolitho)

"We search for ways to see ourselves. The computer is a new mirror, the first psychological machine. Beyond its nature as an analytical engine lies its second nature as an evocative object." (Sherry Turkle)

"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in." (Alan Alda)

“He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign." (Victor Hugo)

"Nothing is more powerful for your future than being a gatherer of good ideas and information. That’s called doing your homework." (Jim Rohn)

Week 2017-42

"It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?" (Henry David Thoreau)

"I’ve learned through a series of trials and errors that the median space is actually what's missing in our daily walk." (Carlos Wallace)

"There is no such thing as a miracle which violates natural law. There are only occurrences which violate our limited knowledge of natural law." (Saint Augustine)

"The world is a projection of your mind. Good mind, good world. Bad mind, bad world. No mind, no world." (Swami Parthasarathy)

"There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong." (H. L. Mencken)

"There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality." (Pablo Picasso)

"The future is nothing but a present to organize. You do not have to forecast it, but to allow it." ( Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

"Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable." (Mary Oliver)

"Man masters nature not by force but by understanding. This is why science has succeeded where magic failed: because it has looked for no spell to cast on nature." (Jacob Bronowski, Universities Quarterly, 1956)

"The hours when we are absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live [...] .These are the only hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance." ( Richard Jefferies )

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 2017-33

"The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo, the more he can remember the more divine his life becomes." (Soren Kierkegaard)

"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)

"Peaceful is the one who's not concerned with having more or less." (Rumi)

"Balance is the all-important factor in a fighter’s attitude or stance. Without balance at all times, he can never be effective." (Bruce Lee, “Tao of Jeet Kune Do”)

"Never fear the shadows. They simply mean that there's a light somewhere nearby." (Ruth E Renkel)

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." (Martin Buber)

"Don’t search for heaven and hell in the future. Both are now present. Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven. Whenever we fight, hate, we are in hell." (Shams Tabrizi)

"Non-action is the real action. One hundred acts are not as good as one moment of silence. One hundred exercises are not as good as one moment of standing still." (Wang Xiang Zhai)

"A problem is a question you haven't yet answered to a level that has fulfilled you." (Tony Robbins)

"The most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure." (Grayson L. Kirk)

Week 2017-24

"Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic." (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

"Only in the eyes of love you can find infinity." (Sorin Cerin, “Wisdom Collection: The Book of Wisdom”)

"If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea." (Richard Hofstadter)

"The problem with introspection is that it has no end." (Philip K. Dick)

"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children" (Khalil Gibran)

"If you live the sacred and despise the ordinary, you are still bobbing in the ocean of delusion." (Lin-chi)

"You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer." (Plotinus, "Enneads")

"The essence of all things is one and the same, perfectly calm and tranquil, and shows no sign of 'becoming'; ignorance, however, is in its blindness and delusion oblivious of Enlightenment, and, on that account, cannot recognize truthfully all those conditions, differences, and activities which characterize the phenomena of the Universe." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

"All action results from thought, so it is thoughts that matter." (Sai Baba)

"Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos." (Will Durant)

Week 2017-22

"Cleansing the mind does not require water. Practicing generosity does not require wealth." (Sam van Schaik, “Tibetan Zen”)

"The only way to survive eternity is to be able to appreciate each moment." (Lauren Kate Fallen)

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy." (Rumi)

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." (Eleanor Roosevelt)

"Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time." (Hebrew proverb)

"Silence is not an absence of sound but rather a shifting of attention toward sounds that speak to the soul." (Thomas Moore)

"People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for." (Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird")

"A person who becomes fatigued when unhappy is useless. Meeting with people should be a matter of quickly grasping their temperament and reacting appropriately […] This is a function of both the heart and words." (Miyamoto Musashi & Yamamoto Tsunetomo, "The Samurai Series: The Book of Five Rings, Bushido & Hagakure")

"The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think." (Harper Lee)

"No matter what people call you, you are just who you are. Keep to this truth. You must ask yourself how is it you want to live your life. We live and we die. This is the truth that we can only face alone. No one can help us. So consider carefully, what prevents you from living the way you want to live your life." (Shams Tabrizi)

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 2017-16

"Love is not always fireworks and magic. Often we’ll experience it in the form of patience, acceptance, loyalty, and mutual respect." (Charles F Glassman)

"To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence." (Cesar Chavez)

"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death." (James F. Byrnes)

"The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give." (Philip K. Dick)

"Men are not moved by things, but the views they take of them." (Epitectus)

"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." (Henri Bergson)

"Keep constantly in mind in how many things you yourself have witnessed changes already. The universe is change, life is understanding." (Marcus Aurelius)

"Knowledge without action is insanity and action without knowledge is vanity." (Imam al-Ghazali)

"Thinking will not overcome fear but action will." (W. Clement Stone)

"Nothing hurts a good soul and a kind heart more than to live amongst people who cannot understand it." (Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Talib)

