A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Calmness
Calmness comes from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the surface of the sea; they penetrate only two or three hundred feet; below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is the crown of self-control.
William George Jordan, The Majesty of Calmness
William George Jordan, The Majesty of Calmness
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Flea Hunt
Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him.
Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher
Indifference
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw,
"The Devil's Disciple"
George Bernard Shaw,
"The Devil's Disciple"
Destinations
If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
Henry Miller 1891-1980 (1957)
Henry Miller 1891-1980 (1957)
Clouds
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Monday, September 17, 2007
I'm working on the world
I'm working on the world,
revised, improved edition,
featuring fun for fools,
blues for brooders,
combs for bald pates,
tricks for old dogs.
Here's one chapter: The Speech
of Animals and Plants.
Each species comes, of course,
with its own dictionary.
Even a simple "Hi there,"
when traded with a fish,
make both the fish and you
feel quite extraordinary.
The long-suspected meanings
of rustlings, chirps, and growls!
Soliloquies of forests!
The epic hoot of owls!
Those crafty hedgehogs drafting
aphorisms after dark,
while we blindly believe
they are sleeping in the park!
Time (Chapter Two) retains
its sacred right to meddle
in each earthly affair.
Still, time's unbounded power
that makes a mountain crumble,
moves seas, rotates a star,
won't be enough to tear
lovers apart: they are
too naked, too embraced,
too much like timid sparrows.
Old age is, in my book,
the price that felons pay,
so don't whine that it's steep:
you'll stay young if you're good.
Suffering (Chapter Three)
doesn't insult the body.
Death? It comes in your sleep,
exactly as it should.
When it comes, you'll be dreaming
that you don't need to breathe;
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark
and it's part of the rhythm
to vanish like a spark.
Only a death like that. A rose
could prick you harder, I suppose;
you'd feel more terror at the sound
of petals falling to the ground.
Only a world like that. To die
just that much. And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach's fugue, played
for the time being
on a saw.
Wistawa Szymborska
(*Poems New and Collected*, trans. by S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh)
revised, improved edition,
featuring fun for fools,
blues for brooders,
combs for bald pates,
tricks for old dogs.
Here's one chapter: The Speech
of Animals and Plants.
Each species comes, of course,
with its own dictionary.
Even a simple "Hi there,"
when traded with a fish,
make both the fish and you
feel quite extraordinary.
The long-suspected meanings
of rustlings, chirps, and growls!
Soliloquies of forests!
The epic hoot of owls!
Those crafty hedgehogs drafting
aphorisms after dark,
while we blindly believe
they are sleeping in the park!
Time (Chapter Two) retains
its sacred right to meddle
in each earthly affair.
Still, time's unbounded power
that makes a mountain crumble,
moves seas, rotates a star,
won't be enough to tear
lovers apart: they are
too naked, too embraced,
too much like timid sparrows.
Old age is, in my book,
the price that felons pay,
so don't whine that it's steep:
you'll stay young if you're good.
Suffering (Chapter Three)
doesn't insult the body.
Death? It comes in your sleep,
exactly as it should.
When it comes, you'll be dreaming
that you don't need to breathe;
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark
and it's part of the rhythm
to vanish like a spark.
Only a death like that. A rose
could prick you harder, I suppose;
you'd feel more terror at the sound
of petals falling to the ground.
Only a world like that. To die
just that much. And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach's fugue, played
for the time being
on a saw.
Wistawa Szymborska
(*Poems New and Collected*, trans. by S. Baranczak and C. Cavanagh)
Pay attention
You are not what you think you are. Stop paying attention to your thoughts and find out who you really are. When you stop paying attention to your thoughts, the stories, feelings, and activity driven by them stop. Then you can discover what is arising out of the flow - what is true to do now, in this moment. That is all you need to know. Pay attention to now, and the rest will take care of itself.
Gina Lake
Gina Lake
Sheep and lion
I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.
Alexander The Great
Alexander The Great
Jostein Gaarder
“The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder. Babies have this faculty. That is not surprising. After a few short months in the womb they slip out into a brand new reality. But as they grow up, the faculty of wonder seems to diminish. Why is this? Do you know?
