Compiled by John Peter Giunta
Revised August 2023
“Before you speak, think: Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence?” —Sri Sathya Sai Baba
“A man of peace is not a pacifist, a man of peace is simply a pool of silence. He pulsates a new kind of energy into the world, he sings a new song. He lives in a totally new way. His very way of life is that of grace, that of prayer, that of compassion. Whomsoever he touches, he creates more love-energy. The man of peace is creative. He is not against war, because to be against anything is to be at war. He is not against war, he simply understands why war exists. And out of that understanding he becomes peaceful. Only when there are many people who are pools of peace, silence, understanding, will the war disappear.”
–OSHO, from: ‘Zen: The Path of Paradox, vol II
“Right is right, even if everyone is against it; and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.”
— William Penn
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
–Desmond Tutu
“Teach them politics and war so their sons may study medicine and mathematics in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music and architecture.”
–John Adams
“Once you realize
that the road is the goal,
and that you are always on the road,
not to reach a goal,
but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom,
life ceases to be a task,
and becomes natural and simple,
in itself an ecstasy…”
— Sri Nisargadatta Mahara
“The older I grow the more clearly I perceive the dignity and winning
being of simplicity in thought, conduct, and speech: a desire to
simplify all that is complicated and to treat everything with the
greatest naturalness and clarity.”
— Pope John XXIII
“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY.”
–Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
–Edmund Burke, 1729–1797, Irish statesman born in Dublin
“The first casualty when war comes, is truth,”
–American Senator Hiram Johnson, in 1917.
“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
–Plato
“More than ever, it is time for us to move from religiosity to spirituality, which means replacing the sole belief in God with the knowledge of divine laws – that is, universal, natural, and spiritual laws. The well-being we seek, including on a material plane, is to be found in this knowledge and in the wisdom that ensues. An ancient Rosicrucian adage says, “It is from ignorance and ignorance alone that humans must free themselves.” Ignorance is at the origin of the worst things a person can do to oneself, to others, and to one’s environment. It is also the source of different superstitions that demean humanity and prevent it from finding complete fulfillment. Therefore give a spiritual direction to your life. Do not just be a living thing, be a living soul.” –Appellatio Fraternitatis
“Se mi chiami, mi lusinga. Se non mi chiami, mi stai facendo un favore.”
“If you call me, you flatter me. If you don’t call me, you are doing me a favor.”
–An Italian saying
“Si prega di non rompere i coglioni.”
”Please don’t break my balls.”
“I shall show you a love philtre without medicaments, without herbs, without a witche’s incantations. It is this: If you want to be loved, then you must love first.”
–Medieval folklore
“A young man with his first cigar makes himself sick; a young man with his first love makes everybody else sick.”
–Samuel Clemens
“True love, in whatever shape or form it may come. May we all in our dotage be proud to say, ‘I was adored once, too.’ “
–A toast at a wedding by the character, “Gareth”, played by Simon Callow, in “Four Weddings and a Funeral”.
“Nature, time, and patience are the three great physicians.”
— Bulgarian Proverb
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.”
— Iain Thomas, in “I wrote this for you”
“Blessed is he who finds happiness in his own foolishness, for he will always be happy.”
–Chinese saying
“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”
–Chinese Proverb
“He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg.”
— Chinese proverb
“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”
— W C Fields
“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.”
–Alan Watts
“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”
–Alan Watts
“Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.”
— Leo Tolstoy
“Most of us don’t know what we want in life, but we’re sure that we haven’t got it.”
— Alfred E. Newman [Mascot of “Mad” magazine]
“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
–Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, 27 Oct 1466 to 12 Jul 1536
“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.”
— Lin Yutang (October 10, 1895 – March 26, 1976)
“The journey in faith is not a sprint; it’s a very, very long walk. But the company is excellent.”
–Molly Wolf, Sabbath Blessing
“Living well is the best revenge.”
–George Herbert, English clergyman & metaphysical poet (1593-1633)
“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.”
— Franciscan Benediction
“You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of the work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction.”
–Bhagavad Gita 2:47
“There never was a false god, nor was there ever really a false religion, unless you call a child a false man.” —Max Müller
“We are all children in a vast kindergarten trying to spell the name of
God with the wrong blocks.”
