Quotes

As some may know, I am a Buddhist, LOL, or an aspiring one.  I do not know if many will find inspiration from the quotes that follow, but on this day, Oct. 27, 2017, I found this one of value.

It is written on the gate of heaven:  Nothing in existence is more powerful than destiny.  And destiny brought you here, to this page, which is part of your ticket – as all things are – to return to God. – Hafiz

At some point, being angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning yourself without thinking about it. – Jonathan Tropper

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world…as in being able to remake ourselves – Mahatma Gandhi

There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it.  You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation. – Thich Nhat Hanh

They won’t understand until you leave. The minute you walk away you’ll become ‘the best they’ve ever had.’ It’s crazy how loss triggers love. – Unknown

You owe it to yourself to be yourself – Yogi Bhajan

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. – Ernest Hemingway

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing. – Anaïs Nin

Good and bad habits both take time to acquire real power.  Long-continued bad habits can be displaced by good habits if the latter are patiently cultivated. – Paramahansa Yogananda

Our current mental-hygiene philosophy stresses the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustment.  Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy. – Viktor E. Frankl

I should not make any promises right now, but I know if you Pray, somewhere in this world something good willl happen. – Hafiz

You are one with everything.  That is more true than I can say, and more true than you can hear. – Shunryn Suzuki

Everyone is God speaking.  Why not be polite and listen to Him? – Hafiz

The Buddha taught that we’re not actually in control, which is a pretty scary idea.  But when you let things be as they are, you will be a much happier, more balanced, compassionate person. –  Pema Chodron

Your first task is to see the sorrow in you and around; you’re next, to long intensely for liberation.  The very intensity of longing will guide you; you need no other guide. – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

In those moments when we forget ourselves–not thinking, “Am I happy?” but completely oblivious to our little ego–we spend a brief but beautiful holiday in heaven. – Eknath Easwaran

We must never confuse the teacher with the truth. – Lama Surya Das

The heart surrenders everything to the moment.  The mind judges and holds back.  — Ram Dass

The secret to deepening concentration is the ability to let go.  Over and over​ again–no judgment, no harsh condemnation, no feeling of failing…letting go of distractions gently, over and over, and returning to the chosen object of attention.  That is how we make progress… – Sharon Salzberg

The best portion of a good man’s life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. – William Wordsworth

We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand.  And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is.  You have nothing.  You possess nothing.  You own nothing.  You are free.  All you have is what you are, and what you give. – Ursula K. le Guin.

Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on.  Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone.  The world does not deliver meaning to you.  You have to make it meaningful. – Zadie Smith

Begin doing what you want to do now.  We are not living in eternity.  We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snowflake. – Sir Francis Bacon

To change the world is not your mission.  To change yourself is not your duty.  To awaken to your true nature is your opportunity. – Mooji

If our hearts are ready for anything, we are free to be ourselves.  There’s room for the wildness of our animal selves, for passion and play.  There’s room for our human selves, for intimacy and understanding, creativity and productivity.  There’s room for spirit, for the light of awareness to suffuse our moments.  The Tibetans describe this confidence to be who we are as “the lion’s roar.” – Tara Brach

I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things. – Vincent van Gogh

In the end, everything is a gag. – Charlie Chaplin

Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive.  And life is a pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but by GOD you’re alive and it’s spectacular. – Joseph Campbell

They must change often, who would be constant in Happiness. – Confucius

There is no end to the opening up that is possible for a human being. – Charlotte Joko Beck

I Meditate because life is to short and sitting slows it down…   I Meditate because life is too long and I need an occasional break…   I Meditate because it’s such a relief to spend time ignoring myself…   I Meditate because I’m building my self a bigger and better prospective and occasionally I need to add a new window. – Wes Nisker

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.  Always work with it, not against it. – Eckhart Tolle

Has it ever struck you . . . that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going? – Tennessee Williams

We are all a little weird and Life’s a little weird,
And when we find someone whose
Weirdness is compatible with ours,
We join up with them and fall in
Mutual weirdness and call it Love. – Dr. Seuss