If a newborn baby could talk, it would probably say something about what an extraordinary world it had come into. We see how it looks around and reaches out in curiosity to everything it sees.
As words are gradually acquired, the child looks up and says "Bow-wow" every time it sees a dog. It jumps up and down in its stroller, waving its arms: "Bow-wow!" "Bow-wow!"
We who are older and wiser may feel somewhat exhausted by the child's enthusiasm. "All right, all right, it's a bow-wow," we say, unimpressed. "Please be still." We are not enthralled. We have seen a dog before.
This rapturous performance may repeat itself hundreds of times before the child learns to pass a dog without going crazy. Or an elephant, or a hippopotamus. But long before the child learns to talk properly--and long before it learns to think philosophically--the world will have become a habit.”
If a newborn baby could talk, it would probably say something about what an extraordinary world it had come into. We see how it looks around and reaches out in curiosity to everything it sees.
As words are gradually acquired, the child looks up and says "Bow-wow" every time it sees a dog. It jumps up and down in its stroller, waving its arms: "Bow-wow!" "Bow-wow!"
We who are older and wiser may feel somewhat exhausted by the child's enthusiasm. "All right, all right, it's a bow-wow," we say, unimpressed. "Please be still." We are not enthralled. We have seen a dog before.
This rapturous performance may repeat itself hundreds of times before the child learns to pass a dog without going crazy. Or an elephant, or a hippopotamus. But long before the child learns to talk properly--and long before it learns to think philosophically--the world will have become a habit.”
(From Sophie´s World)
1. “Could she really believe that everything was one divine “I”? Could she believe that she carried within her a soul that was a “spark from the fire”? If it was true, then she was truly a divine creature.”
2. “Dear Hilde, If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn’t understand it. Love, Dad.”
3. “Good and evil are like a white and a black thread that make up a single strand. Sometimes they are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to untangle them.”
4. “(…) Life consists of a long chain of coincidences.”
5. “Remind yourself that you are only living a minuscule part of all nature’s life. You are part of an enormous whole.
6. "There are two ways of becoming wise. One way is to travel out into the world and to see as much as possible of God's creation. The other is to put down roots in one spot and to study everything that happens there in as much detail as you can. The trouble is that it's impossible to do both at the same time."
7. “The whole world had become almost like a living person, and it felt as if that person were Sophie herself. The world is me, she thought. The great big universe that she had often felt to be so unfathomable and terrifying - was her own “I”. Now, too, the universe was enourmous and majestic, but now it was herself that was so big.”
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Hold Infinity
To see a world in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake
A little money
When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.
Erasmus
Erasmus
Degrees, succession and vicissitude
The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and to contraries; and whatever contrariety is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
How far
It matters little who first arrives at an idea, rather what is significant is how far that idea can go.
Sophie Germain
Sophie Germain
Richard Bach
1. “A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion....this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reason and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.”
2. “All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or dispair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.”
3. “A name is a label, and as soon as there is a label, the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing, and instead of living by a theme of ideas, people begin dying for labels... and the last thing the world needs is another religion.”
4. ”An idea is never given to you without you being given the power to make it reality. You must, nevertheless, suffer for it.”
5. “Anyone desperate enough for suicide...should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.”
6. “A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.”
7. "As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see."
8. “A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our trust selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”
9. “Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. 'Nothing' is the worst thing that can happen to us!”
10. “Can miles truly separate us from friends? If we want to be with someone we love, aren't we already there?”
11. ”Civilization... wrecks the planet from seafloor to stratosphere.”
12. “Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”
13. “Don't tell me that my security comes from somebody else! Tell me I'm responsible. Tell me security is a by-product of the gift I give of my skill and my learning and my love in the world. Tell me security comes from an idea given time and care. I claim this for my truth...give me ideas, and let me take it from there!”
14. "Do you ever notice, after you've known someone for a while, how their appearance changes? He can be the handsomest man in the world," she [Leslie] said, "but he turns plain as popcorn when he has nothing to say. And the plainest man says what matters to him and why he cares and in two minutes he's so beautiful you want to hug him!"
