ASSORTED QUOTATIONS
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YOU MUST READ THIS
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent,
but the ones most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. -- Gloria Steinem
when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because
-- e. e. cummings
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make the better. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I must have something to engross my thoughts, some object in life which will fill this
vacuum and prevent this sad wearing away of the heart. -- Elizabeth Blackwell
It is well worth the efforts of a life-time to have attained knowledge which justifies
an attack on the root of all evil ... which asserts that because forms of evil have
always existed in society, therefore they must always exist ... -- Elizabeth Blackwell
I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and
that you learn honesty by being cheated. -- Paul Harvey
There are two sorts of curiosity - the momentary and the permanent. The
momentary is concerned with the odd appearance on the surface of things.
The permanent is attracted by the amazing and consecutive life that flows
on beneath the surface of things. -- Robert Lynd
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without
and know we cannot live within. -- James A. Baldwin
As you think, so you become.
Most people would rather be certain they're miserable,
than risk being happy. -- Robert Anthony
We fear the thing we want the most. -- Robert Anthony
A man is not old as long as he is seeking something. -- Jean Rostand
Understanding precedes peace. -- Vanna Bonta
One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade.
It makes the hand bleed that uses it. -- Rabindramath Tabore
Rule A: Don't. Rule A1: Rule A doesn't exist. Rule A2: Do not discuss
the existence or non-existence of Rules A, A1, or A2. -- R. D. Laing
The best way to win an argument is by being right. -- Jill Rackelshaws
The only gracious way to accept an insult is to ignore it;
if you can't ignore it, top it;
if you can't top it, laugh at it;
if you can't laugh at it, it's probably deserved.
-- J. Russel Lynes
ADVERTISING
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence
long enough to get money from it. -- Stephen Butler Leacock
Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people's lives.
And you know, most people's fantasies are pretty sad. -- Frederik Pohl
AMERICA
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop
at the border? -- Pablo Casals
I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly
for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
-- James A. Baldwin
Everything is upon a grand scale upon this continent. The rivers are immense,
the climate violent in heat and cold, the prospects magnificent, the thunder
and lightning tremendous. The disorders incident to the country make every
constitution tremble. Our own blunders here, our misconduct, our losses, our
disgraces, our ruin, is on a large scale. -- Lord Carlisle
Personal responsibility is a difficult thing to ask for in a nation which has
attempted to find a societal "root cause" for all things. -- Shapley R. Hunter
This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home
of the brave. -- Elmer Davis
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy but won't
cross the street to vote in a national election. -- Bill Vaughan
America is a country that doesn't know where it is going but is determined
to set a speed record getting there. -- Laurence J. Peter
The two most common errors in this country are that our politicians are dumb
and that they mean well. Exactly the opposite is true. -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
ARGUMENT
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and then
beat you with experience. -- Anonymous
People generally quarrel because they cannot argue. -- Gilbert K. Chesterton
The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is
getting ready to skin you. -- Kin Hubbard
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world
safe for diversity. -- John F. Kennedy
He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his
reason is weak. -- Michel de Montaigne
When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter;
if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win,
but both will profit. -- Ayn Rand
ART/CREATIVITY
The life of the creative man is led, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding
boredom is one of our most important purposes. -- Saul Steinberg
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep. -- Scott Adams
Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art
should carry its justification in every line. -- Joseph Conrad
When I say artist I mean the man who is building things -- creating molding the
earth -- whether it be the plains of the west -- or the iron ore of Penn. It's all
a big game of construction -- some with a brush -- some with a shovel -- some
choose a pen. -- Jackson Pollock
I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things. -- Henri Matisse
Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -- Paul Guaguin
I passionately hate the idea of being "with it," I think an artist has always
to be out of step with his time. -- Orson Welles
An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to
have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea
to give them. -- Andy Warhol
BOOKS
Why else do we read fiction, anyway? Not to be impressed by somebody's dazzling
language -- or at least I hope that's not our reason. I think that most of us, anyway,
read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another
kind of truth: The mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth
about those life-communities that define our won identity, and the most specific
truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about somebody who
actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about ourself.
-- Forward to Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four
walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And
this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own. -- John Berger
The books that the world calls immoral are books that
show the world its own shame. -- Oscar Wilde
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
-- Italo Calvino
A book should serve as an axe to the ice inside us. -- Franz Kafka
CENSORSHIP
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.
-- Voltaire's Essay on Tolerance
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right
to say it. -- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (paraphrasing Voltaire)
As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other
institutions, I am free to print anything. -- Beaumarchais
Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and
assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech
to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the
government. -- Lenny Bruce
If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't
believe in it at all. -- Noam Chomsky
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
-- A. J. Liebling
A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.
-- Laurence J. Peter
Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. -- Potter Stewart
Regardless of the strength of the government's interest [in protecting
children,] the level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited
to that which would be suitable for a sandbox. -- U.S. Supreme Court
CHARACTER
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character,
give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln
COURAGE
Courage is a special kind of knowledge; the knowledge of how to fear
what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.
-- David Ben-Gurion
Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway.
-- Robert Anthony
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something
else is more important than fear. -- Ambrose Redmoon
Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless
you're scared. -- Eddie Rickenbacher
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once. -- William Shakespeare
COURTESY
Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the
gratefully and appreciating heart. -- Henry Clay
Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly. -- Solon
In private life I never knew anyone interfere with other people's disputes
but he heartily repented of it. -- Thomas Carlyle
DEATH
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
-- Leonardo DaVinci
Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no
longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your
life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in. -- Saul Alinsky
DELUSION/NEUROTICISM
It's a control freak thing. I wouldn't let you understand. -- S.H. Underwood
I am living the delusion, and I do not give a damn. -- Jann Arden
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape
finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Ironically, the past was created in order to move forward
but many insist on staying there. -- Vanna Bonta
Often, what we decide becomes what we see; decision
is a governing principle of reality. -- Vanna Bonta
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the
belief that one's work is terribly important. -- Bertrand Russell
Truth may sometimes hurt, but delusion harms. -- Vanna Bonta
FANATICISM
The greatest evils prepetrated on this earth have been done by people who
believed that they were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, right. There's something
to be said for humility in thinking. -- Lance Pierce
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
-- Winston Churchill
Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously
overcompensates a secret doubt. -- Aldous Huxley
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain
of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full
of passionate intensity. -- William Butler Yeats
Religious fanaticism is the justification of wrongdoing
with a purported higher purpose. -- Vanna Bonta
FEAR
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing
the means he uses to frighten you. -- Eric Hoffer
What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or
any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn
about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear,
not how to escape from it. -- Jiddu Krishnamurti
FEMINISM
My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every
woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.
-- Ani DiFranco
The thing that gets me is, they say "judgmental" like that's a BAD thing.
That is what feminine socialization wants you to believe! Life without
judgment is worthless. Recipe for wasted time: don't be "judgmental."
Just let life wash over you. There's a subject for an essay right there.
-- Fabulana
When author Margaret Atwood polled men about what they fear most
from women, the men replied, "That they'll laugh at us." If that doesn't
make it crystal clear what our strategy should be toward the patriarchs,
frankly, I don't know what does.
-- Susan Jane Gilman from "Kiss My Tiara"
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
-- Gloria Steinem
I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality.
All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from
off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on the ground which
God has designed us to occupy. -- Sarah Grimke
We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would
have every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man ...
freedom for Woman as much as for Man shall be acknowledged
as a right, not yielded as a concession. -- Margaret Fuller
Methods and conclusions formed by half the race only, must necessarily require
revision as the other half of humanity rises into conscious responsibility.
-- Elizabeth Blackwell
Let woman then go on -- not asking as favour, but claiming as right, the removal
of all the hindrances to her elevation in the scale of being ... -- Lucretia Mott
In every animal under the sun below man (as far as I know) it is the
male who has to please the female. Yet among men, it is the opposite.