–Tennessee Williams
“No group, faith, family, creed, race, or club will ever be able to completely silence its critics. The only recourse is to live in such a way that we don’t reinforce what the ignorant or intolerant are eager to believe.”
–Robert Kirby, The Salt Lake Tribune, Aug 18 2011
“Blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours burn any brighter.”
— Author Unknown
”A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”
— Erin Majors
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
— Maya Angelou
“Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think possible.”
–Claude T. Bissel
“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”
–Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
—Jiddu Krishnamurti
“If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”
— Fred Rogers
“Before you speak, think: Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence?” —Sri Sathya Sai Baba
“The most overrated pleasure in the world is sex. The most underrated is a good bowel movement.” –Unknown
“The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
–Mark Twain in a letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888.
“In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”
— Mark Twain
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
–Mark Twain
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
— Mark Twain
“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.”
— Mark Twain
“Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
–Mark Twain
“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught.”
–Baba Dioum
“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
–Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_
“We hear the beating of wings over Bethlehem and a light that is not of
the sun or of the stars shines in the midnight sky. Let the beauty of
the story take away all narrowness, all thought of formal creeds. Let it
be remembered as a story that has happened again and again, to men of
many different races, that has been expressed through many religions,
that has been called by many different names. Time and space and
language lay no limitations upon human brotherhood.”
–New York Times, 25 December 1937 quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938
“… and May This Festival of Lights bring Blessings upon you and All Your Loved Ones for Happiness, for Health, and for Spiritual and Material Wealth, and May the Lights of Chanukah Usher in the Light of Moshiach and a Better World for All of Humankind.”
–Hanukkah blessing
“Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.”
— Maori proverb
“To touch can be to give life. “
–Michelangelo
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult–once we truly understand and accept it–then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
— Scott Peck
“It is a metaphysical fact that for each minute of time we spend in thoughts of unfavorable impressions, unkind criticism, or hate toward any person, there will be hours of physical and mental suffering as a reaction. The first thing to do, then, in considering the relief of any mental or physical condition is to analyze your mental self over a period of time preceding the condition and discover what thoughts, attitudes, and conditions of mind you have held or expressed, and immediately eliminate this attitude by reversing your opinions, thoughts, and holding thoughts of love and kindness instead. In other words, the poison from the mind that has been eating at the very heart of every cell in your body must be eliminated before any treatment can be given to relieve the ultimate and outer manifestations. Any other process is merely treating the outer manifestations as though giving them a drug to nullify the senses without removing the actual cause.”
–H. Spencer Lewis
“No one is free whose mind is not like a door with a double-hinge swinging outward to release their own ideas, and inward to receive the worthy thoughts of others.”
–Ralph M. Lewis
“Consider the fact that for 3.8 Billion years, every one of your fore bearers, on both sides, has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so.”
–Bill Bryson
“Grief is the rope burns left behind when what we have held to most dearly is pulled out of reach, beyond our grasp.”
–Stephen Levine
“Do you want to be good or do you want to be whole?”
— Carl Jung
Who looks outside, dreams
Who looks inside, awakens
— Carl Jung
“Fear builds walls to bar the light.”
— Baal Shem Tov
“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Why stand we here trembling around
Calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells,
Stretching a hand to save the falling?”
— William Blake
“I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my brother and I found all three.”
–William Blake.
“Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.”
— Anais Nin
“If someone is too tired to give you a smile, leave one of your own, because no one needs a smile as much as those who have none to give.”
— Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch
“In Jewish tradition, a person who speaks is like an archer: He shoots his arrows, and once they are in the air, he cannot wish them back into the bow. He has created, he realizes later, emissaries or extensions of himself with the powerful capacity to act in his name. All attitudes and consequences caused by these agents will be his responsibility. He who perceives this knows the art of saying little.”
— Nilton Bonder, in The Kabbalah of Envy
So Precious is a person’s faith in God,
So precious, never should we harm that.
Because He gave birth to all Religions.
–St. Francis of Assisi
I once spoke to my friend, an old squirrel, about the Sacraments–he got so excited and ran into a hollow in his tree and came back holding some acorns, an owl feather and a ribbon he found. And I just smiled and said, “Yes, dear, you understand everything imparts His grace.” –St. Francis of Assisi
“People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves in the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass themselves by without wondering.”