15. "Do you know what I learned from you? I learned what is possible, and now I must hold out for what I thought we had. I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me. That or nothing. I realized that what I'm looking for is not what you're looking for. You don't want what I want." "What do you think I want?" I asked. "Exactly what you have. Many women you know a little and don't care very much about. Superficial flirtations, mutual use, no chance of love. That's my idea of hell. Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness, Richard, in which there is no love. Horrible! Leave me out of it."
16. “Dying is like diving into a deep lake on a hot day. There's the shock of that sharp cold change, the pain of it for a second, and then accepting is a swim in reality.”
17. “Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.”
18. “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.”
19. “Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we'll meet now and then when we wish, in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.”
20. “For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.”
21. “Get this in mind early: We never grow up.”
22. “Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.”
23. “How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently? How can you think everyone can be a hero, choosing death, when it is part of our nature to let go of brave thoughts at the last moment and cling to hope and life?”
24. “How do you know that's not the only way some lessons can get through to you? If you didn't need to fight in order to learn, you wouldn't create so many problems! There are times I don't understand till you're angry...aren't there times you don't know what I mean until I scream?”
25. “Humanity is not a gift of nature, it is a spiritual achievement to be earned.”
26. “If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it, we'll always be its victim.”
27. “If you want freedom and joy so much, can't you see it's not anywhere outside of you? Say you have it and you have it! Act as if it's yours, and it is! Richard what is so damned hard about that? But they didn't even hear, most of them. Miracles - like going to auto races to see the crashes, they came to me to see miracles. First it's frustrating and then after a while it just gets dull. I have no idea how the other messiahs could stand it. “
28. “If you want security...you've come to the wrong arena. The only security is Life Is, and that's all that matters. Absolute, unchanging, perfect. but Security in Appearances? Even the sycamore falls to dust, someday...The wood disintegrates, the symbol vanishes, not the spirit of its life. The belief of your body shatters, not the believer who shaped it.”
29. “If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”
30. “I gave my life to become what I am now. Was it worth it?”
31. “I handle the sky that's around me at the moment, in the best way I know how. I'm not responsible for surviving all the weather everywhere, I'm just responsible for getting through the weather I find in a block from one wingtip to the other and from the bottom of the wheels to the top of the rudders. I'm responsible because that's the weather I draw by choosing my time to fly and deciding where I point Daisy's nose.”
32. “Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect. Then be sure of one thing: the Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have. Your friends will know you better in the first minute that you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”
33. “I'm not afraid to cry when something that might have been beautiful dies.”
34. “I’m not here because I’m supposed to be here, or because I’m trapped here, but because I’d rather be with you than anyone in the world.”
35. "In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice."
36. "Learning is finding out what you already know, Doing is demonstrating that you know it, Teaching is reminding others that they know it as well as you do. We are all learners, doers, and teachers."
37. “Like attracts like. Just be who you are, calm and clear and bright. Automatically, as we shine who we are, asking ourselves every minute is this what I really want to do, doing it only when we answer yes,
automatically that turns away those who have nothing to learn from who we are and attracts those who do, and from whom we have to learn, as well.”
38. “Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world - even if what is published is not true.”
39. "Listen to what you know instead of what you fear."
40. “Look in a mirror and one thing's sure; what we see is not who we are.”
41. “No one had I met but you with whom I dared be as childish as sometimes I felt, as silly, as knowing, as close and touching. If love wasn't a word twisted and mutilated by possession and hypocrisy, if it was a word that meant what I wanted it to mean, I might be on the edge of believing I was in love with you.”
42. “Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true.”
43. “Nothing happens by chance, my friend... No such thing as luck. A meaning behind every little thing, and such a meaning behind this. Part for you, part for me, may not see it all real clear right now, but we will, before long.”
44. “One of a charmed pair must always supply what the other might lack.”
45. “Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”
46. “Real loves stories never have endings.”
47. “Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.”
48. "Sometimes when learning comes before experience It doesn't make sense right away."
49. “Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.”
50. “Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel. The same questions, asked again, being you just the answers you need just the minute you need them.”
51. “That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.”
52. “The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.”