-- from the diary of Martha Lavell
... feminism is a political term and it must be recognized as such: it is
political in women?s terms. What are these terms? Essentially it means making
connections: between personal power and economic power, between domestic
oppression and labor exploitation, between plants and chemicals, feelings and
theories; it means making connections between our inside worlds and
the outside world. -- Anica Vesel Mander
Feminism, like Boston, is a state of mind. It is the state of mind of women
who realize that their whole position in the social order is antiquated, as a
woman cooking over an open fire with heavy iron pots would know that her
entire housekeeping was out of date. -- Rheta Childe Dorr
Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind
shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks
to adorn its prison. -- Mary Shelly Wollstonecraft
FREEDOM
If not for courts, African-Americans would not have had the right to vote,
women would not have the right to vote. The purpose of a constitution is to
protect a minority group from the wrath of the majority. -- Elizabeth Birch
Liberty is a bitch who must be bedded on a mattress of corpses.
-- Louis-Antoine St. Just
Running away will never make you free. -- Kenny Loggins
FRIENDSHIP
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in
other people than you can in two years by trying to get other
people interested in you. -- Dale Carnegie
Love is blind, friendship closes its eyes. -- Unknown
GOD
I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the
kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an
individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd
egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life
and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world,
together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the
Reason that manifests itself in nature. -- Albert Einstein
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do,
because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
-- Susan B. Anthony
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image, when
it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. -- Anne Lamott
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be
one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of
blind-folded fear. -- Thomas Jefferson
A God all mercy is a God unjust. -- Edward Young
Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. -- Voltaire
GRATITUDE
If the only prayer in your whole life was, 'thank you,'
that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart
The next time you feel like complaining, remember:
Your garbage disposal probably eats better than thirty percent
of the people in this world.
HAPPINESS
The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love,
and something to hope for. -- Allan K. Chalmers
HUMILITY
Don't be so humble. You're not that great. -- Golda Meir
Every human is superior to me in at least one way, it is my
responsibility to find out what it is and learn from it.
He who desires the rose must respect the thorn. -- Chinese Proverb
Teach thy tongue to say "I do not know." -- Maimondes
IDENTITY/INDEPENDENCE
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them
to become what they are capable of being. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to
the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of
'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem
important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.
-- Thomas J. Watson
Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self
is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of
walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.
-- Ramana Maharshi
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
-- Albert Camus
I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the
greatest enemy that ever confronted man -- public opinion. -- Clarence Darrow
Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility
of judgment and nothing can help you escape it. -- Ayn Rand
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. -- Oscar Wilde
Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees. -- Dolores Ibarruri
The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of
thinking, whimsicality, even? (if you will) eccentricity. That is, something
that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned impostor
couldn't be happy with. -- Joseph Brodsky
Public Opinion ... an attempt to organise the ignorance of the community,
and to elevate it to the dignity of physical force. -- Oscar Wilde
He that always gives way to others will end in
having no principles of his own. -- Aesop
The truly fearless think of themselves as normal. -- Margaret Atwood
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and
day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which
any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. -- e. e. cummings
Why must I be something you can put your finger on? -- Vanna Bonta
Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes. -- Norman Douglas
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed
by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning
yourself. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.
-- Ray Bradbury
Patterning your life around other's opinions is nothing more than slavery.
-- Lawana Blackwell, The Dowry of Miss Lydia Clark
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Sell where you can, you were not made for all markets.
-- William Shakespeare
LAUGHTER/HUMOR
Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not
accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists
for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers. -- Leo Rosten
A sense of humor judges one's actions and the actions of others from a wider
reference ... and finds them incongruous. It dampens enthusiasm; it mocks hope;
it pardons shortcomings; it consoles failure. It recommends moderation.
-- Thorton Wilder
Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so
deeply that he had to invent laughter. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. -- Mark Twain
Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.
Laugh so much that you can be tracked by your distinctive laughter.
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking
ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.
-- Vaclav Havel
Blessed is the man who can laugh at himself,
for he will never cease to be amused.
How can one better magnify the Almighty than by sniggering with him at
his little jokes, particularly the poorer ones. -- Samuel Beckett
LIFE
Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of
what we have been, but what we yearn to be. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.
-- Brendan Gill
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. -- Henry David Thoreau
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear
and life stands explained. -- Mark Twain
My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is
as it is and why it exists at all. -- Stephen Hawking
The question,
O me! so sad, recurring-What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here-that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
-- from the poem "O Me! O Life!"
LOVE (CHARITABLE)
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal
to true happiness. -- Bertrand Russell
Love your enemies. It makes them so damned mad. -- P. D. East
LOVE (ROMANTIC)
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come. -- Matt Groening
Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
-- Iris Murdoch
To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human
loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a
comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one
desires to be. -- Anna Louise Strong
The heart has its reasons, which reason cannot explain. -- Pascal
It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that
you realize just how much you love them. -- Agatha Christie
When you're in love you never really know whether your elation comes from
the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether
the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from
the meeting of your sparks. -- Natalie Clifford Barney
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech
when words become superfluous. -- Ingrid Bergman
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. -- Emily Bronte
The best proof of love is trust. -- Dr. Joyce Brothers
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love
you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me.
I love you for the part of me that you bring out. -- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Take away love and our earth is a tomb. -- Robert Browning
We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our
embarrassment when alone together. -- Jean de la Bruyere
Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation.
We don't love to be loved; we love to love. -- Leo Buscaglia
You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into
your lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.
-- Jonathan Carroll
Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation
of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old. -- John Ciardi
Love is the child of illusion and the parent of disillusion. -- Miguel de Unamuno
In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love
you want the other person. -- Margaret Anderson
If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile. -- Lynda Barry
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
-- G. K. Chesterton
Love is like pi: natural, irrational, and VERY important. -- Lisa Hoffman
To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you
mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
-- Charles M. Schulz
'Tis better to have loved and lost/ Than never to have loved at all.
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The one who loves the least, controls the relationship. -- Robert Anthony
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- Henry L. Mencken
Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt
but it's the only way to live life completely.
A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears.
-- Woodrow Wyatt
The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end.
-- Benjamin Disraeli
We never forget those who make us blush. -- Jean-Fran?ois De La Harpe
Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical
about it...It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the
trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more. -- Erica Jong
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
-- Robert Frost
The worst thing about love is that it creates illusions
without making provision for their future upkeep.
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable.
It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means that someone can
get inside you and mess you up. You build all these defenses, you build up
a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid
person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your
stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They
did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your
life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It
eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase
like 'maybe we should just be friends' turns into a glass splinter working
its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just
in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real get-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart
pain. I hate love. -- Neil Gaiman
MORALITY & CONVICTION
Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy,
but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.
-- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason
People seldom do what they believe in.
They do what is convenient, then repent.
-- Bob Dylan
Many think they have a kind heart who have only weak nerves.
-- Marie Von Ebner-Eschen Bach
Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be.
-- Cynthia Paddleford
A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
It is curious--curious that physical courage should be
so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.
-- Mark Twain
MOTIVATIONS
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want
to know what sustains you from the inside When all else falls away. I want
to know if you can be alone with yourself And if you truly like the company
you keep in the empty moments. -- Oriah, Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder
The first and great commandment is: Don't let them scare you. -- Elmer Davis
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of
great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. -- Dante Alighieri
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over.
Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
-- Kurt Vonnegut
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation
is not to utter words, but to live by them. -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
You can't change the past but you can make the future, and anyone who
tells you differently is a fucking lethargic devil. -- Immortal Technique
I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand.
-- Leonardo DaVinci
If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not
doing anything very innovative. -- Woody Allen
I had a series of childhood illnesses ... scarlet fever ... pneumonia ... Polio. I
walked with braces until I was at least nine years old. My life wasn't like the average
person who grew up and decided to enter the world of sports. -- Wilma Rudolph
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their
reputations ... can never effect a reform. -- Susan B. Anthony
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
-- Grace Murray Hopper
If one is going to change things, one has to make a fuss
and catch the eye of the world. -- Elizabeth Janeway
The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it,
when people are saying it can't be done. -- Mary Frances Berry
It is not easy to be a pioneer -- but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade
one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.
-- Elizabeth Blackwell
You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the
orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then
I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world. -- Charlie Chaplin
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. -- Marie Curie
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance
and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for
something and that this thing must be attained. -- Marie Curie
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some
blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a
spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that
you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover. -- Mark Twain
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.
