Week 2025-51: Orson Scott Card - Collected Quotes

"I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn - that there are a thousand right ways to tell a story, and ten million wrong ones, and you’re a lot more likely to find one of the latter than the former your first time through the tale." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender’s Game", 1985)

"In the real world irrational things happened, impossible coincidences happened, because probability required that coincidences rarely, but not never, occur." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender’s Game", 1985)

"Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender’s Game", 1985)

"There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender’s Game", 1985)

"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to be controlled by good people, by people who love you." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender’s Game", 1985)

"But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart." (Orson Scott Card, "Speaker for the Dead", 1986)

"Order and disorder', said the speaker, 'they each have their beauty." (Orson Scott Card, "Speaker for the Dead", 1986)

"Some sort of rigid hierarchy always emerged as the conservative force in a community, maintaining its identity despite the constant variations and changes that beset it." (Orson Scott Card, "Speaker for the Dead", 1986)

"This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question." (Orson Scott Card, "Speaker for the Dead", 1986)

"This is the essence of the transaction between storyteller and audience. The "true" story is not the one that exists in my mind; it is certainly not the written words on the bound paper that you hold in your hands. The story in my mind is nothing but a hope; the text of the story is the tool I created in order to try to make that hope a reality. The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by my text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears." (Orson Scott Card, "Speaker for the Dead", 1986)

"Your dream is a good one. [...] The desire that is the very root of life itself: To grow until all the space you can see is part of you, under your control. It’s the desire for greatness." (Orson Scott Card, "Speaker for the Dead", 1986)

"All the universe is just a dream in God's mind, and as long as he's asleep, he believes in it, and things stay real." (Orson Scott Card, "The Tales of Alvin Maker: Seventh Son", 1987)

"Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth." (Orson Scott Card, "The Tales of Alvin Maker: Seventh Son", 1987)

"'If human beings are all monsters, why should I sacrifice anything for them?' [...] 'Because they are beautiful monsters', he whispered. 'And when they live in a network of peace and hope, when they trust the world and their deepest hungers are fulfilled, then within that system, that delicate web, there is joy. That is what we live for, to bind the monsters together, to murder their fear and give birth to their beauty.'" (Orson Scott Card, "Wyrms", 1987)

"This is the most important thing the humans have taught me. The thing they're teaching us right now. You see, they are all strangers to each other. They live out their entire lives, never truly understanding one another, only making guesses, making mistakes, distorting, deceiving, misunderstanding each other. And yet, though they're permanently strangers, they choose sometimes to trust each other, care for each other so completely that they gladly die to let the other live - that they gladly change themselves to make the other person happy.” (Orson Scott Card, "The Abyss", 1989)

"A real god doesn’t care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them." (Orson Scott Card, "Xenocide", 1991)

"And you don’t understand how devastating fear and rage can be, and how quickly religion and civilization and human decency are forgotten when a mob forms." (Orson Scott Card, "Xenocide", 1991)

"Human beings do metamorphose. They change their identity constantly. However, each new identity thrives on the delusion that it was always in possession of the body it has just conquered." (Orson Scott Card, "Xenocide", 1991)

"Humans are very proud of their changes, but every imagined transformation turns out to be a new set of excuses for behaving exactly as the individual has always behaved." (Orson Scott Card, "Xenocide", 1991)

"it’s often the ideas that sound most absurd and counterintuitive at first that later cause fundamental shifts in the way we see the world." (Orson Scott Card, "Xenocide", 1991)

"No one likes to find out that the story he always believed about his own identity is false." (Orson Scott Card, "Xenocide", 1991)

"Others find humanity by looking in their own hearts. Only lost souls need to search for it outside themselves." (Orson Scott Card, "Xenocide", 1991)

"Coincidence is just the word we use when we have not yet discovered the cause." (Orson Scott Card, "The Call Of Earth", 1992)

"But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies."  (Orson Scott Card, "Children of the Mind", 1996)

"Here is the truth. What human life is, what it’s for, what we do, is create communities." (Orson Scott Card, "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus", 1996)

"History has no laws, and all patterns that we find there are useful illusions." (Orson Scott Card, "Children of the Mind", 1996)

"History is a chaotic system. The details can shift endlessly, but the overall shape remains constant. Make a small change in the past, and it changes enough details in the present that we would not have come together at exactly this place and time to watch exactly this scene. And yet the great movements of history would be largely unchanged." (Orson Scott Card, "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus", 1996)

"Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon." (Orson Scott Card, "Children of the Mind", 1996)

"Faith doesn't mean that you never doubt. It only means that you never act upon your doubts." (Orson Scott Card, "Sarah: Women of Genesis", 2000)

"He had long since learned that when something unusual was going on, he would often find out more information faster by waiting than by asking." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"Human evolution is driven by community needs […]. How is that possible, since genetic information is passed only by and to individuals?" (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"Most human communities demand anti-survival behavior from large numbers of their members." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"'My preliminary assessment shows that when a civil society is mature and successful, the citizens become complacent and to satisfy various needs they reinvent tribes that eventually collapse the society from the inside.' 'So both failure and success lead to failure.' 'The only question is whether it’s inevitable.'" (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. I am your enemy, from now on. From now on I am your teacher." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"People reach their peak ability as military commanders much earlier than we thought. Most of them in their late teens. The same age when poets do their most passionate and revolutionary work. And mathematicians. They peak, and then it falls off. They coast on what they learned back when they were still young enough to learn." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"That would be true […] and indeed is true in the main, except that there are only a few types of human communities that actually survive long enough to improve the chances of individual survival." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"The real training ground for leadership is in the game." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"There are community traits that promote survival of the individual, and individual traits that promote the survival of the community." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"There are many steps on the continuum between controlling something and doing nothing at all." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"We make each other think better […]. Together, we’re smarter." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"[...] you can’t stay committed to one pattern. It makes you too easy to predict." (Orson Scott Card, "First Meetings in Ender's Universe", 2002)

"In philosophy class I think we finally decided that ‘good’ is an infinitely recursive term—it can’t be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it’s better than bad, though why it’s better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"Patience, absolute self-control, learning the capabilities of those under you so you can make up for their deficits through training." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"Leading is a strange thing […]. People see it happening, but they don’t have a clue how it works. […] They don’t see what a leader does, they just see how everybody respects a good leader, and they want to have the attention and respect without understanding what you actually have to do to earn it." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"Some people are born to lead [...].They just think that way, whether they want to lead or not. While others are born craving authority, but they have no ability to lead." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"[…] that’s what science was - the sharing of information, the pooling of knowledge. (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"The absence of information is information." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"[…] the idea was for humans to colonize all their former worlds, so that humanity’s fate would not be tied to that of a single planet. (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"The leader only has as much power as his followers give him." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"The task of the tyrant is not to compel, but to persuade even the unwilling that compliance better serves their interest than resistance." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"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)