Awake.  Be the witness of your thoughts,  You are what observes, not what you observe. – The Buddha

On the journey to myself I’ve been so many people. – Indigo Williams

I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies. – Ram Dass

Few people know so clearly what they want.  Most people can’t even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain. – Barbara Kingsolver

What is this true meditation?  It is to make everything, coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan. – Hakuin

That luminous part of you that exists beyond personality – your soul, if you will – is as bright and shining as any that has ever been….Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret luminous place.  Believe it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly. – George Saunders

As soon as you see something, you already start to intellectualize it.  As soon as you intellectualize something, it is no longer what you saw. – Shuntyu Suzuki

There ain’t no answer.  There ain’t gonna be any answer.  There never has been an answer.  There’s the answer. – Gertrude Stein

I felt in need of a great pilgrimage, so I sat still for three days. – Kabir

Perhaps our first glimpse of emptiness in meditation is the recognition that our thoughts are not actually “real.” – David Nichtern

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different than the things we do. – Albert Camus

One’s own self is the most difficult to subdue. – The Dhammapada

[Empathy] suggests you enter another person’s pain as you’d enter another country, through immigration and customs, border-crossing by way of query:  What grows where you are?  What are the laws?  What animals graze there? – Leslie Jamison

They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it.  But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind. – Khaled Hosseini

It is in the thousand days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert and alive. – Dani Shapiro

Consider the sunlight.  You may say that it is near, yet if you pursue it from world to world you will never catch it.  You may say that it is far, yet it is right before your eyes.  Chase it and it always eludes you; run from it and it is always there.  From this example you can understand how it is with the true nature of all things. – Huang-Fu

Try to say nothing negative about anybody for three days, for forty-five days, for three months.  See what happens to your live. – Yoko Ono

Most humans are never present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one.  But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now. – Eckhart Tolle

Let go, or be dragged – Zen Proverb

Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn’t matter what they thing say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one. – Henry Miller

When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit laughs for what it has found. – Sufi Proverb

We often think that insecurity comes from a weak ego, but in my experience it is the result of an inflexible ego that has mistaken itself as the center of the universe, which keeps contradicting it on this key point. – Shozan Jack Haubner

I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit. – Elizabeth Gilbert

I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being. – Hafiz

Everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself. – Leo Tolstoy

To express your courage outwardly is to concern yourself with death.  To express your courage inwardly is to encounter Life. – Lao Tzu

There is nothing insignificant anywhere. – Paramananda

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.  When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers. – Thich Nhat Hanh

There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. – Aldous Huxley

Ever since happiness heard your name.  It has been running through the streets trying to find you. – Hafiz

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. – Isaac Asimov

I believe in absolute oneness of God and, therefore, also of humanity.  What though we have many bodies?  We have but one soul. – Mahatma Gandhi

Our greatest mistake is that we think of God as acting symbolically and allegorically, instead of practically and literally. – Ramana Maharishi

Change rooms in your mind for a day. – Hafiz

It hurts to love.  It’s like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin. – Susan Sontag

Let go of what has passed.  Let go of what may come.  Let go of what is happening now.  Don’t try to figure anything out.  Don’t try to make anything happen.  Relax, right now, and rest. – Tilopa

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness. – Eckhart Tolle

How often do we tell our own life story?  How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts?  And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life.  Told to others, but – mainly – to ourselves. – Julian Barnes

Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw  ourselves away and becoming something better, it’s about befriending who we are. – Pema Chodron

Be as natural and spacious as possible.  Slip quietly out of the noose of your habitual anxious self, release all grasping, and relax into your true nature. – Sogyal Rimpoche

Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come. – Franz Kafka

This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you. – Hafiz

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple – Jack Kerouac

Everything you know is wrong – The Firesign Theatre

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years.  No one would sleep that night, of course.  The world would  become religious overnight.  We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God.  Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television. – Paul Hawken

You don’t have to do anything to keep the mind calm.  Just leave it alone.  Let it be.  That’s the song you sing.  Let it be.  So be it.  Amen – Sri Swami Satchidananda