-- Steve Prefontaine
Most people run a race to see who is fastest. I run a race
to see who has the most guts. -- Steve Prefontaine
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim.
Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself. -- Harvey Fierstein
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and
not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
-- Henry David Thoreau
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. -- Henry David Thoreau
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid
and deeds left undone. -- Harriet Beecher Stowe
Learn to ask for what you want....The worst people can do is not give you
what you ask for?which is precisely where you were before you asked.
-- Peter McWilliams
It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear
never beginning to live. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which
you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself,
"I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."
You must do the thing you think you cannot do. -- Eleanor Roosevelt
Nature is as wasteful of promising young men as she is of fish spawn.
-- Richard Hughes
Success is the result of spontaneous combustion.
You must set yourself on fire. -- Fred Shero
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed it?s the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead
Until you value yourself, you won't value your time.
Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
You can never be made to feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others
to talk of you as they will. -- Pythagoras
The world would be better if we each and all refused to be victims.
-- Vanna Bonta
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over
their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
-- Malcolm X
Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly
because it means you don't have to try. -- Peggy Noonan
Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most
difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. -- Walter Anderson
They always say time changes things, but you actually
have to change them yourself. -- Andy Warhol
Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height.
Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him/her.
You're on the road to success when you realize that failure is merely a detour.
Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every
moment of your life.
-- from Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"
PAIN
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. -- M. Kathleen Casey
To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own. -- Abraham Lincoln
There is no coming to consciousness without pain. -- Carl Jung
The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain. -- Karl Marx
You can't be happy unless you risk pain. When you get that pain, and face
it, then you're on your way to happiness. You must realize pain, true
pain, before you will ever recognize the intermission of it. The
intermissions make it all worth it. Smiles and cries, nothing else matters.
-- Justin Crosby
REALITY
The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense. -- Tom Clancy
Reality is that which refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.
-- Phillip K. Dick
There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you.
Give it up. -- Bernice Johnson Reagon
SCARY STUFF
The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric
than to any other force. -- Adolf Hitler
What luck for rulers that men do not think. -- Adolf Hitler
The broad mass of a nation ... will more easily fall victim to
a big lie than to a small one. -- Adolf Hitler
The art of leadership ... consists in consolidating the attention of the people
against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.
-- Adolf Hitler
All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension
of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach. -- Adolf Hitler
Those who can make you believe absurdities
can make you commit atrocities. -- Voltaire
SELF KNOWLEDGE
A man can know nothing of mankind without knowing something of himself.
Self-knowledge is the property of that man whose passions have their full play,
but who ponders over their results. -- Benjamin Disraeli
I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the
number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic. -- Lisa Alther
STRENGTH
It requires strength to cry. -- Vanna Bonta
That which yields is not always weak. -- Kushiel's Dart
It is curious--curious that physical courage should be so
common in the world, and moral courage so rare. -- Mark Twain
THOUGHT/REASON
If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship.
We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to
jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. -- Ray Bradbury
To think is to differ. -- Clarence Darrow
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he
that dares not reason is a slave. -- William Drummond
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its
original dimensions. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Too often we...enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort
of thought. -- John F. Kennedy
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was
never reasoned into. -- Jonathan Swift
TRUTH
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once
in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. -- Rene Descartes
To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate
the question and the questioner. -- Anne Rice
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -- Oscar Wilde
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. -- Andre Gide
Ah, the truth, what a thing it is! I sacrifice so much for it, with people: I
forego, for truth?s sake, discretion, loyalty, diplomacy, tact, polite manners,
elegance, grace, poise, balance, good taste, conformity, image-role,
fashionableness, polish, confidences, promises, ambition, consistency,
identity, clarity, comprehensibleness, good will, hypocrisy, and lots of other
things?amass sacrifice, at truth?s altar. God! is truth worth it? I hope it is. It
better be, in fact. -- Marvin Cohen
Truth engenders hatred of truth. As soon as it appears, it is the enemy.
-- Tertullian
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. -- Oscar Wilde
All of our lives we are urged to tell the truth, and then we discover that
no one wants to hear it.
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
-- Flannery O'Connor
Truth for authority, not authority for truth. -- Lucretia Mott
WORDS
Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on his hands,
and goes back to work. -- Carl Sandburg
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words.
If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must
use the words. -- Philip K. Dick
To say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more
or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and
joy of words. -- from Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis
Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man
ever invented. -- Leo Rosten
WRITING
You must stay drunk on writing so that reality cannot destroy you. -- Ray Bradbury
The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft.
You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation. -- James Fenton
Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. -- Sylvia Plath
To write one's life is to live it twice, and in the second living is
both spiritual and historical. -- Patricia Hampl
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood.
I'd type a little faster. -- Isaac Asimov
All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them.
-- Richard Hughes
Some day I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.
-- Clarence Darrow
My advice to the would-be-writer is that he start slowly, writing short
undemanding things, things such as telegrams, flip-books, crank letters, signature
scarves, spot quizzes, capsule summaries, fortune cookies and errata. Then, when
he feels he's ready, move up to the more challenging items such as mandates,
objective correlatives, passion plays, pointless diatribes, minor classics,
manifestos, mezzotints, oxymora, exposes, broadsides, and papal bulls. And above
all, never forget that the pen is mightier than the plow-share. By this I mean that
writing, all in all, is a hell of a lot more fun than farming. For one thing,
writers seldom, if ever, have to get up at five o'clock in the morning and shovel
manure. As far as I'm concerned, that gives them the edge right there.
When something can be read without effort, great effort
has gone into its writing. -- Enrique Jardiel Poncela
If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing. -- Kingsley Amis
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult
than it is for other people. -- Thomas Mann
I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had
the time to make it shorter. -- Blaise Pascal
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters. -- Solomon Short
Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write
something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it.
-- Jesse Stuart
I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at,
what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.
-- Joan Didion
To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.
-- Anne Rice
The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be
respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes
him different from others. -- Leo Rosten
UNSORTED
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher
esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
Fear not those who argue but those who dodge. -- Marie Ebner von Eschenbach
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are
the easiest person to fool. -- Richard Feynman
Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them
surprise you with their results. -- George S. Patton
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents
do not cease to be insipid. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties,
nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. -- Wilson Mizner
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is:
I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments
that differentiate me from a doormat. -- Rebecca West
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite
direction. -- Albert Einstein
You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.
-- Vicomte de Chateaubriand
To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than
the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity. -- Irving Wallace
The first and great commandment is: Don't let them scare you. -- Elmer Davis
The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled
out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reactionis one of anger.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more
even than death ... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and
terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and
comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.
Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief
glory of man. -- Bertrand Russell
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will
allow a solution. -- Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of
intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do,
something to love, and something to hope for. -- Addison
People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they
don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to.
-- George Allen
Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather
becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.
-- George Allen
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope. -- Josh Billings
The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none. -- Thomas Carlyle
He who asks a question may be a fool for five minutes. But he who never
asks a question remains a fool forever. -- Tom J. Connelly
Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.
-- John Donne
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are
permitted to remain children all our lives. -- Albert Einstein
It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove
all doubt. -- Silvan Engel
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
-- Anatole France
Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few. -- Benjamin Franklin
Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action. -- Goethe
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power
is the love of ourselves. -- William Hazlitt
He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.
-- Raymond Hull
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the
children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the
long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or
nothing. -- Helen Keller
Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you
cannot make yourself as you wish to be. -- Thomas a Kempis
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him
absolutely no good. -- Ann Landers
Risk! Risk Anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those other
voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
-- Katherine Mansfield
It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when
we have lost our way. -- Rollo May
Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.
-- Christian Morgenstern
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy. -- Howard W. Newton
You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit. -- Ronald Reagan
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though
checkered by failure ... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy
much nor suffer much, because they live in a grey twilight that knows not
victory nor defeat. -- Theodore Roosevelt
This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself
as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little
clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote
itself to making you happy. -- George Bernard Shaw
It isn't the incompetent who destroy an organization - It is those who have
achieved something and want to rest upon their achievements who are forever
clogging things up. -- Charles Sorenson
Beware the fury of a patient man. -- Publius Syrus
That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. -- Henry David Thoreau
It is discouraging to try and penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get
it out and dance on it. That would take some of the rigidity out of it.