— Saint Augustine
***
Something for these times (Fra Giovanni Giocondo, c.1435-1515)
Posted by: “Ángel F. Sánchez Escobar” ansanes@us.es angelus19512003
Thu Jul 1, 2010 9:44 am (PDT)
Within Our Reach: Joy
by Fra Giovanni Giocondo
I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.
Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending our way home through an unknown country.
Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435-1515) was a Renaissance pioneer, accomplished
as an architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist, classical scholar, and
Franciscan friar. Today we remember him most for his reassuring letter to Countess Allagia ldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.
“Losing faith is emptying your cup of what you know. True faith is not a full cup but an ever- emptying one, leaving you humbled by uncertainty and not-knowing, and thus open to the grace of God’s outpouring. So what do you do when you lose faith? Give thanks and wait.”
— Rabbi Rami Shapiro
“Since no one really knows anything about God,
those who think they do are just troublemakers.”
–Rabia (Sufi Poet)
“If triangles had a God, God would have three sides.”
–Yiddish Proverb
“No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.”
–Dogen
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”
— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.”
— Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Instructions for life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
— Mary Oliver
“WHAT SHALL I DO WITH ALL MY BOOKS?”
“What shall I do with all my books?” Was the question; and the answer, ‘read them,’ sobered the questioner. ‘but if you cannot read them, at least any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, takes soundings of uncharted seas. Set them back on their shelves with your own hands. Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let’s them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.
It is a mistake to read too many good books when quite young. A man once told me that he had read all the books that mattered. Cross- questioned, he appeared to of [sic] read a great many, but they seem to have made only a slight impression. How many had he understood? How many had entered into his mental composition? How many had been hammered on the anvils of his mind and afterwards ranged in an armory of bright weapons ready to hand?
Choose well, choose wisely, and choose one. Concentrate upon that one. Do not be content until you find yourself reading in it with real enjoyment.
–Winston Churchill, who was apparently puzzling about what to do with his 10,000 book library….
“Unless one says good-bye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself and eventual extinction.”
— Jean Dubuffet
“Try to learn to breathe deeply; really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell.”
–William Saroyan, 1908-1981,
advising young writers.
“We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
–Marianne Williamson
“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.“
— Sir Francis Bacon
“The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.”
–Benjamin Disraeli
“A relationship is a mystery that is created stroke by stroke like a painting on a canvas. Each word we speak, every action we take, and each choice we make, is like a stroke on the canvas. Each day, we create a new segment of the painting, and each day, we add color, nuance, intensity, and energy.”
— Dr. Paula Sunray.
“Becoming a teacher of God is a very worthwhile occupation. It’s the only occupation that makes us feel completely whole. To renounce the world simply means that there is nothing of this world that holds sway over us. It does not mean going off and living in a cave. Neither does it mean not going off and living in a cave. It simply means looking at this world through eyes of love rather than condemnation.”
–Jon Mundy
“One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.” — Woodrow Wilson
“The root meaning of the verb ‘to forgive’ is ‘to let go, to give back, to cease to harbor.’ Looked at this way, forgiveness is a restful activity. Far more work is required to cling to a judgment than to let go of it.”
— Hugh Prather
“An untroubled mind is no longer seeking to consider what is right and what is wrong. A mind beyond judgments watches and understands.”
— Unknown.
“Many people think they are thinking when they are just rearranging their prejudices.”
–Edward R. Murrow
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
–Dr. Seuss
“Even if I were certain that the world would end tomorrow, I would plant a tree this very day.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and a mystery.”
— H.G. Wells
“I think the dying pray at the last not ‘please,’ but ‘thank you,’ as a guest thanks his host at the door.”
— Annie Dillard
“So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmongers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.”
— Thomas Merton in “Passion for Peace: Reflections on War and Nonviolence”
“It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God’s will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you – try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God’s will yourself!”
–Thomas Merton
“Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.”
–Thomas Merton
“The grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.”
–Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”
“Everything has already been given. What we need is to live into it.”
— Thomas Merton
“All we need is to experience what we already possess.”
— Thomas Merton
“Each one who is born comes into the world as a question for which the old answers are not sufficient.”
–Thomas Merton
“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person.”
— Thomas Merton
“It is not speaking that breaks our silence but our unceasing anxiety to be heard.”