"We are only human when we are part of a community." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"We arrive at an extremely high level of technology - but with nothing under it to hold it up. If we crash, we crash all the way down." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"We humans can be destructive, but the universe’s thirst for creation goes on unslaked." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"You can’t lead people you don’t know or at least understand." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"You take a step, then another. That’s the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it’s a remaking of your own mind. You see things that you never saw before. Things never seen by the eyes of human beings." (Orson Scott Card, "Ender in Exile", 2008)

"The society whose citizens are willing to stand and fight is the one with the best chance of surviving long enough for history to even notice." (Orson Scott Card, "Empire", 2005)

"A regime that wraps itself in the flag of truth fears truth most of all, for if its story is falsified to the slightest degree, its authority is gone." (Orson Scott Card, "Pathfinder", 2010)

"Humans make a machine, and then fool themselves into believing that their own brains are no better than the machines. This allows them to believe that their creation, the computer, is as brilliant as their own minds. But it’s a ridiculous self-deception. Computers aren’t even in the same league." (Orson Scott Card, "Ruins", 2013)

"Everything has a mind of its own and follows the laws it already understands." (Orson Scott Card, "Gatefather", 2015)

"All history is the same thing over and over [...] The technology may change, but the behavior is still human. We are who we are. Individuals learn, grow up, get better, wiser, stronger, healthier, kinder - or the opposite. As a group, though, we keep inventing the same behaviors. Some work, some don't.” (Orson Scott Card, "Visitors" 2023)

"Perhaps every writer who thoroughly creates a fictional world will inevitably create a mirror of his own time and yet also create a world that no one else but him has ever visited..." (Orson Scott Card) 

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any." (Orson Scott Card)

"I tell students that suspense comes, not from knowing almost nothing, but from knowing almost everything and caring very much about the small part still unknown." (Orson Scott Card) 

"Science Fiction has rivets, fantasy has trees." (Orson Scott Card) 

"We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness - the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction." (Orson Scott Card)

"Writers create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves."  (Orson Scott Card)

Week 2025-50: Rumi - Collected Quotes

"I have been a seeker and I still am, but I stopped asking the books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my soul." (Rumi)

"Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots." (Rumi)

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

"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)

"Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder." (Rumi)

"The lamps are different, but the Light is the same. One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, endlessly emanating all things." (Rumi)

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

"With life as short as a half-taken breath, don’t plant anything but love." (Rumi)

"With love you don’t bargain. There, the choice is not yours. Love is a mirror, it reflects only your essence, if you have the courage to look in its face." (Rumi)

Week 2025-35: On Mind (Spiritual Texts)

"A mental image that the mind creates when processing only words is verbal delusion." (Patanjali, "Yoga Sutra", cca. 5th c. BC)

"Here is, in truth, the whole secret of Yoga, the science of the soul. The active turnings, the strident vibrations, of selfishness, lust and hate are to be stilled by meditation, by letting heart and mind dwell in spiritual life, by lifting up the heart to the strong, silent life above, which rests in the stillness of eternal love, and needs no harsh vibration to convince it of true being." (Patañjali,"Yoga Sutra", cca. 5th c. BC)

"Yoga occurs when the machinations, vacillations, perturbations, whirlings, spinning, and agitations (vrtti) of the mind-field (citta) dissolve, cease, and become still (nirodha)" (Patañjali,"Yoga Sutra", cca. 5th c. BC)

"When meditation is mastered, 
the mind is unwavering,  
like the flame of a lamp in a windless place." (Bhagavad Gita, cca. 2nd c. BC) 

"[…] just let your mind be like space, without clinging to a mental image of space, functioning responsively without obstruction, unminding in action and repose." ("The Sutra of Hui-neng", cca. 8th c. )

"Oh! Son of Sari! Forms of object as perceived by our mind is no different from emptiness, (and) emptiness is no different from form. Forms perceived are virtual. Virtuality is the reality of forms perceived. Such are the processing of the stimulus of perception, the mental image of the object perceived, the mental activities of analysing this object of perception and the forming of mental conception of this object." ("Heart Sutra", cca. 7th c.) [Akishi’s translation]

"The mind when sullied, / cannot be purified / in the tirthas where man bathes himself," (Yoga Darshana Upanishad)

"If while speaking of the samadhi of oneness, you fail to practice straightforward mind, you will not be disciples of Buddha. Only practicing straightforward mind, and in all things having no attachments whatsoever, is called the samadhi of oneness. The deluded person clings to the characteristics of things, adheres to the samadhi of oneness, and thinks that straightforward mind is sitting without moving and casting aside delusions without letting things arise in the mind. This they consider to be the samadhi of oneness."

This kind of practice is the same as being insentient like a rock and is the cause of obstruction to the Tao. Tao must be something that circulates freely; why should we impede it? If the mind does not abide in things, the Tao circulates freely; if the mind abides in things, it becomes entangled." (Hui-Neng, "Platform Scripture") 

"The Purusha is Divine, formless, existing inside and outside, unborn, free from Prana and mind, pure, and greater than the great unmanifest." (Swami Krishnananda, on the "Mundaka Upanishad") 

Week 2025-05: Aeschylus - Collected Quotes

"Bronze in the mirror of the form, wine of the mind." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"But time growing old teaches all things." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"By polluting clear water with slime you will never find good drinking water." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"Death is easier than a wretched life; and better never to have born than to live and fare badly." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"Everyone's quick to blame the alien." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"God's most lordly gift to man is decency of mind." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"God always strives together with those who strive." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"God loves to help him who strives to help himself." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"His resolve is not to seem the bravest, but to be." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

 "I know how men in exile feed on dreams." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"In the lack of judgment great harm arises, but one vote cast can set right a house." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"It is always in season for old men to learn." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"It is best for the wise man not to seem wise." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"Memory is the mother of all wisdom." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)"Justice turns the scale, bringing to some learning through suffering." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"Of all the gods only death does not desire gifts." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"The anvil of justice is planted firm, and fate who makes the sword does the forging in advance." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"The man whose authority is recent is always stern." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"The wisest of the wise may err." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"The words of truth are simple." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"Time brings all things to pass." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"To be free from evil thoughts is God's best gift." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"When a man's willing and eager the god's join in." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"When strength is yoked with justice, where is a mightier pair than they?" (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"Whenever a man makes haste, God too hastens with him." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC) 

"Whoever is new to power is always harsh." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"Wisdom comes alone through suffering." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

"You have been trapped in the inescapable net of ruin by your own want of sense." (Aeschylus, cca. 5 century BC)

Week 2024-28: Dean Koontz - Collected Quotes

"Each smallest act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time - affecting lives unknown to the one who’s generous spirit, was the source of this good echo. Because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage, years later, and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil." (Dean Koontz, "From the Corner of His Eye", 2000)