-- Mark Twain
The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of
finding the answer. -- Thomas J. Watson
Not doing more than average is what keeps the average down. -- William Winans
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is
but saying that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. -- Alexander Pope
Intelligence is like a river; the deeper it is the less noise it makes.
-- Unknown
A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One
must fight for a life of action, not reaction. -- Rita Mae Brown
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Language is a cracked kettle on which we tap out crude rhythms for bears to
dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
-- Gustave Flaubert
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. -- H. G. Wells
It is interesting to speculate how different the world must have looked before
Thomas Gray coined the word 'picturesque' in 1740 or before Whewell coined
'scientist' in the 19th century, or before Shakespeare coined the words
'assasination', 'disgraceful', or 'lonely'. -- Unknown
Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles.
The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the
creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing. -- Eric Hoffer
All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is
established. -- Aristotle
When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the
fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more
time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song,
and die like a hero going home. -- Chief Aupumut, Mohican
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
-- Japanese proverb
Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds
from the rich by promising to protect each from the other. -- Oscar Ameringer
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it
every six months. -- Oscar Wilde.
Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
-- W. Somerset Maugham, "Of Human Bondage"
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. -- Wilson Mizner
It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better...
while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more. -- Woody Allen
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to
despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have
the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen
Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to
surrender it too soon or to the first comer. -- George Santayana
The fact of having been born is a bad augury for immortality. -- George Santayana
Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little
charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Of those who say nothing, few are silent. -- Thomas Neill
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully
expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
-- Marlene Dietrich
All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth. -- Richard Avedon
I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.
-- Antoine de St-Exup?ry
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance,
nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire. -- Aristotle
The last temptation is the greatest treason: to
do the right deed for the wrong reason. -- T.S. Eliot
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is
asking others to live as one wishes to live. -- Oscar Wilde
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who
have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are
full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them,
and each time they come in contact with the real, they are
bruised and wounded. -- W. Somerset Maugham
Be wiser than other people if you can; but
do not tell them so. -- Lord Chesterfield
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from
giving words in evidence of the fact. -- George Elliot
Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at.
A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car. -- Kenneth Tynan
Age is a high price to pay for maturity. -- Tom Stoppard
An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. -- Albert Camus
Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work
he's supposed to be doing at that moment. -- Robert Benchley
Any synopsis of a good book is a stupid synopsis. -- Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs. -- Euripides' Alexander
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a
desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. -- E. B. White
We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Every hour wounds, the last one kills. -- Old Saying
Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and
drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever. -- Aristophanes
Not to know what happened before you were born
is to remain forever a child. -- Cicero
When you're through changing, you're through. -- Bruce Barton
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one
has plenty of work to do. -- Jerome K. Jerome
What worries you masters you. -- Haddon W. Robinson
The best way to get great ideas is to get lots of ideas
and throw the bad ones away. -- Charles "Chic" Thompson
The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous. -- Shana Alexander
I wouldn't mind dying. It's the business of having to stay dead
that scares the shit out of me. -- R. Geis
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds,
and the pessimist fears this is true. -- James Branch Cabell
As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially
profitable to dispense it. -- Dick Cavett
A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point.
-- Mistinguette
Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers. -- Voltaire
(Eh, I'd agree more if he'd said "as well as his answers," but oh well.)
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal
of it is absolutely fatal. -- Oscar Wilde
Hate is blind. -- Vanna Bonta
Beware of those who feel nothing and still pout. -- Vanna Bonta
An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
-- Oscar Wilde or Elbert Hubbard??
There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire
- poison and antidote. -- Bertrand Russell
There is in us a lyric germ or nucleus which deserves respect;
it bids a man to ponder or create; and in this dim corner of
himself he can take refuge and find consolations which the society
of his fellow creatures does not provide. -- Norman Douglas
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby
become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss,
the abyss gazes also into you. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Silence isn't always golden -- sometimes it's just plain yellow.
A heart that hurts is a heart that works.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right
to be taken seriously. -- Hubert Humphrey
I had a lover's quarrel with the world. -- Robert Frost
Don't cry over anyone who won't cry over you.
I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy then
a success at something I hate. -- George Burns
I prefer to believe in the best of everybody. It saves so much time.
-- Rudyard Kipling
I have long since come to believe that people never mean half
of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk
and judge only their actions. -- Dorothy Day
One must look into people as well as at them.
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite
of a profound truth may be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr
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If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words
as with sunbeams—the more they are condensed,
the deeper they burn. -- Robert Southey
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything
without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
-- Robert Frost
Life is a zoo in a jungle.
-- Peter De Vries
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing
knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be
ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
-- Samuel Johnson
Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes
a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction.
-- Albert Einstein
You don't write because you want to say something,
you write because you have something to say.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary,
how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands
of one who knows how to combine them. -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad
marksman who instead of aiming a single stone at an object takes up a
handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit. -- Samuel Johnson
The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript
is improved if you cut away the fat. -- Robert Heinlein
Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very';
otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
-- C.S. Lewis
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's
real and one's declared aims, one turns instinctively to long words and exhausted
idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. -- George Orwell
One should aim not at being possible to understand,
but at being impossible to misunderstand. -- Quintilian
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a
paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no
unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer
make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline,
but that every word tell. -- William Strunk and E. B. White
No compulsion in the world is stronger than the urge to edit someone else's document.
-- H. G. Wells
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
-- William Butler Yeats
RELIGIOUS/SPIRITUAL SOURCES
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MOTHER TERESA
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt, only more love.
We can do no great things - only small things with great love.
MOHAMMAD
Powerful is not he who knocks the other down, indeed powerful is he
who controls himself in a fit of anger.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Freedom is to be wooed only inside prison walls and sometimes on the
gallows, never in the council chambers, courts, or the school rooms.
The meaning of life according to Mahatma Gandhi:
"Renounce and enjoy."
Self-realization I hold to be impossible without
service of and identification with the poorest.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness
is the attribute of the strong.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Truth and nonviolence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments
in both on as vast a scales as I could do. Life and its problems have thus become to
me so many experiments in the practice of truth and non-violence.
Far be it from me to claim any degree of perfection for these experiments. I claim
for them nothing more than does a scientist who, though he conducts his experiments
with the utmost accuracy, forethought, and minuetness, never claims any finality
about his conclusions, but keeps an open mind regarding them.
Though this path is straight and narrow and sharp as the
razor's edge, for me it has been the quickest and easiest.
The instruments of the quest of truth are as simple as they are difficult.
We are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator,
and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is
to slight those divine powers, and thus to harm not only that person but the whole world.
We tend to become what we worship.
Sense perceptions can be, and often are, false and deceptive, however real they may
appear to us. Where there is realization outside the sense it is infallible. It is proved
not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those
who have felt the real presence of God within.
Not until we have reduced ourselves to nothingness can we conquer the evil in us.
If only we could all of us read the scriptures of different faiths from the standpoint
of the followers of those faiths, we should find that they were at bottom all one and
were helpful to one another.
Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others
but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself.
Christ refused to cooperate with Herod, and so I
refuse to cooperate with the British government.
It is more correct to say that Truth is God,
than to say that God is Truth.
Humanity is not capable of knowing the absolute truth
and, therefore, not competent to punish.
Satyagrahis must never forget the distinction between evil and the evildoer. They
must not harbor ill will or bitterness against the evildoer. They may not even
employ needlessly offensive language against evildoing persons, however unrelieved
their evil might be. For it should be an article of faith with every Satyagrahi
that there is none so fallen in this world that cannot be converted by love.
Wife, children, friends, possessions -- all should be held
subject to the Truth. We can be satyagrahis only if we are
ready to sacrifice each one of these in our search for truth.
Person for person, the strength of nonviolence is in exact proportion to the
ability, not the will, of the nonviolent person to inflict violence.
Prayer is an intense longing to have communion with our maker.