–Thomas Merton
“Have patience with all things, but first with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value as a human being. You’re perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person simply because you exist. And no amount of triumphs and tribulations can ever change that. Unconditional self-acceptance is the core of a peaceful mind.”
— St. Francis de Sales
“Here is an unspeakable secret: Paradise is all around us and we do not understand.”
— Thomas Merton in “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”
“It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence.”
–George Macdonald from “Sir Gibbie”, 1879
“Understand the enemy and you can defeat him, understand yourself and there is no enemy.”
–Ancient Chinese Proverb
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
–African Proverb
“Conquer your foe by force, you increase his enmity; conquer by love, and you will reap no after-sorrow.”
–Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King, from “365 Buddha: Daily Meditations,” edited by Jeff Schmidt. Reprinted by arrangement with Tarcher/Putnam, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
An old man once said,
In the end, when your name is spoken,
the sentiment evoked by its vibration
will show how well
you have lived your life.
–Gabriel Horn – “The Book of Ceremonies”
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and
convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
”Faith is essentially the quality of openness, eagerness, and expectation we see in children and other enlightened souls. It is a basic attitude of trust in the ultimate mystery behind existence; it is a gesture and stand of pure openness.“
–Wayne Teasdale.
”There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way!’ “
— C. S. Lewis
“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.”
–Jim Rohn
“Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger people! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks, then what you do in your world shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Everyday you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life, which has come to you by the grace of God.”
— Phillips Brooks
“Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him.”
— Aldous Huxley
“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”
–Yogi Berra
“Work like you don’t need the money.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching.
Sing like nobody’s listening.
Live like it’s Heaven on Earth.”
–Unknown
”For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you
never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.”
–Audrey Hepburn
“Television: Chewing gum for the eyes.”
–Frank Lloyd Wright
“Better to drink life in one flaming hour
And reel across the sun,
Than to sip pale years, and cower
Before Oblivion.”
–Aloysius Michael Sullivan (1896-1980)
“Happiness is the realization of God in the heart. Happiness is the result of praise and thanksgiving, of faith, of acceptance; a quiet tranquil realization of the love of God.”
— White Eagle
“The Great Spirit is everywhere. He hears whatever is in our minds and hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to Him in a loud voice.”
–Black Elk
A Minister was walking down a country road on a hot sunny day and came upon a farmer who was working very hard in his field. The farmer was sweating, looked very tired, and had paused to drink some water. The Minister called to him and said, “God has certainly blessed you with a beautiful farm!” The farmer called back, “Yes, but you should have seen it when he had it all to himself.”
–folk wisdom
“We dedicate, we affirm, we hear the voice of God when the drum is beaten. The drum is a special gift to the people.”
–Grandfather Wallace Black Elk
“People aren’t looking for the meaning of life. They are looking for the experience of being alive.”
— Joseph Campbell
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
— Joseph Campbell
“We keep thinking of deity as a kind of fact, somewhere; God as a fact. God is simply our own notion of something that is symbolic of transcendence and mystery. The mystery is what’s important.”
–Joseph Campbell
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
— Harold Thurman Whitman
“My Sufi master once said: ‘If you put the world between you and God, the world becomes a spiritual obstacle; if you use the world to remember God, the world becomes your spiritual friend.’ “
— Robert Frager in “The Wisdom of Islam”
“Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.”
— Lao-Tzu
“….stay at the center of the circle and let all things take their course….”
–Lao Tzu
“How can I be still? By flowing with the stream.”
–Lao Tzu
“The highest truth cannot be put into words.
Therefore the greatest teacher has nothing to say.
He simply gives himself in service, and never worries.”
— Lao Tzu
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them — that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
— Lao-Tzu
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.”
—Lao Tzu
“True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at the moment.”
–Eckhart Tolle
“You find God the moment you realize that you don’t need to seek God.”
–Eckhart Tolle
”God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.”
–Dag Hammarskjold
“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
–Oscar Wilde
“Anyone who really wants to grow, expand, and know who they are has to travel uncharted territories all the time. So that kind of person has to live in a world of ‘I don’t know,’ which is scary, but that’s the only place where you learn anything.”
–Wyatt Webb in “It’s Not About The Horse”
The Man in The Arena:
“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause;
Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly,
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
–President Theodore Roosevelt, Speech at the Sorbonne
Paris, France, April 23, 1910
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world. “
–Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“This country maintains a large standing army. Of course, the ones sitting down are the officers.”