"Change isn't easy. Changing the way you live means changing the way you think, means changing what you believe about life. That's hard." (Dean Koontz, "One Door Away from Heaven", 2001)

"Even in the darkest moments, light exists if you have the faith to see it. Fear is a poison produced by the mind, and courage is the antidote stored always in the soul. In misfortune lies the seed of future triumph." (Dean Koontz, "One Door Away from Heaven", 2001)

"No one can grant you happiness. Happiness is a choice we all have the power to make." (Dean Koontz, "Life Expectancy", 2004)

"A scar is not always a flaw. Sometimes a scar may be redemption inscribed in the flesh, a memorial to something endured, to something lost." (Dean Koontz, "The Good Guy", 2007)

"Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens." (Dean Koontz, "The Good Guy", 2007)

"Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp - and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble." (Dean Koontz, "Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog", 2009)

"Nothing can be imagined, nothing can be visualized in our minds, until we have a word for it." (Dean Koontz, "Odd Apocalypse", 2012)

"Without faith to act as a governor, the human mind is a runaway worry generator, a dynamo of negative expectations." (Dean Koontz, "Odd Apocalypse", 2012)

"Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well - and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told." (Dean Koontz, "Innocence", 2013)

"To understand the universe, our world, and all life in the world, you have to step out of time, which for living humanity is not an option, because we are a part of this painting, characters within it, able to perceive it only as a continuing series of events, episodes. However, because we are conscious creatures with the gift of reason, we can seek and learn and extrapolate from what we learn, and conceive the truth."  (Dean Koontz, "Innocence", 2013)

Week 2024-27: Gottfried W Leibniz - Collected Quotes

“Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. […] It is a good thing to proceed in order and to establish propositions (principles). This is the way to gain ground and to progress with certainty.” (Gottfried W Leibniz, 1670)

"When a rule is extremely complex, that which conforms to it passes for irregular (random)." (Gottfried Leibniz, "Discourse on Metaphysics", 1686)

"God makes nothing without order, and everything that forms itself develops imperceptibly out of small parts." (Gottfried W Leibniz, "Protogaea", 1693/1759)

"[...] nature has established patterns originating in the return of events, but only for the most part." (Gottfried W Leibniz [letter to Jacob Bernoulli], 1703)

"There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible." (Gottfried W Leibniz,  "Monadology", 1714)

"The helps offered to improve the mind consist in certain ways of thinking which facilitate thinking." (Gottfried W Leibniz)

"There is nothing waste, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe; no chaos, no confusions, save in appearance." (Gottfried W Leibniz)

"This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God." (Gottfried W Leibniz)

Week 2024-26: Ashvaghosha - Collected Quotes

"All things are originally of the mind only; they in fact transcend thoughts. Nevertheless, the deluded mind, in nonenlightenment, gives rise to irrelevant thoughts and predicates the world of objects." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

"Ignorance does not exist apart from enlightenment; therefore, it cannot be destroyed [because one cannot destroy something which does not really exist], and yet it cannot not be destroyed [insofar as it remains]. This is like the relationship that exists between the water of the ocean [i.e., enlightenment] and its waves [i.e., modes of mind] stirred by the wind [i.e., ignorance]. Water and wind are inseparable; but water is not mobile by nature, and if the wind stops the movement ceases. But the wet nature remains undestroyed. Likewise, man's Mind, pure in its own nature, is stirred by the wind of ignorance. Both Mind and ignorance have no particular forms of their own and they are inseparable. Yet Mind is not mobile by nature, and if ignorance ceases, then the continuity of deluded activities ceases. But the essential nature of wisdom [i.e., the essence of Mind, like the wet nature of the water] remains undestroyed." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

"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)

"The essence of Mind is free from thoughts. The characteristic of that which is free from thoughts is analogous to that of the sphere of empty space that pervades everywhere." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

"The Mind, though pure in its self-nature from the beginning, is accompanied by ignorance. Being defiled by ignorance, a defiled state of Mind comes into being. But, though defiled, the Mind itself is eternal and immutable. Only the Enlightened Ones are able to understand what this means. What is called the essential nature of Mind is always beyond thoughts. It is, therefore, defined as 'immutable'. When the one World of Reality is yet to be realized, the Mind is mutable and is not in perfect unity with Suchness. Suddenly, a deluded thought arises; this state is called ignorance." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

"The mind has five different names. The first is called the 'activating mind', for, without being aware of it, it breaks the equilibrium of mind by the force of ignorance. The second is called the 'evolving mind', for it emerges contingent upon the agitated mind as the subject that perceives incorrectly. The third is called the 'reproducing mind', for it reproduces the entire world of objects as a bright mirror reproduces all material images. When confronted with the objects of the five senses, it reproduces them at once. It arises spontaneously at all times and exists forever reproducing the world of objects in front of the subject. The fourth is called the 'analytical mind', for it differentiates what is defiled and what is undefiled. The fifth is called the 'continuing mind', for it is united with deluded thoughts and continues uninterrupted." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

"What is called 'consciousness' (vijnana) is the 'continuing mind'. Because of their deep-rooted attachment, ordinary men imagine that I and Mine are real and cling to them in their illusions. As soon as objects are presented, this consciousness rests on them and discriminates the objects of the five senses and of the mind. This is called 'vijnana' [i.e., the differentiating consciousness] or the 'separating consciousness'." (Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith", cca. 2nd century)

Resources:
[1] Ashvaghosha, "The Awakening of Faith" (link)

Week 2024-25: Elbert G Hubbard (Collected Quotes)

"Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it - so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes clear out, so it comes clear in. In business sometimes prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose." (Elbert G Hubbard, Electrical Review, cca. 1895)

"Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong." (Elbert G Hubbard, The Philistine, 1897)

"There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. The sternest comment that can be made against employers as a class lies in the fact that men of Ability usually succeed in showing their worth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and encouragement." (Elbert G Hubbard, The Philistine, 1901)

"The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without." (Elbert G Hubbard, The Philistine, 1907)

"Knowledge is the distilled essence of our intuitions, corroborated by experience." (Elbert G Hubbard, "A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard", 1911)

"Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams", 1923)

"A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams", 1923)

"An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams", 1923)

"Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes a day. Wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams", 1923)

"To supply a thought is mental massage; but to evolve a thought of your own is an achievement. Thinking is a brain exercise — and no faculty grows save as it is exercised." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams", 1923)

"Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard", 1927)

"Literature is the noblest of all the arts. Music dies on the air, or at best exists only as a memory; oratory ceases with the effort; the painter's colors fade and the canvas rots; the marble is dragged from its pedestal and is broken into fragments." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard", 1927)