Nonviolence implies voluntary submission to
the penalty for noncooperation with evil.
The strong are never vindictive.
No spoiler can compass his end without a certain degree
of cooperation, willing or compulsory, of the victim.
Will Americans continue to prey upon one another, have commercial
rivalries, and yet expect to dictate peace to the world?
Love among ourselves based on hatred of others breaks down under the slightest
pressure. The fact is such love is never real love. It is an armed peace.
It is a first-class human tragedy that peoples of the earth who claim to believe in
the message of Jesus whom they describe as the Prince of Peace show little of that
belief in actual practice. It is painful to see sincere Christians limiting the scope
of Jesus' message to individuals. People often hesitate to make a beginning, because
they feel that the objective cannot be achieved in its entirety. This attitude of mind
is precisely our greatest obstacle to progress -- an obstacle that each of us, if we
only will it, can clear away.
QUR'AN (KORAN)
There is no compulsion in religion. (2:256)
TAO TE CHING, BY LAO TZU (translated by James Legge)
All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this
they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill of
the skillful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the want
of skill is. So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the
one to (the idea of) the other. - Chapter 2
Heaven and earth do not act from (the impulse of) any wish to be
benevolent; they deal with all things as the dogs of grass are
dealt with. The sages do not act from (any wish to be) benevolent;
they deal with people as the dogs of grass are dealt with.
[Grass dogs were made of straw tied up in the shape of dogs, and
used in praying for rain; and afterwards, when the sacrifice was
over, were thrown aside and left uncared for.] - Chapter 5
When the work is done and one's name is becoming distinguished,
to draw into obscurity is the way of Heaven. - Chapter 9
Who can (make) the muddy water (clear)? Let it be still,
and it will gradually become clear. - Chapter 15
The (ready) 'yes' and (flattering) 'yea;'--
Small is the difference they display.
But mark their issues, good and ill;--
What space between the gulf shall fill? - Chapter 20
I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and
forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have
enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind
is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos. - Chapter 20
Sharp weapons are instruments of evil omen, and not the instruments of the
superior man;--he uses them only on the compulsion of necessity. Calm and
repose are what he prizes; victory (by force of arms) is to him undesirable.
To consider this desirable would be to delight in the slaughter of men; and
he who delights in the slaughter of men cannot get his will in the kingdom.
- Chapter 31
The Tao, when brightest seen, seems light to lack;
Who progress in it makes, seems drawing back;
Its even way is like a rugged track.
Its highest virtue from the vale doth rise;
Its greatest beauty seems to offend the eyes;
And he has most whose lot the least supplies.
Its firmest virtue seems but poor and low;
Its solid truth seems change to undergo;
Its largest square doth yet no corner show;
A vessel great, it is the slowest made;
Loud is its sound, but never word it said;
A semblance great, the shadow of a shade. - Chapter 41
Who thinks his great achievements poor
Shall find his vigour long endure.
Of greatest fulness, deemed a void,
Exhaustion ne'er shall stem the tide.
Do thou what's straight still crooked deem;
They greatest art still stupid seem,
And eloquence a stammering scream. - Chapter 45
The farther that one goes out (from himself),
the less he knows. - Chapter 47
The sage has in the world an appearance of indecision, and keeps his mind
in a state of indifference to all. The people all keep their eyes and ears
directed to him, and he deals with them all as his children. - Chapter 49
Misery!--happiness is to be found by its side! Happiness!--misery lurks
beneath it! Who knows what either will come to in the end? - Chapter 58
The sage sees difficulty even in what seems easy, and so never has
any difficulties. - Chapter 63
The sage desires what (other men) do not desire, and does not prize things
difficult to get; he learns what (other men) do not learn, and turns back
to what the multitude of men have passed by. - Chapter 64
To know and yet (think) we do not know is the highest (attainment); not to
know (and yet think) we do know is a disease. It is simply by being pained
at (the thought of) having this disease that we are preserved from it. The
sage has not this disease. He knows the pain that would be inseperable
from it, and therefore he does not have it. - Chapter 71
It is the Way of Heaven to diminish super-abundance, and to supplement
deficiency. It is not so with the way of man. He takes away from those who
have not enough to add to his own super-abundance. - Chapter 77
*** (translated by Peter Merel)
Harmony neither acts nor reasons;
Love acts, but without reason;
Justice acts to serve reason;
But ritual acts to enforce reason.
When the Way is lost, there remains harmony;
When harmony is lost, there remains love;
When love is lost, there remains justice;
And when justice is lost, there remains ritual.
*** (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
In family life, be completely present. ...
When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you. -- Chapter 8
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner. -- Chapter 9
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things? -- Chapter 10
When the country falls into chaos,
patriotism is born. -- Chapter 18
If you want to become whole,
let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight,
let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full,
let yourself be empty.
If you want to reborn,
let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything,
give everything up. -- Chapter 22
Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature:
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.
-- Chapter 23
He who stands on tiptoe
doesn't stand firm.
He who rushes ahead
doesn't go far.
He who tries to shine
dims his own light.
He who defines himself
can't know who he really is.
-- Chapter 24
For every force there is a counterforce.
Violence, even well intentioned,
always rebounds upon oneself.
-- Chapter 30
Because [the Master] believes in himself,
he doesn't need others' approval.
Because he accepts himself,
the whole world accepts him.
-- Chapter 30
[The Master's] enemies are not demons,
but human beings like himself. ...
He enters a battle gravely,
with sorrow and with great compassion,
as if he were attending a funeral.
-- Chapter 31
That which has no substance
enters where there is no space.
This shows the value of non-action.
-- Chapter 43
There is no greater illusion than fear ...
Whoever can see through all fear
will always be safe. -- Chapter 46
In the pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
-- Chapter 48
[The Master] trusts people who are trustworthy.
She also trusts people who aren't trustworthy.
This is true trust. -- Chapter 49
Blunt your sharpness,
untie your knots,
soften your glare,
settle your dust. -- Chapter 56
The more powerful [a country] grows,
the greater the need for humility. ...
A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy
as the shadow that he himself casts.
-- Chapter 61
Confront the difficult
while it is still easy. -- Chapter 63
[The Master] acts without expectation,
succeeds without taking credit,
and doesn't think that she is better
than anyone else. -- Chapter 77
Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame. -- Chapter 79
BHAGAVAD-GITA
(translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood)
Action rightly renounced brings freedom:
Action rightly performed brings freedom.
He who seeks freedom,
Thrusts fear aside,
Thrusts aside anger
And puts off desire.
I am the Atman that dwells in the heart of every mortal creature: I am
consciousness in the living. Among words, I am the sacred syllable OM: of
weapons, I am God's thunderbolt: I am Death, who distributes the fruit of all
action. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end in creation: I am the
knowledge of things spiritual: I am the logic of those who debate. I, also,
am the source of all that shall be born: I am the dice-play of the cunning:
I am the silence of things secret: I am the knowledge of the knower. I am the
divine seeds of all lives. In this world, nothing animate or inanimate exists
without me. There is no limit to my divine manifestations. Know only that I
exist, and that one atom of myself sustains the universe. -- (Chunks of exerpts.)
It does not matter what deity a devotee chooses to worship. If he has faith, I
make his faith unwavering. Endowed with the faith I give him, he worships that
deity, and gets from it everything he prays for. In reality, I alone am the giver.
A serene spirit accepts pleasure and pain with an even mind,
and is unmoved by either.
That which is non-existent can never come into being,
and that which is can never cease to be.
Of things created
All are come forth
From the seeming union
Of Field and Knower,
Prakriti with Brahman.
DHAMMAPADA, WISDOM OF THE BUDDHA
(translated by F. Max Muller)
The gods even envy him whose senses ... have been subdued, who is free
from pride, and free from appetites; ... he is like a lake without mud.
Well-makers lead the water wherever they like; fletchers bend the arrow;
carpenters bend a log of wood; wise people fashion themselves. As a solid rock
is not shaken by the wind, wise people falter not admist praise and blame.
Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love.
He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call
a real driver; other people are but holding the reigns.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
Those who are in earnest do not die,
those who are thoughtless are as if dead already.