–Fibber McGee
“The upper crust is just a lot of crumbs held together by their own dough.”
–Fibber McGee
“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.”
–Will Rogers
”Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.”
— Eric Hoffer
“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never allow a person to tell you No who doesn’t have the power to say Yes.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
“It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.”
— Hermann Hesse
“Who says the eternal being does not exist? Who says the sun has gone out? Someone who climbs up on the roof and closes his eyes tight, and says, I don’t see anything.”
— Rumi
“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”
–Jalaluddin Rumi
“In a holy book I have, in a sacred text I carry, is the face of everyone who will ever be.”
— Hafiz
“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
–Hafiz
“In my own experience, the period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one’s life. …Through a difficult period, you can learn, you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problem. Who gives you this chance? Your enemy.”
–His Holiness the Dalai Lama
“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.”
–His Holiness the Dalai Lama
“Your mind might want to make war, but your heart can never follow. Then you have the war inside yourself. War is obsolete you know.”
–His Holiness the Dalai Lama
“Most religions teach one what to do, but yoga teaches one how to be.”
“Meditation can give you that which nothing else can give you. It introduces you to yourself.”
–Swami Rama
“Cling to the feet of a master who can introduce you to yourself.”
–Swami Veda Bharati
“If wealth is lost, nothing is lost;
if health is lost something is lost;
but if character is lost, everything is lost.”
–Swami Vivekananda
“Religion unites the individual soul with the Supreme Soul. Real religion is Self-realisation. Essentials of all religions are the same. Different religions are essential. Universal religion is LOVE.”
— Swami Sivananda
“You are born for higher things. A glorious brilliant future is awaiting you. Do not think of the past. Purify. Meditate. March forward. Find thy rest in the Supreme Soul.”
–Swami Sivananda
“Radiate to all thoughts of love and goodness. Never look into the faults and defects of others. Always appreciate the good in others. Overlook their weakness. Pray for the one who wishes to harm you. Bear insult and injury. Be good and do good.”
–Sri Swami Sivananda
A man may have faith in all the churches in the world, he may carry in his head all the sacred books ever written, he may baptize himself in all the rivers of the earth–still, if he has no Love for his Neighbor, for his fellow Man, I would class him with the rankest atheist.
And a man may have never entered a church or a mosque, nor performed any ceremony, but if he lives out the Divine within himself, is a servant to humanity, and is lifted above the vanities of the world, that man is a holy man, a saint, call him what you will.
— Vivekananda, paraphrased (Unity Hall, Hartford Connecticut, USA, March 8, 1895)
“I would like the church to be a place where the questions of people are honored rather than a place where we have all the answers. The church has to get out of propaganda. The future will involve us in more interfaith dialogue. … We cannot say we have the only truth.”
–Bishop John Shelby Spong
“Language… has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.”
–Paul Tillich
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“Nothing can be more useful to a man or a woman than a determination not to be hurried. “
— Henry David Thoreau
“Live each present moment completely, and the future will take care of itself. Fully enjoy the wonder and beauty of each instant. Practice the presence of peace. The more you do that, the more you will find the presence of that power in your life.
–Paramahansa Yogananda
“Do not take life’s experiences too seriously. Above all, do not let them hurt you, for in reality they are nothing but dream experiences. Play your part in life, but never forget it is only a role. If circumstances are bad and you have to bear them, do not make them a part of yourself. What you lose in the world will not be a loss to your soul. Trust in God and destroy fear, which paralyzes all efforts to succeed and attracts the very thing you fear. All Nature will commune with you when you are in tune with God. Realization of this truth will make you master of your destiny.”
–Paramahansa Yogananda
“Patience is a divine virtue. Unfortunately, not only are we badly wanting in this divine virtue, but also we neglect it most foolishly. What is patience? It is an inner assurance of God’s unreserved love and unconditional guidance. Patience is God’s power hidden in us to weather the teeming storms of life.”
— Sri Chinmoy
“Recognize that you have the courage within you to fulfill the purpose of your birth. Summon forth the power of your inner courage and live the life of your dreams.”
–Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
”We must love them both – those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it.
–St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Theologian and philosopher
Some quotes from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
“Unity, to be real, must stand the severest strain without breaking”
“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be shut. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible.”
“Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.”