"The weaknesses of the many make the leader possible—and the man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also. Discipleship is a degenerating process to all parties concerned. People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard", 1927)

"Life without absorbing occupation is hell — joy consists in forgetting life." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard", 1927)

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." (Elbert G Hubbard, "The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard", 1927)

Week 2024-23: Albert-László Barabási (Collected Quotes)

"Also worth remembering is that all superstars are bounded by the limits of performance in their field. True, they’re excellent at what they do, but the Second Law tells us that their performance is really only fractionally better than their peers’. That means that we have a better chance of successfully competing with superstars if we see them as unthreatening as they see us." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"Each success story is bound to leave a trail of data points behind." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"Even though performance does drive success, the problem is that the differences among top contenders are so tiny that they’re often nearly immeasurable." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"Remember, performance needs to be empowered by opportunity. We need to reframe the all-too-frequent assumption that aiming for the top means scraping our way up from the bottom. " (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"Since success is a collective phenomenon, measured by how our community reacts to a performance, it’s impossible to understand the phenomenon of success without also observing the network it takes place within. But networks are singularly important in areas like art, where performance and quality are hard to measure." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018) 

"Success, however, is a whole different category. It’s a collective measure, capturing how people respond to our performance. In other words, if we want to measure our success or figure out how we’ll ultimately be rewarded, we can’t look at our performances or accomplishments in isolation. Instead, we need to study our community and examine its response to our contributions. " (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"Superstars suppress you if you compete against them, but they may boost you if you cooperate with them." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

 "[…] success is a collective phenomenon rather than an individual one." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"The good news is that once you get that first win, the data shows you’ll win again and again. There’s a secret, mindlessly metastasizing aspect to reward. Success can self-generate, growing in proportion to its size. If you win once, you’ll win again. And again. And again." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"The problem is, our best judgment always fails. " (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"This is probably one of the most fascinating outcomes of any foray into the Science of Success: the realization that regardless of the success measure we’re talking about - impact, visibility, audience, or adoration - its distribution follows the same power law as wealth." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

"With persistence success can come at any time." (Albert-László Barabási, "The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success", 2018)

Week 2024-22: Omori Sogen

"Zen is to transcend life and death (all dualism), to truly realize that the entire universe is the 'True Human Body' through the discipline of “mind and body in oneness.” (Omori Sogen, "Canon", 1979)

"Zen without the accompanying physical experience is nothing but empty discussion. Martial ways without truly realizing the 'Mind' is nothing but beastly behavior. We agree to undertake all of this as the essence of our training." (Omori Sogen, "Canon", 1979)

"Concentration is the stable condition of a unified mind when there has been Zen training. This condition is called samadhi in Sanskrit or sammai in Japanese. [...] 'concentration' may simply be interpreted as the stabilization of our confused and excited thoughts and imaginings. In other words, it may be regarded as a completely concentrated state of mind." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

"Deciding clearly why you study Zen is an important question, one that will determine whether you succeed in Zen training or go astray." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

"[...] in Zen one awakens to one’s True Self and takes firm hold of it." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

"The reality that would satisfy the thirst deep within our minds and hearts is not found in abstraction." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

"Ultimately, I think that the best way to avoid bad habits in Zen is to not set up your aim outside yourself but to return to yourself and examine the very place you yourself are standing." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

"When people with only a shallow experience define Zen simply as a way to promote health or a way for human development, it is an embarrassment for Zen even though Zen has these aspects." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

"[...] wisdom is the act of perceiving things of this world as they truly are." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

"[...] Zen may be regarded from a spiritual perspective as a way of regulating the mind. The unification of mind resulting from it is concentration and the workings of concentration is wisdom." (Omori Sogen, "Introduction to Zen Training", 2012)

Week 2024-21: Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose - Collected Quotes

"Meditation is silence, energising and fulfilling. Silent is the eloquent expression of the inexpressible." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, "The Silent Teaching: A Beginner's Guide to Meditation", 1996)

"Real joy means immediate expansion. If we experience pure joy, immediately our heart expands. We feel that we are flying in the divine freedom-sky. The entire length and breadth of the world becomes ours, not for us to rule over, but as an expansion of our consciousness. We become reality and vastness." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, The Wings of Joy: Finding Your Path to Inner Peace, 1997)

"Consciousness is the inner spark or inner link in us, the golden link within us that connects our highest and most illumined part with our lowest and most unillumined part." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, 2003)

"Do you want to make progress? If so, then take each problem not as a challenging rival, but as an encouraging friend of yours, who is helping you to arrive at your ultimate destination." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, "The Jewels of Happiness: Inspiration and Wisdom to Guide Your Life-Journey", 2015)

"Gratitude is the sweetest thing in a seeker's life- in all human life. If there is gratitude in your heart, then there will be tremendous sweetness in your eyes." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, "The Jewels of Happiness: Inspiration and Wisdom to Guide Your Life-Journey", 2015)

"In the inner life, if there is no sincerity, nothing can be achieved. And to whom are you being sincere? You are being sincere to yourself. You have a higher reality and you have a lower reality. When you become sincere, immediately you pull your lower reality up to your higher reality. Just like a magnet, your higher reality pulls up your lower reality so that it can take shelter in the higher reality." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, "The Jewels of Happiness: Inspiration and Wisdom to Guide Your Life-Journey", 2015)

"No price is too great to pay for inner peace. Peace is the harmonious control of life. It is vibrant with life-energy. It is a power that easily transcends all our worldly knowledge. Yet it is not separate from our earthly existence. If we open the right avenues within, this peace can be felt here and now." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, "The Jewels of Happiness: Inspiration and Wisdom to Guide Your Life-Journey", 2015)

"If failure has the strength to turn your life into bitterness itself, then patience has the strength to turn your life into the sweetest joy. Do not surrender to fate after a single failure. Failure, at most, precedes success." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose)

"It is only through meditation that we can get lasting peace, divine peace. If we meditate soulfully in the morning and receive peace for only one minute, that one minute of peace will permeate our whole day. And when we have a meditation of the highest order, then we really get abiding peace, light and delight. We need meditation because we want to grow in light and fulfill ourselves in light. If this is our aspiration, if this is our thirst, then meditation is the only way." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose)

"Life is nothing but the expansion of love. We can cultivate divine love by entering into the Source. The Source is God, who is all Love." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose)

"Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface of the sea there may be a multitude of waves but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths, the sea is all silence. When we start meditating, first we try to reach our own inner existence, our true existence- that is to say, the bottom of the sea. Then when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoils just wash away, because inside us is solid peace. Thoughts cannot touch us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, all oneness. Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark. When we are in our highest meditation, we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us. We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us. Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea. This is meditation." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose)