The scent of flowers does not travel against the wind ... but the odor of
good people travels even against the wind; a good man pervades every place.
Let a man avoid evil deeds ... as a man who loves life avoids poison.
He who, seeking his own happiness, punishes or kills beings who
also long for happiness, will not find happiness after death.
Do not speak harshly to anyone; those who are spoken to
will answer thee in the same way.
BOOKS I'VE READ
----------------------------------------
1984
GEORGE ORWELL
Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There
was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even
against the whole world, you were not mad. ... Sanity is not statistical.
AMERICAN GODS
NEIL GAIMAN
This is the only country in the world ... that worries about what it is. The rest
of them know what they are. No one ever needs to go searching for the heart of
Norway. Or looks for the soul of Mozambique. They know what they are.
Sam wondered if this was it, the relationship she'd be waiting for all her life.
She told herself that it was just brain chemicals and pheromones that made
her happy when she saw Natalie, and perhaps that's what it was; still, all she
knew for sure was that she smiled when she saw Natalie, and that when they
were together she felt comfortable and comforted.
There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who
were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe that
they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without
question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.
There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised
a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guy.
He was a convicted theif, being executed. So don't knock guys on death
row. Maybe they know something you don't.
It's like one of those dreams that changes you. You keep some of the dream forever,
and you know things deep down inside yourself, because it happened to you,
but when you go looking for details they kind of just slip out of your head.
ANTIGONE
SOPHOCLES
Think: All men make mistakes, but a good man yeilds when he knows
his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
BLACK BOY (AMERICAN HUNGER)
RICHARD WRIGHT
Our too-new and too-young America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive
because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad,
the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our
America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs
the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those
who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of
righteousness. ... And I really do not think that America, adolescent and
cocksure, a stranger to suffering and travail, an enemy of passion and sacrifice,
is ready to probe into it most fundamental beliefs.
If I could fasten the mind of the reader upon words so firmly that he would
forget words and be conscious only of his response, I felt that I would be in
sight of knowing how to write narrative. I strove to master words, to make them
disappear, to make them important by making them new, to make them melt into
a rising spiral of emotional stimuli, each greater than the other, each feeding
and reinforcing the other, and all ending in an emotional climax that would
drench the reader with a sense of a new world.
I opened A Book of Prefaces and began to read. I was jarred and shocked by
the style, the clear, clean, sweeping sentences. Why did he write like that? And
how did one write like that? I pictured the man as a raging demon, slashing with
his pen, consumed with hate, denouncing everything American, extolling everything
European or German, laughing at the weaknesses of people, mocking God, authority.
What was this? I stood up, trying to realize what reality lay behind the meaning
of the words ... Yes, this man was fighting, fighting with words. He was using
words as a weapon, using them as one would use a club. ... Then, maybe, perhaps,
I could use them as a weapon? No. It frightened me. I read on and what amazed me
was not what he said, but how on earth anybody had the courage to say it.
BRAVE NEW WORLD
ALDOUS HUXLEY
One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a
milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like,
but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.
FARENHEIT 451
RAY BRADBURY
I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes
can be profited by. Man, when I was younger I SHOVED my ignorance in
people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my
blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If
you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.
How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you
know who refracted your own light to you? People were more often--he
searched for a simile, found one in his work--torches, blazing away until
they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw
back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?
We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once
in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered?
About something important, about something real?
Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's
your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.
The bigger your market, the less you handle controversy.
Chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely
'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll
get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts
of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like
philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.
Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten
the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the
world's so poor and we just don't care if they are?
The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over
her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. So do you see now
why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life.
Three conditions needed for books to be of use:
"Number one, as I said: quality of information. Number two: leisure
to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based
on what we learn from the interaction of the first two."
Those who don't build must burn.
FIGHT CLUB
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.
All her life, she never saw a dead person. There was no real sense of life
because she had nothing to contrast it with. Oh, but now there was dying and
death and loss and grief. Weeping and shuddering, terror and remorse. Now
that she knows where we're all going, Marla feels every moment of her life.
You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will need in my life.
Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes
wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes.
Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely
nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.
If you don't know what you want, then you end up with a lot you don't.
Everything up to now is a story, and everything after now is a story.
This is the greatest moment of our life.
You're not how much money you've got in the bank. You're not your job.
You're not your family, and you're not who you tell yourself. You're not
your name. You're not your problems. You're not your age. You're not
your hopes. You will not be saved. We're all going to die, someday.
GILGAMESH
(translated by Herbert Mason)
Love's kiss kills our heart of flesh.
It is the only way to eternal life.
Enkidu was alone
with sights he saw brought on by pain
and fear, as one in deep despair
may lie beside his love who sleeps
and seems so unafraid, absorbing in himself the phantoms
that she cannot see--phantoms diminished for one
when two can see and stay awake to talk of them
and search out a solution to despair,
or lie together in each other's arms,
or weep and in exhaustion from their tears
perhaps find laughter for their fears.
But alone and awake the size and nature
of the creatures in his mind grow monstrous.
Being human holds a special grief
of privacy within the universe
that yearns and waits to be retouched
by someone who can take away
the memory of death.
THE HAGAKURE
YAMAMOTO TSUNETOMO
(Translated by William Scott Wilson)
Negligence is an extreme thing.
If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as
though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way.
Having only wisdom and talent is the lowest tier of usefulness.
People think that they can clear up profound matters if they consider them
deeply, but they exercise perverse thoughts and come to no good because
they do their reflecting with only self-interest at the center.
We learn about the sayings and deeds of the men of old in order to entrust
ourselves to their wisdom and prevent selfishneess. When we throw off our own
bias, follow the sayings of the ancients, and confer with other people, matters
should go well and without mishap.
To discover the good and bad points of a person is an easy thing, and to give an
opinion concerning them is easy, too. For the most part, people think that they
are being kind by saying the things that others find distaseful or difficult to say. But
if it is not received well, they think that there is nothing more to be done. This is
completely worthless. It is the same as bringing shame to a person by slandering him.
Everything in this world is but a marionette show.
To think that being righteous is the best one can do and to do one's
utmost to be righteous will, on the contrary, bring many mistakes. ...
Things like righteousness are rather shallow.
The most excellent ... person is aware of the endlessness of entering deeply into a certain
Way and never thinks of himself as having finished. He truly knows his own insufficiencies
and never in his whole life thinks that he has succeeded. ... Master Yagyu once remarked,
"I do not know the way to defeat others, but the way to defeat myself."
Among the maxims on Lord Nasoshige's wall there was this one: "Matters of great
concern shold be treated lightly." Master Ittei commented, "Matters of small
concern should be treated seriously." ... Thinking about things previously and then
handling them lightly when the time comes is what this is all about.
A man who makes a mistake once will be considerably more prudent and useful
because ofhis repentance. ... A man who has never once erred is dangerous.
When the time comes, there is no mement for reasoning. And if you have not
done your inquiring beforehand, there is most often shame. ... A real man dose
not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death.
By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams.
Once there was a certain man who was very clever, but it was his character to
always see the negative points of his jobs. In such a way, one will be useless. If
one does not get it into his head from the very beginning that the world is full of
unseemly situations.
Do not rely on following the degree of understanding that you have discovered,
but simply think, "This is not enough."
The person without previous resolution to inevitable death makes certain
that his death will be in bad form.
There are times when you must rely on a person for something or other. If this is
done erpeatedly, it becomes a matter of importuning that person and can be rather
rude. If there is something that must be done, it is better not to rely on others.
There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden
shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such
things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are
under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the
beginning, you will not be perplexed though you still get the same soaking.
In China there was once a man who liked pictures of dragons, and his clothing
and furnishings were all designed accordingly. His deep affection for dragons was
broaght to the attention of the dragon god, and one day a real dragon appeared
before his window. It is sead that he died of fright. He was probably a man who
always spoke big words but acted diffeerntly when facing the real thing.
It is said that one should not hesitate to correct himself when he has made a mistake.
If he corrects himself without the least bit of delay, his mistakes will quickly disappear. But
when he tries to cover up a mistake, it will become all the more unbecoming and painful.
