Week 2020-28

"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions." (Oliver W Holmes Sr., "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table", 1858) 

"The more a man thinks the better adapted he becomes to thinking, and education is nothing if it is not the methodical creation of the habit of thinking. Precisely. Theoretically, education is a mental training aiming at greater intellectual elasticity, but the question is whether education does not often strain, instead of train, a mind." (Ernest Dimnet, "The Art of Thinking", 1928)

"Most mistakes in philosophy and logic occur because the human mind is apt to take the symbol for the reality." (Albert Einstein, "Cosmic Religion: With Other Opinions and Aphorisms" , 1931) 

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

"The limits of thought are not so much set from outside, by the fullness or poverty of experiences that meet the mind, as from within, by the power of conception, the wealth of formulative notions with which the mind meets experiences." (Susanne Langer, "Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art", 1942) 

"Meditation is the direct means of eradicating the very cause of the majority of diseases, both mental and physical." (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, "Meditation", 1962)

"The discipline of Zen consists in opening the mental eye in order to look into the very reason of existence." (D. T. Suzuki, "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism", 1964)

"The unknown, our own true nature, has the capacity to wake itself up when you start to fall in love with letting go of all the mental structures you hold onto. Contemplate this: there is no such thing as a true belief." (Steven Gray [Adyashanti], "Emptiness Dancing" , 2004)

"Integral wisdom involves a direct participation in every moment: the observer and the observed are dissolved in the light of pure awareness, and no mental concepts or attitudes are present to dim that light." (Lao Tzu) 

"The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life." (Leo Tolstoy, [letter]) 

Week 2020-12

"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken." (Benjamin Disraeli, "Contarini Fleming", 1832)

"Every human perfection is linked to an error which it threatens to become." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "Parerga and Paralipomena", 1851)

"We are responsible to ourselves for our own existence; consequently we want to be the true helmsman of this existence and refuse to allow our existence to resemble a mindless act of chance." (Friedrich Nietzsche, "Untimely Meditations", 1873)

"[The] restoration of the past is one of the most astonishing adventures of the human mind." (Herbert G Wells, "The Grisly Folk", Storyteller Magazine, 1921)

"There is a special sadness in achievement, in the knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be shaped toward new ends." (Arthur C Clarke, "The City And The Stars", 1956)

"The more a man knows about himself in relation to every kind of experience, the greater his chance of suddenly, one fine morning, realizing who in fact he is [...]" (Aldous Huxley, "Island", 1962)

"All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

"Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances." (Benjamin Franklin)

"Many people dedicate their lives to actualizing a concept of what they should be like, rather than actualizing themselves. This difference between self-actualization and self-image actualization is very important. Most people live only for their image." (Bruce Lee)

"Wisdom is the only thing which can relieve us from the sway of the passions and the fear of danger, and which can teach us to bear the injuries of fortune itself with moderation, and which shows us all the ways which lead to tranquility and peace." (Cicero Marcus Tullius)

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 2017-44

"The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational." (A. N. Wilson)

"Education... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading." (G. M. Trevelyan)

"Some people study all their life, and at their death have learned everything but to think." (Demergu Dewar)

"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas." (George Santayana)

"An educated mind is useless without a focused will, and dangerous without a loving heart." (Winfried Deijmann)

"A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it." (Arthur Conan Doyle)

"Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost." (Khalil Gibran)

"Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck." (Frank Herbert)

"One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret." (Barry Lopez)

Week 2017-41

"Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"The knowledge which lies behind is our natural help to that which lies before." (Peter M Latham)

"Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn’t believing. It’s where belief stops, because it isn’t needed any more." (Terry Pratchett)

"Knowing what you know, be serene also, like a mountain; and do not be distressed by misfortune. Knowledge without serenity is an unlit candle; together they are honey-comb; honey without wax is a noble thing; wax without honey is only fit for burning." (Hakim Sanai)

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." (Philip K. Dick)

"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)

"Search a beautiful heart, not a beautiful face. Beautiful things are not always good, but good things are always beautiful." (Sufi saying)

"Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and being comfortable with not knowing." (Eckhart Tolle)

"A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life." (Winston Churchill)

"He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." (Albert Einstein)

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 2017-19

"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)

"When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power." (Alston Chase)

"It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection." (Bhagavad Gita)

"Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance." (Osho)

"If you wish to be a warrior prepare to get broken, if you wish to be an explorer prepare to get lost, and if you wish to be a lover prepare to be both." (Anon)

"Wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It expires with each passing generation." (Sid Taylor)

"Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience." (James Boswell)

"There are gaps between the fingers; there are gaps between the senses. In these gaps is the darkness which hides the connection between things." (Idris Parry)

"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt." (John Muir)

"Seeking means to have a goal; but finding means to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose." (Hermann Hesse)

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 2017-09

[#values]
"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." (Henry David Thoreau)

[#knowledge, #quest]
"There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out." (Russian saying)

[#attachment, #freedom]
"Do not permit the events of your daily lives to bind you, but never withdraw yourselves from them. Only by acting thus can you earn the title of a Liberated One." (Huang Po)

[#hope, #focus]
"I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest." (Dalai Lama)

[#change, #strength]
"When you blame others, you give up your power to change." (Dr. Robert Anthony)

[#hope, #fear]
"We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears." (François de La Rochefoucauld)

[#learning, #experience]
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." (Douglas Adams)

[#knowledge, #unknown]
"People value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach knowledge. Is this not misguided?" (Zhuang Zhou)

[#faith, #hope]
"Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand." ( Thomas Aquinas )

[#success, #dreams]
"Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success." (Swami Vivekananda)

Week 2017-02

"The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds." (Nicholas Sparks)

"Abandon certainty! That's life's deepest command. That's what life's all about. We're a probe into the unknown, into the uncertain." (Frank Herbert, "Dune")

"No literature is sound, no philosophy of action workable, if it doesn’t take a hard look at itself." (John W. Campbell)

"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained." (C. S. Lewis)

"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it." (Albert Camus)

"Understanding arises from reducing one type of reality into another." (Claude Lévi-Strauss)

"Forgiving someone doesn’t give them a free pass. It gives you a free pass to move on." (Charles F Glassman)

"Your strength is in your calmness, in the clarity of your mind. Strength comes from putting the negative aside without reacting. Win in calmness, in consciousness, in balance. Win without fighting." (Yogi Amrit Desai)

"Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject - the actual enemy is the unknown.: (Thomas Mann)

"Do not destroy what you cannot create." (Leó Szilárd)

Week 2016-47

"The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer." (Nolan Bushnell)

"Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom" (Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically." (Henry David Thoreau)

"What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team." (Benjamin F. Fairless)

"Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists." (Anita Brookner)

"The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom." (Samuel Smiles)

"One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know." (John Kenneth Galbraith)

"Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry." (Samuel Smiles)

"The beginning of wisdom is to desire it." (Solomon ibn Gabirol)

"They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom." (Friedrich von Schiller)

Week 2016-46

"Every person has only one purpose: to find perfection in goodness. Therefore, only that knowledge is necessary which leads us to this." (Leo Tolstoy)

"More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

"Change happens in the boiler room of our emotions - so find out how to light their fires." (Jeff Dewar)

"Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning." (Bergen Evans)

"If all knowledge were good, then pursuit of every sort of knowledge would be useful. But many false meditations are disguised as good and useful knowledge; therefore, be strict in selecting the knowledge you want to acquire." (Leo Tolstoy)

"Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self - a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change - the willful act of making the change, doing something." (Leo Buscaglia)

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and create a new ending." (Maria Robinson)

"The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life." (Seneca the Younger)

"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." (David Russell)

"You should study more to understand that you know little." (Michel de Montaigne)

Week 2016-43

"Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next." (Herbert Hoover)

"The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us." (Eric Hoffer)

"There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool." (Francis Bacon)

"Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things."(Heraclitus)

"I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude." (Bruce Lee)

"The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control." (Ogden Nash)

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

"I'm not a master, I'm a student-master, meaning that I have the knowledge of a master and the expertise of a master, but I'm still learning, So I'm a student-master. I don't believe in the word master, I consider the master as such when they close the casket." (Bruce Lee)

"The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.” (Henry Boye)

"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." (Ronald E. Osborn)

"Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things." (Denis Diderot)

Week 2016-39

"Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full."(Rumi)

"We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility." (Rabindranath Tagore)

"Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present." (Albert Camus)

”The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next." (Mignon McLaughlin)

"There are rules to everything, even if nobody made them up, even if nobody calls it a game. And if you want things to work out well, it’s best to know the rules and only break them if you’re playing a different game and following those rules." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts." (Philip Arnold)

"Since everything is a reflection of our minds, everything can be changed by our minds." (Anon)

"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them." (Kahlil Gibran)

"There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." (Alfred North Whitehead)

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste." (Richard Brodie)