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it… always.”
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. “
“We must be the change we seek in the world.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“Civilization is the encouragement of differences.”
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
“The only time the poorest of the poor see God is in a slice of bread.”
“Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”
–Mohandas Gandhi, an Autobiography, page 446.
“Seven dangers to Human Virtue:
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Business without ethics
5. Science without humanity
6. Religion without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle”
*******
“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”
— Mother Teresa
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
–Mother Theresa
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”
–Mother Teresa
“Today it is very fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is very unfashionable to talk with them.”
— Mother Teresa
“He who would save himself lives bare and calm; He who would save the world must share its pain.”
— Sri Aurobindo
“It is wrong to think that misfortunes come from the east or from the west; they originate within one’s own mind. Therefore, it is foolish to guard against misfortunes from the external world and leave the inner mind uncontrolled.”
–Buddha
”It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”
–Lena Horne
“Life is not a trap set for us by God, so that He can condemn us for failing. Life is not a spelling bee, where no matter how many words you have gotten right, if you make one mistake you are disqualified. Life is more like a baseball season, where even the best team loses one-third of its games and even the worst team has its days of brilliance. Our goal is not to go all year without ever losing a game. Our goal is to win more than we lose, and if we can do that consistently enough, then when the end comes, we will have won it all.”
— Harold S. Kushner
“How Good Do We Have To Be?”
Emmet Fox’s test of a true teacher:
“If he points to his own personality; if he makes special claims for himself; if he says he has received special privileges not accessible to the whole human race everywhere, if he attempts in his own name or that of an organization to establish under any pretence a monopoly over the truth about God; then, however imposing his credentials, however pleasing his personality might be; he is a false teacher, and you would be better off having nothing to do with him.
“If, on the contrary, he tells you to look away from himself, to seek God in the presence in your own heart, and to use books, lectures, and churches only as a means to that one end, then, no matter how humble his efforts may seem, however lacking his own demonstration may appear, he is nevertheless a true teacher, and he is giving you the Bread of Life.”
–Emmet Fox, 1993
“7. I do not claim that the modern Qabalistic teachings as I have learnt them are identical with those of the pre-Christian Rabbis, but I claim that they are the legitimate descendants thereof and the natural development therefrom.
8. The nearer the source the purer the stream. In order to discover first principles we must go to the fountain-head. But a river receives many tributaries in the course of its flow, and those need not necessarily be polluted. If we want to discover whether they are pure or not, we compare them with the pristine stream, and if they pass this test they many well be permitted to mingle with the main body of waters and swell their strength. So it is with a tradition: that which is not antagonistic will be assimilated. We must always test the purity of a tradition by reference to first principles, but we shall equally judge of the vitality of a tradition by its power to assimilate. It is only a dead faith which remains uninfluenced by contemporary thought.”
–Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah, page 4.
“Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less.”
–Ken Blanchard
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.”
— Arthur H. Prince
“In the spiritual lore of India, it is said that God whispered only one word in our ears when he sent us into the world: ‘Give.’ Give freely of your time, your talent, your resources; give without asking for anything in return. This is the secret of living in joy and security.”
— Eknath Easwaran, in Words to Live By
“To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.”
— Confucius
“If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
–Lao Tsu
“The word “enthusiasm” comes from the Greek, “en Theos” – in God. This means that whenever you are enthusiastic, you are in God. Therefore the most powerful way to bring God to life is to do what you are enthusiastic about.”
— Alan Cohen.
“We are all prisoners. But we sit on the keys.”
–Rabbi Menachem Schneerson
“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.”
— R. I. Fitzhenry
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
— Ambrose Redmoon
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyway.”
–Anna Eleanor Roosevelt
“Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”
–Charles Spurgeon
“You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.”
–Wendell Berry, A Continuous Harmony
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our
real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our
real journey.”
— Wendell Berry
“Who am I to judge a gay person?”
“And I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being.”
“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. “
“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
“It hurts me when I see a priest or nun with the latest-model car. You can’t do this. A car is necessary to do a lot of work, but, please, choose a more humble one. If you like the fancy one, just think about how many children are dying of hunger in the world.”
“You know what I think about this? Heads of the Church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.”
“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. “
“Then, Holy Father, creativity is important for the life of a person?” I ask. He laughs and replies: “For a Jesuit it is extremely important! A Jesuit must be creative.”