The proper manner of calligraphy is nothing other than not being careless ... go
beyond this and depart from the norm. This principle applies to all things.
The people who will rely on others when they are in difficulties and afterwards
not give them a thought are many.
Lord Naoshige said, "The way of the Samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more
cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become
insane and desperate. .. Loyalty and devotion are of themselves within desperation.
The general run of people settle for their own opinions and thus never excel. ... In
seeking correction from others, you excel them.
Even in trifling matters the depths of one's heart can be seen.
When I was yong, I kept a "Diary of Regret" and tried to record my mistakes day by
day, but there was never a day when I didn't have twenty or thirty entries. ... Living
without mistakes is truly impossible. But this is something that people who live by
cleverness have no inclination to think about.
If one were to say what it is to do good, in a single word it would be to endure suffering.
If one thoughtlessly crosses a river of unknown depths and shallows, he will die.
Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.
Covetousness, anger and foolishness are things to sort out well. When bad things happen
in the world, if you look at the comparatively, they are not unrealted to this three things.
Looking comparatively at the good things, hyou will see that theya re not excluded from
wisdom, humanity and bravery.
In just refusing to retreat from something one gains the strength of two men.
When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was
only a dream. It is said that the owrld we live in is not a bit different from this.
When intimiate friensd, allie, or people who are indebted to you have done some wrong, you
should secretly reprimenad them and intervene between them and society in a good manner.
If a person has his sword out all the time, he is habitually swinging a naked blade; people will
not approach him and he will have no allies. If a sword is alays sheathed, it will become rusty,
the blade will dull, and people will think as much of its owner.
A monk cannot fulfill the Buddhist Way ifhe does not manifest compassion without and
persistently store upcourage within. And if a warrior does not manifest courage on the outside
and hold enough compassion within his heart to burst his chest, he cannot become a retainer.
If one hasn't previously mastered his mind and body, he will not defeat the enemy.
If one's sword is broken, he will strike with his hands. If his hands are cut off, he will press
the enemy down with his shoulders. If his shoulders are cut away, he will bite through ten
or fifteen enemy necks with his teeth. Courage is such a thing.
At first it is an oppressive thing to run until one is breathless. But it is an extraordinarly good
feeling when one is standing around after the running. More than that, it is even better to sit
down. More than that, it is even better to lie down. And more than that, to put down a pillow
and sleep soundly is even better. A man's whole life should be like this.
In the Saint's mausoleum there is a poem that goes:
If in one's heart
He follows the path of sincereity,
Though he does not pray,
Will not the gods protect him?
What is this sincerity? A man answered him by saying, "You seem to like poetry, I will
answer you with a poem.
As everything in the world is but a sham,
Death is the only sincerity.
It is said that becoming as a dead man in one's daily living is the following of
the path of sincerity."
When there is something to be said, it is better if it is said right away. If it is said later,
it will sound like an excuse.
My own vows are the following:
Never to be outdown in the Way of the Samurai.
To be of good use to the master.
To be filial to my parents.
To manifest great compassion, and to act for the sake of Man.
... The gods and Buddha, too, first started with a vow.
HARDCORE ZEN: PUNK ROCK, MONSTER MOVIES,
AND THE TRUTH ABOUT REALITY
BRAD WARNER
Personally, I've never been interested in sugar-coated imitations of truth, sweet
little pseudo-truth pills I could take three times a day with meals and a beer
chaser. And to me, this seems at best to be what all religions, philosophies and
political views have to offer.
You can master tantric yogic polyorgasmic Wonder Sex but you're still gonna die
alone. There has to be something more.
A lamp is something you use to guide yourself in the dark. "Be lamps unto
yourselves," means be your own master, be your own lamp. Don't believe something
because your hero, your teacher, or even Buddha himself said it. Look for
yourself. See for yourself, with your own eyes. "Be lamps unto yourselves."
It's another way of saying, "Question authority."
Deferring to authority is nothing more than a cowardly shirking of personal
responsibility. The more power you grant an authority figure the worse you can
behave in his name. That's why people who take God as their ultimate authority are
always capable of the worst humanity has to offer.
Every single human being in the world at some time thinks that "if only" this or that
one of our conditions could be met then we'd be happy. ... We live in the idealized
world inside our heads. And that keeps us from ever really enjoying
what we have right now, from enjoying the work that we're doing to create
our better tomorrow. It's as if we're afraid to really commit to this moment because
a better one might come along later.
Zazen isn't about blissing out or going into an alpha brain-wave trance. It's
about facing who and what you really are, in every single goddamn moment. And
you aren't bliss, I'll tell you that right now. You're a mess. We all are.
People imagine enlightenment will make them incredibly powerful.
And it does. It makes you the most powerful being in all the universe--
but usually no one else notices.
People who pretend they have no impure thoughts
are seeking to get fat on the guilt of others.
When people ask about life after death they're assuming they accurately understand
life DURING LIFE. But do they? Do you?
Do what you do, as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.
There was an old Zen master in China who would wake up each morning and shout,
"Master!" and then answer himself, "Yes, Master?" Then he'd say, "Don't be
deceived, Master!" and then reply, "No, Master, I won't!" That's the true
understanding of authority.
If you were bound and gagged inside a wooden barrel just about to head over
Niagara Falls, you'd pray for just one more minute to live. And yet, while you're
alive, what do you do? You get bored. You wish to be elsewhere. You wish to get
whatever you're doing now over with. You want to speed by those boring minutes
like your life is a video where you can fast-forward through the commercials. When
the end comes you'll be wishing you could have back all those boring moments you
zipped through. But you killed them. Dead and gone. Try putting some of that time
to good use and see what happens.
Your life is yours alone, and to miss your life is the most tragic thing that
could happen. So sit down, shut up, and take a look at it.
INFERNO
DANTE ALIGHIERI
Through me the way into the suffering city,
through me the way to the eternal pain,
through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
my maker was divine authority,
the highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things
were made, and I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, who enter here.
How brief's the sport
of all those goods that are in Fortune's care,
for which the tribe of men contend and brawl.
OEDIPUS REX
SOPHOCLES
The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
PRIVATE PAGES: DIARIES OF AMERICAN WOMEN 1830S - 1970S
(edited by Penelope Franklin)
Most orthodox Christians would never stand for a king or government as
tyrannical and cruel as their God. -- from the diary of Martha Lavell
I intend to be absolutely myself, someday, no matter what anyone thinks.
There are very few people who really know me, they just see and like the
outside. I don't amount to much on the outside--only pretty; it's the thoughts
that are never expressed that are interesting. And it's these people who won't
hear them who keep them from being expressed. They don't know that there's
someone here who amounts to something. That's why I laugh at them; it's such
a joke to think of what they're missing. -- from the diary of Martha Lavell
I wish I had never had this dangerous taste of Romance. I shall never
be content again. -- from the Diary of "Marion Taylor"
It is funny the way I adore first one and then another but it sure is strong while
it lasts. I just can't think of anything else when I'm in love, and I love so hard
it hurts. It improves my disposition and makes me happier. It may be silly, but
awakens the highest within me. My love for my idols is fleeting and selfish, but
it's all I'm capable of. -- from the diary of "Marion Taylor"
I love to express my thoughts in writing. I like to analyze myself and things in
general. It gives me great satisfaction to catch my thoughts on paper where they
can't get away, though goodness knows they're not valuable and it never does any
good. ... Once in awhile I catch myself trying to fool myself--the silliest thing
one can do. Sometimes when things are not quite what I would like them, I refuse
to admit it in my diary, and write as if they were. Imagination throws a bit of
glamor over things and makes them more ideal. -- the diary of "Marion Taylor"
I'm delighted to worship at your feet, but when you get bored I get off my knees
as fast as possible. As Mother says, you must learn to depend on yourself--other
people always fail you. -- from the Diary of "Marion Taylor"
It is human nature to desire that which one has not, and to disregard
that which one has. -- from the Diary of "Marion Taylor"
I want only the thing that has been denied me; want only that flesh that
is--or professes to be--cold to me. I give myself no hope, but I cannot
change the course of my heart's destiny any more than I could change the
roadway of the stars. -- from the diary of Winifred Willis
We talked and read in the atmosphere of books and sympathy which is so
pricelessly beautiful to my hungry heart--so vital to my starved senses.