Week 2024-20: On No-mind

"You can come out of the repetitive thought patterns by witnessing the thinker inside you. Witnessing will give you the state of 'no-mind' - the state of deep inner connectedness. Gradually, you move into the state of pure being - the state of pure consciousness." (Amit Ray, "Enlightenment Step by Step", 2016)

"As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, this sense of your own presence, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body and the whole external world become relatively insignificant in comparison to it. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. And yet this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as 'your self'." (Eckhart Tolle)

"mushin, which literally means 'no-mind.' According to the Zen masters, mushin is operating when the actor is separate from the act and no thoughts interfere with action because the unconscious act is the most free and uninhibited. When mushin functions, the mind moves from one activity to another, flowing like a stream of water and filling every space." (Bruce Lee)

"No-mind does not mean the unconsciousness of wood or tile. It means that when you come into contact with external objects, your mind is immovable and does not get attached to anything. There is total freedom and non-obstruction. You are not defiled by anything. On the other hand, you should not abide in non-defilement either. While you view the body and the mind as a dream and an illusion, you nevertheless do not abide in the emptiness of dreams and illusions. When you reach this state, you have then really achieved no-mind." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"The moment that we are aware of our thoughts we are present.
It takes no-mind to recognize our thoughts because mind and no-mind can not co-exist.
Presence and Mind can not co-exist. So therefor presence, thought awareness and no-mind are one." (Matthew Donnelly)

"The wise have no mind to seek Buddha. The ignorant cling to wrong and right. Passing all their lives in wasted toil, they do not see the sublime peak of realization of being as is. If you realize the essence of lust is empty, then even hellfire is cool." (Pao-chih)

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

"When this No-Mind has been well developed, the mind does not stop with one thing nor does it lack any one thing. It appears appropriately when facing a time of need." (Takuan Soho)

"You seem to practice 'Empty Shell Zazen' and think that not thinking of anything is 'no-thought, no-mind'. You even start to feel good sitting vacantly. But if you do that kind of zazen you’ll lose your vigorous energy and become sick or go crazy. True 'no-thought, no-mind' zazen is just one thing - to have a dauntless mind." (Suzuki Shosan)

Week 2024-19: On Consciousness

"Everything which is, is thought, but not conscious and individual thought. The human intelligence is but the consciousness of being. It is what I have formulated before: Everything is a symbol of a symbol, and a symbol of what? of mind." (Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 1882)

"Be conscious first of thyself within, then think and act. All living thought is a world in preparation; all real act is a thought manifested. The material world exists because an Idea began to play in divine self-consciousness." (Sri Aurobindo, "Thoughts and Glimpses", 1916-17)

"Transform effort into an easy and sovereign overflowing of the soul-strength; let all thyself be conscious force. This is thy goal." (Sri Aurobindo, "Thoughts and Glimpses", 1916-17)

"The way of yoga followed here has a different purpose from others, - for its aim is not only to rise out of the ordinary ignorant world-consciousness into the divine consciousness, but to bring the supramental power of that divine consciousness down into the ignorance of mind, life and body, to transform them, to manifest the Divine here and create a divine life in Matter." (Sri Aurobindo, "Lights on Yoga", 1935)

"The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time. Get into a fist fight, put your mind on the strategy of the fight, and you will not feel the other fellow's punches." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Flight to Arras", 1942)

"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)

"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)

"Mindfulness is Buddha's word for meditation. By mindfulness he means: you should always remain alert, watchful. You should always remain present. Not a single thing should be done in a sort of sleepy state of mind. You should not move like a somnambulist, you should move with a sharp consciousness." (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, "The Discipline of Transcendence: Discourses on the Forty-two Sutras of Buddha", 1978)

"Consciousness is the inner spark or inner link in us, the golden link within us that connects our highest and most illumined part with our lowest and most unillumined part." (Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, 2003)

"It is well understood in psychology that the subconscious mind has the dominant influence on human decision making, and therefore the pivotal role of the subconscious, for you to achieve success, is inescapable." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"Our consciousness and awareness, which includes our choices as to where we place our focus, alters the paths of our lives, and creates a split in reality, leading to the creation of two or more worlds at any moment in time." (Kevin Michel, "Moving Through Parallel Worlds to Achieve Your Dreams", 2013)

"A consciousness of inward knowledge gives confidence to the outward behavior, which, of all things, is the best to grace a man in his carriage." (Owen Feltham)

"And it is from the sacred that a new and fluid consciousness is born that wipes away the old and brings to life the flowering of a living and undivided expression of being. Such an expression is neither personal nor impersonal, neither spiritual nor worldly, but rather the flow and flowering of existence beyond all notions of self." (Adyashanti)

"As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, this sense of your own presence, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body and the whole external world become relatively insignificant in comparison to it. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. And yet this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as 'your self'." (Eckhart Tolle)

"Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness." (Eckhart Tolle)

"Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts." (Thich Nhat Hanh)

"During zazen, brain and consciousness become pure. It's exactly like muddy water left to stand in a glass. Little by little, the sediment sinks to the bottom and the water becomes pure." (Taisen Deshimaru)

"From the Great Vacuity, there is Heaven. From the transformation of material force, there is the Way. In the unity of the Great Vacuity and material force, there is the nature (of man and things). And in the unity of the nature and consciousness, there is the mind." (Chang Tsai)

"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values." (Ayn Rand)

"Human nature at its source is absolutely tranquil and unaffected by externality. When it is affected by contact with the external world, consciousness and knowledge emerge. Only those who fully develop their nature can unify the state of formlessness and unaffectedness, and the state of objectification and affectedness." (Chang Tsai)

"I'm moving and not moving at all. I'm like the moon underneath the waves that ever go on rolling and rocking. It is not, 'I am doing this', but rather, an inner realization that 'this is happening through me," or "it is doing this for me.' The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action." (Bruce Lee)

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment." (Eckhart Tolle)

"Meditation is a teaching which offers you the possibility of breaking free from the egoic consciousness and coming into a whole new realisation of who and what you truly are. And all this starts with the willingness to question. To pause for just a moment and realise that maybe you aren't who you imagine yourself to be." (Adyashanti)

"mushin, which literally means 'no-mind.' According to the Zen masters, mushin is operating when the actor is separate from the act and no thoughts interfere with action because the unconscious act is the most free and uninhibited. When mushin functions, the mind moves from one activity to another, flowing like a stream of water and filling every space." (Bruce Lee)

"No-mind does not mean the unconsciousness of wood or tile. It means that when you come into contact with external objects, your mind is immovable and does not get attached to anything. There is total freedom and non-obstruction. You are not defiled by anything. On the other hand, you should not abide in non-defilement either. While you view the body and the mind as a dream and an illusion, you nevertheless do not abide in the emptiness of dreams and illusions. When you reach this state, you have then really achieved no-mind." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"Our potential is something that can flower only when we are no longer caught within the influence and limitations of the known. Beyond the realm of the mind, beyond the limitations of humanity’s conditioned consciousness, lies that which can be called the sacred." (Adyashanti)