53. “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
54. “The idea that we are physical beings descended from primeval cells in nutrient soups, that idea does violence to my intuition, stomps all over it with football-shoes. The idea that we are descended from a jealous God who formed us out of dust to choose between kneel--praying or fires-of- damnation, that stomps me worse.”
55. “The impacts...are our tests for each other. You can decide to be happy yourself no matter what I do, and chances are that when you're happy I'll be glad, because I like being with you when you're happy. But it's me making me happy, not you.”
56. “The man who flies an airplane ... must believe in the unseen.
To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.
Flyers have a sense of adventures yet to come, instead of dimly recalling adventures of long ago as the only moments in which they truly lived.
For pilots sometimes see behind the curtain, behind the veil of gossamer velvet, and find the truth behind man, the force behind a universe
Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there's a reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!
Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight -- how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.
You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment you touch the perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, of flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
57. “The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
58. “The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
59. “The next part of the lesson was a reminder that we are teachers, one of us to another. We bring each other into our lives, soulmates and instructors carefully chosen to hand us the lessons we need. When we graduate, though, no matter our gratitude to the person who taught us, it is the lesson and not the teacher we bring to our next class.”
60. ”There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.”
61. “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.”
62. ”The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.”
63. “The simplest things are often the truest.”
64. “The world's crazy, when it comes to beauty.”
65. “The world is your exercise book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.”
66. “There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.”
67. "...there is such a thing as perfection...and our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth....Each of us is in truth an unlimited idea of freedom. Everything that limits us we have to put aside."
68. “The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.”
69. “The simplest things are often the truest.”
70. ”The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we're afraid. We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we'll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy.”
71. “This is how you love me? Lock me away? Keep me from being a part of your life? I lived the hard times for you, I deserve to know what you know, and I don't! You locked me up! Not even windows, you locked me up! Do you know what that feels like? It feels like a diamond in a safe! It feels like a butterfly in chains! It feels life-less! Do you know life-less? Do you know cold? Do you know dark? Do you know someone who ought to love you more than anyone in the world and they don't care whether you live or die?”
72. “To bring anything into your life, imagine that it's already there.”
73. “Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else's list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land, and decided I'd better not marry the natives.”
74. “We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent a life we've created ourselves? Who's to blame, who's to credit but us? Who can change it, anytime we wish, but us?”
75. “We're different, we're the same. You thought you'd never find a word to say to a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I couldn't imagine myself spending time with a man who didn't love music. Could it be it's not as important to be alike as it is to be curious? Because we're different, we can have the fun of exchanging worlds, giving our loves and excitements to each other. You can learn music, I can learn flying. And that's only the beginning. I think it would go on for us as long as we live.”
76. “We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks.”
77. "When we come to the last moment of this lifetime, and we look back across it, the only thing that's going to matter is "What was the quality of our love?"
78. “With all the books we have, so many still waiting to be written! Like fresh deep plums way up in the treetops. Not much fun to climb up some teetery ladder, snake through the branches going way out on limbs to pick 'em, but how delicious they are when the work is over.”
79. “You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.”
80. “You are creatures of light, we read. From light have you come, to light shall you go, and surrounding you through every step is the light of your infinite being.”
81. “You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.”
82. “You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however.”
83. “You don't want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel.”
84. “You teach best what you most need to learn. “
85. “Your armor, it shields you from any woman who would destroy you, sure enough. but unless you let it go, it will shield you as well from the only one who can love you, nourish you, save you from your own protection. There is one perfect woman for you. She is singular, not plural.”
86. "Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself."
2. “All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or dispair. Snapshots don't show the million decisions that led to that moment.”
3. “A name is a label, and as soon as there is a label, the ideas disappear and out comes label-worship and label-bashing, and instead of living by a theme of ideas, people begin dying for labels... and the last thing the world needs is another religion.”
4. ”An idea is never given to you without you being given the power to make it reality. You must, nevertheless, suffer for it.”
5. “Anyone desperate enough for suicide...should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.”
6. “A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.”
7. "As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men's minds more seriously than what they see."
8. “A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our trust selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”
9. “Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. 'Nothing' is the worst thing that can happen to us!”