-- from the diary of Winifred Willis
Do I even to my self admit that I love--perhaps I do not--I will never admit it in
any way, until my love is asked for--some how this man holds a sway over me I cannot
shake off--It seems to me I can recall every word we ever spoke & every gesture he
ever made--the girls all tell me he is proud & selfish & fickle--I'll not believe it.
Oh--why can I not read his heart--I sometimes think I do--but how can I dare to trust
only my intuitions or my interpretations--when I consider how little I know of this
man--& yet I feel that I feel that I know him--why I don't--he may be the very
opposite from what I think--perhaps this is all only an ideal I am loving after all &
did I come to know him more intimately perhaps I would not like him at all.
-- from the diary of Annie Burnham Cooper (chunks of excerpts)
ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD
TOM STOPPARD
All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your
eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.
Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's
the currency of the living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any
difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume?
The colours red, blue and green are real. The colour yellow
is a mystical experience shared by everybody.
Has it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven't the
faintest idea how to spell the word--"wife"--or "house"--because when you write it
down you just can't remember ever having seen those letters in that order before ...?
One thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the
fact that one is dead ... which should make all the difference ... shouldn't it? I mean,
you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep
in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air--you'd wake
up dead, for a start, and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That's the
bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it.
THE SCARLET LETTER
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
No man can for any considerable time wear one face to himself and another to
the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which is the true one.
SIDDHARTHA
HERMAN HESSE
I who wished to read the book of the world and the book of my own nature, did
presume to despise the letters and the signs. I called the world of appearances,
illusion. I called my eyes and tongue, chance. Now it is over; I have awakened.
Both thought and the senses were fine things, behind both of them lay
hidden the last meaning; it is worth while listening to them both, to
play with both, neither to despise nor overrate either of them, but to
listen intently to both voices.
Siddhartha replied: "Do not scold, my dear friend. Nothing was ever achieved by
a scolding. If a loss has been sustained, I will bear the loss."
No, a true seeker could not accept any teachings, not if he sincerely wished to
find something. But he who had found, could give his approval to every path,
every goal; nothing separated him from all of the other thousands who lived in
eternity, who breathed the Divine.
"When someone is seeking," said Siddhartha, "it happens quite easily that he
only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything,
unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is
seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking
means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have
no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards
your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose."
Wisdom is not communicable.
Everything that is thought and expressed in words is one-sided, only half the
truth; it all lacks totality, completeness, unity. When the Illustrious Buddha
taught about the world, he had to divide it into ... illusion and truth, into
suffereing and slavation. One cannot do otherwise, there is no other method for
those who teach. But the world itself, being in and around us, is never
one-sided. Never is a man or a deed wholly Samsara or wholly Nirvana; never is
a man wholly a saint or a sinner. This only seems so because we suffere the
illusion that time is something real. ... If time is not real than the dividing
line that seems to lie between this world and eternity, between suffereing and
bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.
"Someday" is illusion; it is only a comparison ... The potential Buddha already
exists in the sinner; his future is already there. the potential hidden Buddha
must be recognized in him, in you, in everybody. The world ... is perfect at
every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are
potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying
people--eternal life.
... to learn to love the world, and no longer compare it with some kind of
desired imaginary world, some imaginary vision of perfection, but to leave it
as it is, to love it and be glad to belong to it.
Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different
immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet
it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man
seems nonsense to another.
If [the visible, physical parts of the world] are illusion, then I also
am illusion, and so they are always of the same nature as myself. It is
that which makes them so lovable and venerable.
It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and
despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to
despise it, not for us to heate each other, but to be able to regard the
world and ourselves and all the beings with love, admiration and respect.
SWORD OF TRUTH SERIES
TERRY GOODKIND
Wizard's First Rule: People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost
anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will
believe a lie because they want to believe it is true, or because they are
afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and
beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are
stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth,
and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.
Wizard's Second Rule: The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.
Wizard's Third Rule: Passion rules reason.
Wizard's Fourth Rule: There is magic in sincere forgiveness.
Wizard's Fifth Rule: Mind what people do, not only what they say,
for deeds will betray a lie.
Wizard's Sixth Rule: The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.
Wizard's Seventh Rule: Life is the future, not the past.
Being afraid something is true is accepting the possibility. Accepting the
possibility is the first step to believing. At least you are smart enough to
question. Think of how ieasy it is to believe, for the people who don't
question, who don't even know how to question. For most people, it's not the
truth that is important, it's the cause. -- Wizard's First Rule
It means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight, cut.
Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your
hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that
one. Cut. The lines are a portrayal of the dance. Cut from the void, not
from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut
with certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow
through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don't allow
him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit.
It is the balance of life: death. It is the dance with death.
-- Faith of the Fallen (sixth book)
THE SYMPOSIUM
PLATO
It's only lovers who are willing to die for someone else. (Phaedrus)
Imagine that someone who weanted to get money from a person, or political office
or some other position of influence ... went down on his knees as a suppliant,
begging for what he wanted, and swore oaths, and spent all night on someone's
doorstep, and was prepared to undergo the kind of slavery that no slave would put
up with. ... His enemies would criticize him for humiliating himself to get what
he wanted, while his friends would tell him to stop and be ashamed of what he'd
done. But when a lover does all these tings, he is indulged and allowed by
convention to escape criticism. (Pausanias)
"Love" is the name for the desire and pursuit of wholeness. (Aristophanes)
Desire and love are directed at what you don't have, what isn't there,
and what you need. (Socrates)
Love is the desire to have the good forever. (Diotoma)
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
JOHN IRVING
It is only the vividness of memory that keeps the dead alive forever;
a writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction
is as vivid as our personal memories.
"There are always suicides," Garp wrote, "among people who are
unable to say what they mean."
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE
ROBERT PIRSIG
When people are fanatically dedicated to politcal or religious faiths or any other
kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end
in disaster. ... When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are,
you almost never make it. And even if you do it?s a hollow victory. In order
to sustain the victory you have to prove yourself again and again in some
other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image,
haunted by the fear that the image is not true and someone will find out.
This is the ghost of normal everyday assumptions which declares that the
ultimate purpose of life, which is to keep alive, is impossible, but that
this is the ultimate purpose of life anyway, so that great minds struggle
to cure diseases so that people may live longer, but only madmen ask why.
One lives longer in order that he may live longer. There is no other
purpose. That is what the ghost says.
I'm feigning twentieth century lunacy just like you are.
So as not to draw attention to myself.
MOVIES
----------------------------------------
A person is smart; people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and
you know it. -- Tommy Lee Jones's character in Men in Black
Carpe Diem! Seize the day! Make your lives extraordinary!
-- Prof. John Keating, Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets Society
Azrael: Did you know that once Hell was nothing more than the absence of God,
and if you'd ever been in his presence than you'd realize that's punishment enough.
But than your kind came along, and made things so much worse.
Bethany: Humans aren't capable of one hundredth the
evil a shitbag demon like you is. (spits in his face)
Azrael: Evil is an abstract! It's a human construct! But true to his irresponsable
nature man won't own up to being its engineer, so he blames his dark deeds on my
ilk! But his selfishness is limitless, and it's not enough to shadow his own existance.
No, he turned Hell into a suffering pit. Fire, wailing, darkness. The kind of place
anyone would do anything to get out of. And why?! Because he lacks the ability
to forgive himself. It is beyond your abilities to simply make recompense for the sins
you commit. No, you choose rather to create a psychodrama, and dwell in a foundless
belief that God could never forgive your grievous offences. So you bring your guilt,
and you inner decay, with you to Hell, where the horrid imaginations of so many
gluttons for punishment give birth to the sickness which has infected the abyss
since the first one of your kind arrived there, begging to be punished. And in doing
so, they have transformed the cold and solitude to pain and misery! I've spent eons
privy to the flames, inhaling the decay, hearing the wailing of the damned. I know
what effect such horrors have on the delicate psyche of an angelic being!
-- Deleted scene from Dogma
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