On his election to the papacy, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose to name himself after Francis of Assisi because the 12th-century saint “is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation,” Pope Francis said Saturday.
“How I would like a church that is poor and for the poor,” he told about 5,000 journalists gathered for an audience with the pope.
“Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.”
–Pope Francis
“See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little.”
— Pope John XXIII
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
–Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
“Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.”
— Storm Jameson
“Really growing up, becoming truly yourself – this takes openness and receptivity, inspiration, a loving heart, stability and persistence, trust in the world and in yourself.”
— Norman Fischer
“Heroism doesn’t consist in brilliantly combating someone else. What is heroic is to accept the situation in which you find yourself.”
— John Cage
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I
can change.”
— Carl Rogers
“The Nation” will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred.”
— from The Nation’s founding prospectus, 1865
“Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
–Frederick Douglass, African-American abolitionist
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”
–George Washington Carver
“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also—if you love them enough.”
–George Washington Carver
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.”
–George Orwell
“No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.
–George Bernard Shaw
“The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.”
— George Bernard Shaw
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
— Buckminster Fuller
“We must continue to remind ourselves that in a free society all are involved in what some are doing. Some are guilty, all are responsible.”
— Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.”
–Thomas Jefferson 1789
Let us never forget that this is a Liberal philosophy. Support it. Defend it.
“Give me your tired, your poor,
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
–Inscription on the Statue of Liberty, Emma Lazarus
The entire poem by Emma Lazarus is graven on a tablet
within the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty stands.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
–Andrew Jackson
“Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.”
–Lord Brougham, House of Commons, 1828
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” –H.L. Mencken (1880 – 1956)
“To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and to answer inquiries, that is the business of a scholar.”
–Samuel Johnson
“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident. Riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow; only one thing endures–character.”
–Horace Greeley
“When sampling life, take big bites, moderation is for monks.”
–Robert Heinlein
“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
–Robert Heinlein
“Children of today love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, and they show disrespect for their elders. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter in company, gobble up the dainties on the table, cross their legs and tyrannize their teachers.”
–Socrates, between 469 and 399 BC
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
–Socrates
“People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness.”
— John Wanamaker
”The most fearful people in the world are Americans, because they have so much to lose. And never has there been a people with so much who are still afraid of not having enough.”
— Richard Rohr in “Job and the Mystery of Suffering”
“It seems that in the spiritual world, we do not really find something until we first lose it, ignore it, miss it, long for it, choose, it, and personally find it again–but now on a new level.”
— Richard Rohr
“Some men are pleased to give orders and some men are pleased to take orders. There are a few men, however, who wish neither to give orders, nor to take them, but to live in the between of the world, where the pleasure is in knowing the orders.”
–Earl Shorris, The Oppressed Middle
“Eternal oblivion is all right if you’re dressed for it.”
–Woody Allen
“When it is a case of mastering life, we must listen for life’s secrets. These lie behind the sense-perceptible.”
–Rudolf Steiner, The Four Temperaments
“The great lesson from the true mystic…is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends and family, in one’s back yard.”
— Abraham Maslow
“For those who believe, no words are necessary; for those who do not believe, no words are possible.”
–St. Ignatius
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: Nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
–From The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
“If instead of a gem or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.”
–G. Macdonald
“Love and death are the great gifts that are given to us; mostly, they are passed on unopened.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
”The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and knew I saw God in all things and all things in God.”
–Mechtild of Magdenburg, 13th Century Beguine Mystic
“How long will grown men and women in this world keep drawing in their coloring books an image of God that makes them Sad?”
–Meister Eckhart
“There is only one crime which cannot be forgiven, that of having poisoned the joys and destroyed the smile of a child.”
–Maurice Maeterlinck
“When eating a fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.”
–Vietnamese saying
“Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.”
–Dag Hammarskjöld
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
–Bertrand Russell
“He who finds a thought that enables him to obtain a slightly deeper glimpse into the eternal secrets of nature has been given great grace”
–Albert Einstein
“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
–Albert Einstein
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
— Albert Einstein
“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”
— Albert Einstein
“I don’t know how World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
–Albert Einstein.
“I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.”
— Albert Einstein
“The follies which a man regrets most in his life are the ones he did not commit when he had the opportunity.”