"The nature of wisdom is such as it is of itself; it is not disposed by causes. It is also called the knot of essence, or the cluster of essence. It is not known by knowledge, not discerned by consciousness. It is entirely beyond mental calculation. Still and silent, essence totally realized, thought and judgment are forever ended. Just as if the flow of the ocean had stopped, waves do not rise again." (Pai-chang)

"The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness." (Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj)

"The transformation of consciousness undertaken in Taoism and Zen is more like the correction of faulty perception or the curing of a disease. It is not an acquisitive process of learning more and more facts or greater and greater skills, but rather than unlearning of wrong habits and opinions. As Lao-tzu said, ‘The scholar gains every day, but the Taoist loses every day.'" (Alan Watts)

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

"Thinking and consciousness are not synonymous. Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought." (Eckhart Tolle)

"When you have achieved a state of deep meditation, you unlock the door to your subconscious mind. That is where your power to create the life you desire lies." (Adrian Calabrese)

"When you stabilize the activities of the discursive mind and consciousness, when not even one thought stirs, this is the true enlightenment. With this correct state of mind, you can function freely during the twenty-four hours of the day. Smelling flowers, tasting food, sitting still or walking around - whether you are engaged in activity or not, your mind is always bright and undisturbed. You are naturally free from distorted views. Thus your mind is always pure whether you have thought or not. Therefore, when you act, this is the function (yung) of this deep and luminous Mind, and when you rest, this is then the essence (t'i) of the same Mind. Even though there is a difference between essence and function, 'the Mind is still the one and the same." (Ta-hui Tsung-kao)

"Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act." (Ram Dass)

Week 2024-18: On Problems

"The difficult problems in life always start off being simple. Great affairs always start off being small." (Lao Tzu, cca 400 BC)

"Man was not born to solve the problems of the universe, but rather to seek to lay bare the heart of the problem and then confine himself within the limits of what is amenable to understanding." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1825)

"The greatest art, both in teaching and in life itself, consists in transforming the problem into a postulate." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1928)

"The meaning and design of a problem seem not to lie in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly." (Carl G Jung, "Modern Man in Search of a Soul", 1933)

"The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time. Get into a fist fight, put your mind on the strategy of the fight, and you will not feel the other fellow's punches." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Flight to Arras", 1942)

"Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." (Viktor E Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning", 1946)

"We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve." (Maxwell Maltz, "Psycho-Cybernetics", 1960)

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

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

"The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists." (Isaac Asimov, "The Gods Themselves", 1972)

"No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way." (Jack Kornfield & Joseph Goldstein, "Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation", 1987)

"If you go through the world looking for excellence, you will find excellence. If you go through the world looking for problems you will find problems." (Joseph O'Connor & John Seymour, "Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People", 1990)

"In NLP terms, then, a master is not someone who already knows the answers and has the solutions but someone who is able to ask worthwhile questions and direct the process of learning, problem solving and creativity to form new maps of the world that lead to useful new answers and possibilities." (Robert B Dilts, "Modeling with NLP", 1998)

"Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is... The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds." (Dan Millman, "Everyday Enlightenment: The Twelve Gateways to Personal Growth", 1998)

"[...] all problems can be reperceived as challenges, or 'opportunities' to change, grow or learn." (Robert B Dilts, "Sleight of Mouth: The Magic of Conversational Belief Change", 1999)

"We humans have two great problems: the first is knowing when to begin; the second is knowing when to stop." (Paulo Coelho, "The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession", 2005)

"Most problems we face in life, as I have said already, happen in our minds. Furthermore, problems generally exist in our concept of the past and the future. The past and the future don’t exist except in our minds." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"One of the most important aspects of what human beings do is build beliefs. Beliefs are what trap most people in their problems. Unless you believe you can get over something, get through something, or get to something, there is little likelihood you will be able to do it. Your beliefs refer to your sense of certainty on some of your thoughts." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"When you can take on board new, positive suggestions and disbelieve the old, limiting suggestions, you will be ready to tackle the rest of your problems, especially your fears." (Richard Bandler, "Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming", 2008)

"Our most important problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown." (Wayne Dyer, "Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits", 2009)

"The really important thing in dealing with problems is to know that the question is never answered, but that it doesn't matter, as long as you keep asking. It's only when you fool yourself into thinking you have the final problem definition - the final, true answer - that you can be fooled into thinking you have the final solution. And if you think that, you're always wrong, because there is no such thing as a 'final solution'." (Donald C Gause & Gerald M Weinberg, "Are Your Lights On?", 2011)

"Actually, we have no problems - we have opportunities for which we should give thanks [...] An error we refuse to correct has many lives. It takes courage to face one's own shortcomings and wisdom to do something about them." (Edgar Cayce)

"Arouse your entire body with its three hundred and sixty bones and joints and its eighty-four thousand pores of the skin. Summon up a spirit of great doubt and concentrate on this word “mu.” In order to do so, hold to the problem from morning to night without letting it go even for one second, and become one with the word “mu” (void) with all your strength." (Ekai)

"At times almost all of us envy the animals. They suffer and die, but do not seem to make a 'problem' of it." (Alan Watts)

"If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that’s just more ego." (Eckhart Tolle)

"If you want to understand suffering you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there. Where suffering lies is right where non-suffering will arise, it ceases at the place where it arises. If suffering arises you must contemplate right there, you don't have to run away. You should settle the issue right there. One who runs away from suffering out of fear is the most foolish person of all. He will simply increases his stupidity endlessly." (Ajahn Chah)

"In a day, when you don't come across any problems - you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path." (Swami Vivekananda)

"Life is not a problem to be solved, nor a question to be answered.
Life is a mystery to be experienced." (Alan Watts)

"Live with compassion. Work with compassion. Die with compassion. Meditate with compassion. Enjoy with compassion. When problems come, experience them with compassion." (Thubten Zopa Rinpoche)

"Meditation is not meant to help us avoid problems or run away from difficulties. It is meant to allow positive healing to take place. To meditate is to learn how to stop - to stop being carried away by our regrets about the past, our anger or despair in the present, or our worries about the future." (Thich Nhat Hanh)

"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)

"Samsara is not out there, but rather in the way that we experience our environment. To target it precisely, samsara is in the quality of our minds. Our minds are not functioning in accord with reality, and therein lies the problem." (B Alan Wallace)

"Since karma is meeting self, we acquire karma as we meet self in our many attitudes and emotions; when we serve in loving kindness and patience or hold resentful malicious thoughts What we do to our fellow man we do to our Maker our karma or problem is within self." (Edgar Cayce)