May all beings be happy.  May all my thoughts, words, and actions contribure in some way to the happiness of all beings – “Lokah Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu” Mantra

Forgiveness means letting go all hope for a better past. – Lama Surya Das

Among the great things which are to be found among us, the Being of Nothingness is the greatest. – Leonardo do Vinci

Nothing we do is inevitable, but everything we do is irreversible.  How do you propose to remember that in time? – Joy Williams

The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal. – Groucho Marx

Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom. – Victor Frankl

A human being is part of the whole called by us “Universe”; a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us.  Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to enhance all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. – Albert Einstein

Proper effort is not the effort to make something particular happen.  It is the effort to be aware and awake each moment. – Ajahn Chah

Even as a tree has a single trunk, but many branches and leaves, so is there one true and perfect Religion, but it becomes many as it passes through the human medium. – Mahatma Gandhi

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination. – John Lennon

Your own self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world. – Ramana Maharshi

Teach me, O Infinite Spirit! that whether I am awake or asleep, alert or daydreaming, living or dying, Thine all-protecting presence encircles me. – Pramahansa Yogananda

A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people. – John Cleese

If others seem disagreeable to you, by what miracle do you wish to appear agreeable to them? – Suzuki Shosan

Talking about our saints and theologians who trusted in God is a clever way to avoid the experience itself, to avoid encounter with the living God, to avoid the ongoing Incarnation.  – Richard Rohr

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. – Matsuo Basho

From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-saw, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life.  You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead.  Take control and choose to focus on what is importand in your life.  Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life. – Anaïs Nin

The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separated from Him.  – Father Thomas Keating

If you find no one to support you on the spiritual path, walk alone.  There is no companionship with the immature.  –  The Buddha

The meaning of life is…kindness, happiness and peace. – Ajahn Brahm

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.  –  H. L. Mencken

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. – William Arthur Ward

Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain that was entrusted to you.  –  Sufi saying

The purpose of life is to watch and experience living.  To enjoy living every moment of it….Just to be.  –  Yogi Bhajan

It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.  –  Gertrude Stein

How many times have you encountered the saying ‘When the student is ready, the Master appears?’  Do you know why that is true?  The door opens inward.  The Master is everywhere, but the student has to open his mind to hear the Master’s voice. – Robert Anton Wilson

One thought follows another without interruption.  But if you allow these thoughts to link up to a chain, you put yourself in bondage.  –  Zen Saying

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler. – Albert Einstein

The monk Fu was standing in front of the storehouse when another monk came by and remarked:  “It is said that wherever your eye may turn, there you discover the Tao.  What does this mean?”  Fu kicked a dog which happened to be there, and the dog yelped and scooted away.  The questioning monk made no response.  “Poor dog,” said Fu, “you were kicked in vain”  –  Zen Mondo

When you try to understand everything, you will not understand anything.  The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything.  – Shuneyu Suzuki

Someone asked, “What am I?”  Grangfan answered, “There is nothing in the whole universe that is not in you.”  –  Zen Mondo

The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.  –  Huang-po

Seize from the moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.  –  Andre Gide

The whole world is you.  Yet you keep thinking there is something else.  –  Hsueh-Feng

You are what you is.  –  Frank Zappa

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it until it comes to have a separate and integral interest.  To regret deeply is to live afresh.  – Henry David Thoreau

I’m not young enough to know everything.  –  J. M. Barrie

To be or not to be” is NOT the question–because you can’t have one without the other!  –  Alan Watts

What is to give light must endure burning  –  Viktor Frankl

The first man to see an illusion by which men have flourished for decades surely stands in a lonely place.  –  Gary Zukav

Learning how to love is the goal and the purpose of spiritual life – not learning how to develop psychic powers, not learning how to bow, chant, do yoga, or even meditate, but learning to love.  Love is the truth.  Love is the light. – Lama Surya Das

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.  – Wallace Stevens

Forget not that the earth likes to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.  – Kahlil Gibran