— Helen Rowland, American writer
“If you want to know the past, to know what has caused you, look at yourself in the present, for that is the past’s effect. If you want to know your future, then look at yourself in the present, for that is the cause of the future.”
–Majjhima Nikaya
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure – which is: Try to please everybody.”
— Herbert Bayard Swope, American journalist (1882-1958)
“5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men [and women]. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father [-Mother-God], who is unseen. Then your Father [-Mother-God], who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father [-Mother-God] knows what you need before you ask him [/Her].” –Matthew 6:5-8
“The difference between talking about prayer and praying is the same as the difference between blowing a kiss and kissing.”
— G. K. Chesterton
“Studying the language of nature can be a dangerous undertaking, for to become literate in nature’s idiom, we must challenge our ordinary perceptions and change our consciousness”
–Starhawk
“The Hopis say that we all began together; that each race went on a journey to learn its own road to power, and changed, that now is the time for us to return, to put the pieces of the puzzle back together, to make the circle whole.”
–Starhawk, in Spiritual Literacy
“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.”
–Theodore Roethke
“Creation must be completely free. Every fetter one imposes on oneself by taking into account playability or public taste leads to disaster.”
–Max Reger (19 March 1873 – 11 May 1916)
“My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us, the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.”
–Sir Edward Elgar
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”
–Hunter S. Thompson
“To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.”
–Nadia Boulanger
“When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that you play that determines if it is good or bad.”
–Miles Davis
“Harmony is brought about by attuning oneself to all beings, to all things, to all conditions, to all situations; and he who cannot tune himself tries to tune others.”
— from Takua Taharat: Everyday Life, the Gathas of Inayat Khan
“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
— Stephen Leacock, Canadian economist and humorist (1869-1944)
“I have a ‘Play The Melody’ philosophy. It means don’t over-arrange, don’t make life difficult. Just play the melody-and do it the simplest way possible.”
— Jackie Gleason
“To Do is To Be.” – Plato
”To Be is To Do.” – Aristotle
”Do Be Do Be Do.” – Sinatra
“Matter is Spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.”
–Teilhard de Chardin
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
–Teilhard de Chardin
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
–Bertrand Russell
“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.”
–Cherokee wisdom
“Every animal knows more than you do. “
— Native American Proverb
“The secret of life is in the shadows and not in the open sun; to see anything at all, you must look deeply into the shadow of a living thing.”
–Ute Saying
***
Personal Quotes [from IMDB]
Strip the phony tinsel off Hollywood and you’ll find the real tinsel underneath.
I made a comment to a newspaper about therapists saying that people should not become dependent on them and it got printed as, “The rapists say . . . “
My psychiatrist once said to me, “Maybe life isn’t for everyone”.
A musical is a series of catastrophes ending with a floor show.
In some situations I was difficult, in odd moments impossible, in rare moments loathsome, but at my best unapproachably great.
I’m a controversial figure. My friends either dislike me or hate me.
I hate cold showers. They stimulate me, and then I don’t know what to do.
[to his friend George Gershwin] Tell me, George, if you had it to do over, would you fall in love with yourself again?
Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember.
I am no more humble than my talents require.
I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on.
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
I admire Leonard Bernstein, but not as much as he does. Lennie has no humor about his egomania. I do.
I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.
[to Perry Como] I’m convinced that his voice comes out of his eyelids.
It’s not what you are but what you don’t become that hurts.
[on Steve Allen] When I can’t sleep, I read a book by Steve Allen.
I smile so seldom that I wonder at Arlene Francis, who smiles persistently. Like the Sorceror’s Apprentice, once she turns it on can she turn it off?
When I was young, I looked like Al Capone but I lacked his compassion.
Today I’m a neurotic basket case. My health is so bad that I might as well be the next Premier of India.
[on Orson Welles] Sometimes he was inaudible–those were his best moments.
[on his role in Rhythm on the River (1940)] I played an unsympathetic part–myself.
[about his first meeting with Marilyn Monroe] I said something to her and Jean Peters questioned my grammar. That was one of the nadir points of my career, to have my grammar corrected in front of Marilyn Monroe.
I have given up reading books. I find it takes my mind off myself.
Schizophrenia beats dining alone.
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left.
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Rev. John Peter Giunta, MA, FRC, SI -- Vienna Woods Yoga and Music Studios 