Favorite Wisdom

Following is a list of quotes that I've been compiling, in no particular order, for no other reason than 'cause I like them.

Do you have a list of favorites?  Suggestions for this page?  Bring 'em on!  My favorites are about spirituality, peace-making, and cool new ways to look at the world and our culture.  To gain understanding of what I mean by our culture, check out the books of Daniel Quinn.  Here's a taste:

“The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler’s mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness.” 

I like it when our habitual modes of thinking are challenged.  The more uncomfortable I am with a new idea, the more closely I want to look at why that is, in case there is some habit-based resistance in there to a great idea.

The quotes below don't make me uncomfortable.  They make me smile!

If the world is saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.
~Daniel Quinn

You've no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring you. Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. 

So- I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.

~Jalaluddin Rumi

Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,

there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make sense any more.

~Jalaluddin Rumi

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.

~Friedrich Nietzsche

"When we understand the needs that motivate our own and other's behavior, we have no enemies."

~Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.

~Richard Bach

We can no more alienate ourselves from Nature than we can alienate ourselves from entropy. We can no more live against Nature than we can live against gravity. On the contrary, what we're seeing here more and more clearly is that the processes and phenomena of the world are working on us in exactly the same way that they work on all other creatures. Our lifestyle is evolutionarily unstable - and is therefore in the process of eliminating itself in the perfectly ordinary way.

~Daniel Quinn, The Story of B

What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do?

~Friedrich Nietzsche

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

~Jean-Paul Sartre

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

~Carl Jung

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.

~Mahatma Gandhi

Be the change you want to see in the world.

~Mahatma Gandhi

I offer you peace. I offer you love.  I offer you friendship.  I see your beauty.  I hear your need.  I feel your feelings.  My wisdom flows from the Highest Source.  I salute that Source in you.  Let us work together for unity and love.

~Mahatma Gandhi

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex.  It takes a touch of genius--and a lot of courage--to move in the opposite direction.

~Albert Einstein

I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.  Let's start with typewriters.

~Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)

New ideas pass through three periods:  "It can't be done."  "It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing."  "I knew it was a good idea all along!"

~Arthur C. Clarke

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

~Arthur C. Clarke

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him.

~Arthur C. Clarke

No problem can be solved with the same consciousness that created it.

~Albert Einstein
 

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.

~Buddha

Cup of tea, cup a tea, almost got shagged, cup of tea. Demon monks. Shoulda gone to Vegas.

~Spike describing Giles' life in "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"

Want. Take. Have.

~Faith, summing up her guilt-free lifestyle in "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

~Albert Einstein


 

© Holly Croydon 2006