"Suffering is a challenge; when you suffer you are challenged, when there is a problem you are challenged. When you encounter the problem, only then do you grow. More insecurity, more growth; more security, less growth. If everything is secure around you, you are already in your grave, you are no longer alive. Life exists in danger, life always exists in the possibility of going astray. But one who goes astray can come back, one who fails can succeed." (Osho)

"The object of education is not only to produce a man who knows, but one who does; who makes his mark in the straggle of life and succeeds well in whatever he undertakes: who can solve the problems of nature and of humanity as they arise, and who, when he knows he is right, can boldly convince the world of the fact." (Henry A Rowland)

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

"There needs to be understanding that anger never helps to solve a problem. It destroys our peace of mind and blinds our ability to think clearly. Anger and attachment are emotions that distort our view of reality." (Dalai Lama)

"True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found." (Eckhart Tolle)

"When a problem arises, don't fight with it or try to deny it. Accept and acknowledge it. Be patient in seeking a solution or opening, and then fully commit yourself to the resolution you think advisable." (Jim Lau)

"When your attention moves into the Now, there is an alertness. It is as if you were waking up from a dream, the dream of thought, the dream of past and future. Such clarity, such simplicity. No room for problem-making. Just this moment as it is." (Eckhart Tolle)

"Your problem is you're ... too busy holding onto your unworthiness." (Ram Dass)

Week 2024-17: On Force

"Conquering others requires force.
Conquering oneself requires strength." (Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", cca 400 BC)

"Countless words count less 

than the silent balance between yin and yang" (Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", cca 400 BC)

"Do not conquer the world with force,
for force only causes resistance.
Thorns spring up when an army passes.
Years of misery follow a great victory.
Do only what needs to be done without using violence." (Lao Tzu)

"If the force of arms is considered the only means of authority, it is not an auspicious instrument." (Lao Tzu)

"Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment;
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self needs strength." (Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", cca 400 BC)

"In large-scale strategy, it is beneficial to strike at the corners of the enemy's force, If the corners are overthrown, the spirit of the whole body will be overthrown." (Miyamoto Musashi, "Go Rin No Sho" ["The Book of Five Rings"], 1645)

"In training, do not expect good results in a short time. [...] train systematically, without becoming impatient or overexerting yourself, and develop gradually, advancing steadily, one stop at a time, with increased application of force and numbers of exercises practiced." (Gichin Funakoshi, "Karate-do Kyohan: The Master Text", 1935)

"When brute-force is too strong, it cannot exist for long; and likewise intrinsic energy cannot be totally devoid of strength either." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"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)

"Intention is not something you do, but rather a force that exists in the universe as an invisible field of energy, a power that can carry us. (Wayne Dyer, "The Power of Intention", 2004)

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

"All rotating things have a spontaneous force and thus their motion is not imposed on them from outside." (Chang Tsai)

"Beginners should by all means strive for Truth. You must not force yourself to train or do zazen too vigorously before you realize the Truth. If you forcefully let out energy and practice Zen in violent ways, you will become fatigued, lose your energy, and it will all be of no use." (Suzuki Shosan)

"Budo is not about destroying other human beings with one’s strength or weapons, or annihilating the world by force of arms. True budo is channeling the universal energy (ki) to protect world peace, to engender all things fittingly, nurture them and save them from harm." (Morihei Ueshiba)

"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)

"The more relaxed the muscles are, the more energy can flow through the body. Using muscular tensions to try to 'do' the punch, or attempting to use brute force to knock someone over, will only work to opposite effect." (Bruce Lee)

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

"Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." (John Milton)

Week 2024-16: Jwing-Ming Yang - Collected Quotes

"All culture and tradition which has survived must have its benefits. Perhaps some of them do not fit in our world; however, they deserve our respect. Remember, if you get rid of your past, you have pulled out your root." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"Expectation is the worst emotional disturbance. What will happen will happen, what won’t happen, won’t." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"Generally speaking, building up Qi by using the mind alone without physical movement is much harder than using the mind and movement together. However, since the mind is so important in Qigong training, learning how to regulate your mind has become one of the major trainings." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"Many people think that Qigong is a difficult subject to understand. In some ways, this is true. However, regardless of how difficult the theory and practice of a particular style of Qigong might be, the basic Qi theory and principles are very simple and remain the same for all of the Qigong styles. Basic Qi theory and Qigong principles are the roots of all Qigong practice, and it is from these roots that the different styles of training blossomed. Naturally, the results and the depth achieved are different from style to style. If, however, you understand the root of what you are doing, it does not matter which style you are practicing, because you will be able to grasp the key to the practice and grow." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"One part of Qigong training is learning how to regulate your Fire Qi and Water Qi so that they are balanced. This involves learning to use your wisdom mind to dominate and direct your emotional mind."  (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"Regulating means to adjust and tune constantly until the goal is reached. However, you should also understand that the real regulating happens only when you don't need to consciously regulate. This means that if your mind has to pay attention to the regulating, you have not reached the final goal. The real regulating happens naturally, when you do not have to regulate it at all." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"Regulating the mind and the breathing cannot be separated. When the mind is regulated, the breathing can be regulated. When the breathing is regulated, the mind is able to enter a deeper level of calmness. They help each other mutually." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"Remember that the final goal of regulating your thoughts is to reach 'the thought of no thought'. In other words, to regulate your thoughts without thinking of regulating. Therefore, you must continue practicing until the regulating happens naturally and you do not need to consciously regulate your thoughts. Only when you reach this stage will your mind be free and neutral." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"[...] the correct definition of Qigong is any training or study dealing with Qi which takes a long time and a lot of effort." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"[...] you must learn to concentrate without mental tension. Remember: when your mind is tense, your physical body will also be tense. Therefore, the second step of practice it to relax your concentrated mind. Sometimes when people cannot sleep they concentrate all their attention on falling asleep. This only makes things worse. The trick is to concentrate on something else. Normally in Qigong you concentrate your mind on your breathing and on the sensation of your lungs expanding and contracting. Every time you exhale, feel your physical body relax to a deeper level." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"[...] you should recognize that Qi moves from the area of higher potential to the area of lower potential , and this acts to naturally and automatically bring your system into balance." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"You should understand that your natural breathing is constantly affected by your thoughts and emotions." (Jwing-Ming Yang, "The Root of Chinese Qigong: Secrets for health, longevity" 2nd Ed., 1997)

"First you must be calm, then your mind can be steady. Once your mind is steady, then you are at peace. Only when you are at peace, are you able to think and finally gain." (Yang Jwing-Ming, "Tai Chi Chuan Classical Yang Style", 2010)

"History is experience. If you do not know the past, you will be lost in the future." (Yang Jwing-Ming, "Tai Chi Chuan Classical Yang Style", 2010)