Week 2017-14

[#duality, #light]
"There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures." (James Thurber)

[#wisdom, #thought]
"Thinking and doing, doing and thinking, these are the sum of all wisdom. Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out. Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road." (Goethe)

[#mastery, #strength]
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing - to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." (John Keats)

[#character, #mastery]
"You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one." (Henry David Thoreau)

[#belief]
"An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run." (Sydney J. Harris)

[#feelings, #thought]
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think." (Jean de La Bruyère)

[#patience]
"To endure the unendurable is true endurance." (Japanese saying)

[#simplicity]
"If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

[#action, #love]
"The grand essentials of life are something to do, something to love, something to hope for." (Thomas Chalmers)

[#knowledge]
"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." (Epicurus)

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 2017-10

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." (Winston Churchill)

"Where shall we begin? There is no beginning. Start where you arrive. Stop before what entices you. And work! You will enter little by little into the entirety. Method will be born in proportion to your interest." (Auguste Rodin)

"The most dangerous of our prejudices reign in ourselves against ourselves. To dissolve them is a creative act." (Hugo von Hofmannsthal)

"[…] there are no backwaters. There is only one river, and we are all in it." (Scott Russell Sanders, “Writing from the Center”, 1997)

"There is another interesting paradox here: by immersing ourselves in what we love, we find ourselves. We do not lose ourselves. One does not lose one’s identity by falling in love." (Lukas Foss)

"If you look for the truth outside yourself, it gets farther and farther away." (Tung-shan)

"If one will just think about what he is to do for the day at hand, he will be able to do anything. If it is a single day's work, one should be able to put up with it. Tomorrow, too, is but a single day." (Hagakure)

"Maturity of mind is the capacity to endure uncertainty." (John Finley)

"No object is mysterious. The mystery is in your eye." (Elizabeth Bowen)

"There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living." (Nelson Mandela)

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 2017-06

"Speed is useful only if you are running in the right direction." (Joel Barker)

"Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it’s dark." (Zen saying)

"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds." (John Maynard Keynes)

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." (Andy Warhol)

"Do not permit the events of your daily life to bind you, but never withdraw yourself from them." (Zen saying)

"True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice." (Samuel Johnson)

"Chaos in the world brings uneasiness, but it also allows the opportunity for creativity and growth." (Tom Barrett)

"To uncover the truth is not difficult, but to follow the truth is formidable." (Chinese saying)

"Never underestimate the joy people derive from hearing something they already know." (Enrico Fermi)

Week 2017-03

[#assumptions, #errors]
"Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions." (Frank Herbert, “Dune - Children of Dune”)

[#wisdom, #knowledge]
"To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of eternal things; to knowledge, the rational knowledge of temporal things." (Saint Augustine)

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

[#love, #desire]
"Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company." (Milan Kundera)

[#letting go, #control]
"Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself." (Deborah Reber)

[#limits, #balance]
"Sometimes we have to travel to the edge of ourselves to find the center." (Buck Ghosthorse)

[#change, #perception]
"If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it." (Mary Engelbreit)

[#appearances, #errors]
"Be suspicious of anything that works perfectly - it’s probably because two errors are canceling each other out." (Dave Bartley)

[#teaching, #practice]
"Never forget that, at the most, the teacher can give you fifteen percent of the art. The rest you have to get for yourself through practice and hard work." (Tan Soh Tin)

[#reason, #action]
"Those who will not reason perish in the act: Those who will not act perish for that reason." (W.H. Auden)

Week 2016-52

"One's work may be finished some day, but one's education never." (Alexandre Dumas)

"Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves." (Rainer Maria Rilke)

   
"Make a game of finding something positive in every situation. Ninety-five percent of your emotions are determined by how you interpret events to yourself." (Brain Tracy)

"Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable." (William Pollard)

"The dark night of the soul is when you have lost the flavor of life but have not yet gained the fullness of divinity." (Ram Dass)   

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct arising from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves." (Carl Jung)

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." (Victor Frankl)

"The first step is to penetrate the clouds of deceit and distortion and learn the truth about the world, then to organize and act to change it. That's never been impossible and never been easy." (Noam Chomsky)

"To accomplish great things we must dream as well as act." (Anatole France)

"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly." (Henri Bergson)

Week 2016-51

"To be successful you don’t need to do extraordinary things, you just need to do ordinary things extraordinarily well." (Jim Rohn)

"Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses." (Marilyn vos Savant)

"The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score." (Bill Copeland)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." (George Bernard Shaw)

"He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger." (Japanese saying)

"The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it." (Colin Wilson)

"Life is a process of working out what's not working for you and disentangling yourself from it and trying then not walk into the same thing again. Watching your patterns and correcting them if you can." (Siobhan Fahey)

"The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination." (Carl Rogers)

"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master." (Epictetus)

"The best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing." (Theodore Roosevelt)