Monks recite the sutras, their voices a cacophony.  We make love; afterward our whispers mock the empty chanting. – Ikkyu

You cannot avoid paradise.  You can only avoid seeing it. – Charlotte Joko Beck

I think we all have a core that’s ecstatic, that knows and that looks up in wonder.  We all know that there are marvelous moments of eternity that just happen.  We know them.  –  Coleman Barks

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;  Sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate that brushes your heel as it turns going by, the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant. – Miguel de Unamuno

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is “look under foot.”  You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.  The lure of the distant and difficult is deceptive.  The great opportunity is where you are.  Do not despise your own place and hour.  Every place is under the start, every place is of the world.  – John Burroughs

Learn to be calm and you will always be happy.  – Paramhansa Yogananda

The fact is, the universe has chosen you as the vehicle through which to experience the uncanny thrill of cutting up cabbage for dinner, the wonder that is inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide, the fabulous spectacle of watching your clothes dry at a coin-op Laundromat where the radio is stuck on an E-Z listening station and an old lady keeps staring at you for no discernible reason.  The universe has demanded that you be you.  Ain’t no avoidin’ it.  – Brad Warner

The best way out is always through – Robert Frost

Realization doesn’t destroy the individual any more than the reflection of the moon breaks a drop of water.  A drop of water can reflect the whole sky.  – Dogen

A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free – Zorba the Greek

I watched the trees gradually withdraw, waving their despairing arms, seeming to say to me, “What you fail to learn from us today, you will never know.  If you allow us to drop back into the hollow of this road from which we sought to raise ourselves up to you, a whole part of yourself which we were bringing to you will fall forever into the abyss.” – Marcel Proust

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it Hot – D. H. Lawrence

“This life is a test-it is only a test.
It it had been an actual life, you would have received further
instructions on where to go and what to do.
Remember, this life is only a test.” ― Jack Kornfield

Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding.  – Yehuda Amichai

A great man is he who does not lose his childlike heart.  – Mencius

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly. – St. Francis de Sales

Oral Sex is a great last minute gift idea. – Unknown

The fundamental delusion of reality is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.  – Yasutani

After all, if I can’t be myself, who can? – Auntie Mame

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.  – Albert Einstein

Don’t bother trying to find out what God wants you to do.  Find out what God is doing, and help him. – William Monroe

How many things do you say just to make an impression on others?  What are you really achieving when you try to make an impression?  If you didn’t do things for merit or advancement, or if you didn’t act with motives at all, what would life be like?  At work?  In Bed?  Alone in a room?  Even alone in a room you can be consumed with wanting other people to see you in a good light.  – John Tarrant

I would like to beg you, dear Sir, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.  Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, some day in the far future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. –  Rainer Maria Rilke

A Slave is responsible to their Dominant.  The Dominant is responsible to the relationship. –  Unacknowledged

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would see sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. – Longfellow

Jareth:  I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave. – Labyrinth

Everything we do is in service of the self—and there is no self. – Zen Saying

Each of you is perfect as you are.  And you all could use a little bit of improvement.  – Shunryu Suzuki

If you are not a Buddhist, you think there are Buddhists and non-Buddhists, but if you are a Buddhist, you realize everyone’s a Buddhist – even the bugs. – Shunryu Suzuki

Every concept grasped by the mind becomes an obstacle in the quest to those who search. – Gregory of Nyssa

Seize from the moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys. – Andre Gide

There is no Hell, for that means there is a place where God is not, and there are sins which exceed his love. – Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

If the only prayer you said was Thank You, that would be enough. – Meister Eckhart

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master. – Hunter S. Thompson

The map is not the territory. – Alfred Korzybski

DÉJÀ MOO – The feeling that you have heard this Bull before –  Unknown

From General Armstrong’s example … I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak. – Booker T. Washington

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. – Rumi

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.  Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof. – Richard Bach

I stayed in submission to my husband, and he allowed me to do anything I wanted to.  I felt like I was lucky to have that kind of romance. – June Carter Cash