Week 2024-15: Yearning K Chen - Collected Quotes

"Having only techniques without principles amounts to nothing more than giving up one’s capital in order to follow an inferior scheme [to invest in a losing business venture]." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"In other words: mind, mind-intent, and qi are all interconnected and work in a rotational manner. When the mind is confused the mind-intent will disperse. When the mind-intent is dispersed the qi will become insubstantial [weak]." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"Students should always be conscious to the advantages of fundamental principles, which are: practicing the movements slowly and evenly, inhaling and exhaling naturally so as to accumulate qi and concentrate the shen [spirit], and never employing muscular strength [li] too excessively. It is through softness and gentleness that you achieve mastery. This softness and gentleness means soft and continuous movements in conjunction with harmonious breathing." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"The master of the mind is the mind-intent. The mind acts as only an assistant to the mind-intent. When the mind moves, it does so because of the mind-intent. When the mind-intent arises the qi will follow." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"Through slowness you can later be soft; through evenness you can later be gentle. The capability of being soft and gentle will cause the muscle and bone to be opened. The qi and blood will circulate harmoniously. From this the breath will become deep and long and the spirit of vitality can be stimulated and brought forth." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"What is absolutely necessary in the beginning, however, is to follow the imagination. […] This use of imagination during initial study and practice will be difficult to trust and will not be susceptible to proof. Only after a long period of training will you be able to apply it in a natural manner […]" (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"When brute-force is too strong, it cannot exist for long; and likewise intrinsic energy cannot be totally devoid of strength either." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

"Within each person there is mind-intent and qi, both of which are invisible and formless." (Yearning K Chen, "T’ai Chi Ch’uan: Sword, Saber, Staff, and Dispersing-Hands Combined", 1943)

Week 2024-14: Joseph O’Connor - Collected Quotes

"A model is an edited, distorted and generalised copy of the original and therefore there can never be complete. A model is not in any sense ‘true’: it can be judged only by whether it works or doesn’t work. If it works, it allows another person to get the same class of results as the original person from whom the model was taken." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"All actions have a purpose. Our actions are not random; we are always trying to achieve something, although we may not be aware of what that is." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"An effective leader leaves a legacy; they leave their footprints on the road for others to follow. A good leader develops themselves and they develop others. They bring people together rather than divide them." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Beliefs are those ideas we take as true and use to guide our actions. We all have beliefs about what sort of people we are and what we are capable of. These beliefs act as permissions for or limitations on what we do. When we believe something is possible, we will try it; if we believe it impossible, we will not." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Every time we push the boundary on the outside world we also push the boundary on our inner world. We open a larger ‘idea space’. Every advance in science, art and technology means we have gone beyond the limiting ideas that have stopped us advancing in the past." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Having a choice is better than not having a choice. Always try to have a map for yourself that gives you the widest and richest number of choices. Act always to increase choice. The more choices you have, the freer you are and the more influence you have." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Leadership is about inspiring people through a shared set of values." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"People respond to their experience, not to reality itself. We do not know what reality is. Our senses, beliefs, and past experience give us a map of the world from which to operate." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"The meaning of the communication is not simply what you intend, but also the response you get." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

Week 2024-13: Yoshida Shoin - Collected Quotes

"If a general and his men fear death and are apprehensive over possible defeat, then they will unavoidably suffer defeat and death. But if they make up their minds, from the general down to the last footsoldier, not to think of living but only of standing in one place and facing death together, then, though they may have no other thought than meeting death, they will instead hold on to life and gain victory." (Yoshida Shoin)

"If Heaven does not completely abandon this land of the Gods, there must be an uprising of grass-roots heroes." (Yoshida Shoin)

"If the body dies, it does no harm to the mind, but if the mind dies, one can no longer act as a man even though the body survives." (Yoshida Shoin)

"In relations with others, one should express resentment and anger openly and straightforwardly. If one cannot express them openly and straightforwardly, the only thing to do is forget about them. To harbor grievances in one's heart, awaiting some later opportunity to give vent to them, is to act like a weak and petty man-in truth, it can only be called cowardice. The mind of the superior man is like Heaven. When it is resentful or angry, it thunders forth its indignation. But once having loosed its feelings, it is like a sunny day with a clear sky: within the heart there remains not the trace of a cloud. Such is the beauty of true manliness." (Yoshida Shoin)

"Life and death, union and separation, follow hard upon one another. Nothing is steadfast but the will, nothing endures but one's achieve­ments. These alone count in life." (Yoshida Shoin)

"Once a man's will is set, he need no longer rely on others or expect anything from the world. His vision encompasses Heaven and earth, past and present, and the tranquility of his heart is undisturbed." (Yoshida Shoin)

"Once the will is resolved, one's spirit is strengthened. Even a peasant's will is hard to deny, but a samurai of resolute will can sway ten thou­sand men." (Yoshida Shoin)

"One who aspires to greatness should read and study, pursuing the True Way with such a firm resolve that he is perfectly straightforward and open, rises above the superficialities of conventional behavior, and refuses to be satisfied with the petty or commonplace." (Yoshida Shoin)

"To consider oneself different from ordinary men is wrong, but it is right to hope that one will not remain like ordinary men." (Yoshida Shoin)

"What is important in a leader is a resolute will and determination. A man may be versatile and learned, but if he lacks resoluteness and determination, of what use will he be?" (Yoshida Shoin)

Week 2024-12: On Samurais

"Samurai should always wish to keep to the righteous path and try not to fall into the way of depravity, no matter what happens. Those samurai who keep on with the right path will achieve high honours with the aid of Buddha and the gods, while those who have fallen into a corrupt way will naturally meet with misfortune and be laughed at by the people of the world." (Musha Monogatari, 1654) 

"As samurai, the following is the primary principle to keep in mind during daily life: in a time of order you should prepare  for war and in a time of disorder you should seek peace." (Heika Jödan, cca 1670)

"Samurai should hone themselves by first disciplining their minds. Alongside mastery over the mind should be mastery over the body. 'Discipline' means preparation, and to be 'prepared in the body ' means that a samurai must have a good foundation with the weapons that they carry: the katana, the wakizashi and all other kinds of martial tools." (Heika Jödan, cca 1670)

"Swordsman-ship is not something you persevere in just to achieve victory over others. It is also an art through which you can face troubles and clarify issues of life and death. This is an attitude that samurai must always strive to maintain, and so you should master this art." (Issai Chozan, "The Mysterious Skills of the Old Cat" ["Neko No Myoujutsu"], 1727)

"The hands manipulate the sword, the mind manipulates the hands. Cultivate the mind and do not be deceived by tricks, feints, and schemes. They are the properties of the magician, not the samurai." (Saito Yakuro, cca 19th century)

"Once the will is resolved, one's spirit is strengthened. Even a peasant's will is hard to deny, but a samurai of resolute will can sway ten thou­sand men." (Yoshida Shoin)