10. “Can miles truly separate us from friends? If we want to be with someone we love, aren't we already there?”
11. ”Civilization... wrecks the planet from seafloor to stratosphere.”
12. “Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”
13. “Don't tell me that my security comes from somebody else! Tell me I'm responsible. Tell me security is a by-product of the gift I give of my skill and my learning and my love in the world. Tell me security comes from an idea given time and care. I claim this for my truth...give me ideas, and let me take it from there!”
14. "Do you ever notice, after you've known someone for a while, how their appearance changes? He can be the handsomest man in the world," she [Leslie] said, "but he turns plain as popcorn when he has nothing to say. And the plainest man says what matters to him and why he cares and in two minutes he's so beautiful you want to hug him!"
15. "Do you know what I learned from you? I learned what is possible, and now I must hold out for what I thought we had. I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me. That or nothing. I realized that what I'm looking for is not what you're looking for. You don't want what I want." "What do you think I want?" I asked. "Exactly what you have. Many women you know a little and don't care very much about. Superficial flirtations, mutual use, no chance of love. That's my idea of hell. Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness, Richard, in which there is no love. Horrible! Leave me out of it."
16. “Dying is like diving into a deep lake on a hot day. There's the shock of that sharp cold change, the pain of it for a second, and then accepting is a swim in reality.”
17. “Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.”
18. “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.”
19. “Fly free and happy beyond birthdays and across forever, and we'll meet now and then when we wish, in the midst of the one celebration that never can end.”
20. “For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.”
21. “Get this in mind early: We never grow up.”
22. “Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.”
23. “How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently? How can you think everyone can be a hero, choosing death, when it is part of our nature to let go of brave thoughts at the last moment and cling to hope and life?”
24. “How do you know that's not the only way some lessons can get through to you? If you didn't need to fight in order to learn, you wouldn't create so many problems! There are times I don't understand till you're angry...aren't there times you don't know what I mean until I scream?”
25. “Humanity is not a gift of nature, it is a spiritual achievement to be earned.”
26. “If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it, we'll always be its victim.”
27. “If you want freedom and joy so much, can't you see it's not anywhere outside of you? Say you have it and you have it! Act as if it's yours, and it is! Richard what is so damned hard about that? But they didn't even hear, most of them. Miracles - like going to auto races to see the crashes, they came to me to see miracles. First it's frustrating and then after a while it just gets dull. I have no idea how the other messiahs could stand it. “
28. “If you want security...you've come to the wrong arena. The only security is Life Is, and that's all that matters. Absolute, unchanging, perfect. but Security in Appearances? Even the sycamore falls to dust, someday...The wood disintegrates, the symbol vanishes, not the spirit of its life. The belief of your body shatters, not the believer who shaped it.”
29. “If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”
30. “I gave my life to become what I am now. Was it worth it?”
31. “I handle the sky that's around me at the moment, in the best way I know how. I'm not responsible for surviving all the weather everywhere, I'm just responsible for getting through the weather I find in a block from one wingtip to the other and from the bottom of the wheels to the top of the rudders. I'm responsible because that's the weather I draw by choosing my time to fly and deciding where I point Daisy's nose.”
32. “Imagine the universe beautiful and just and perfect. Then be sure of one thing: the Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have. Your friends will know you better in the first minute that you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.”
33. “I'm not afraid to cry when something that might have been beautiful dies.”
34. “I’m not here because I’m supposed to be here, or because I’m trapped here, but because I’d rather be with you than anyone in the world.”
35. "In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice."
36. "Learning is finding out what you already know, Doing is demonstrating that you know it, Teaching is reminding others that they know it as well as you do. We are all learners, doers, and teachers."
37. “Like attracts like. Just be who you are, calm and clear and bright. Automatically, as we shine who we are, asking ourselves every minute is this what I really want to do, doing it only when we answer yes,
automatically that turns away those who have nothing to learn from who we are and attracts those who do, and from whom we have to learn, as well.”
38. “Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world - even if what is published is not true.”
39. "Listen to what you know instead of what you fear."
40. “Look in a mirror and one thing's sure; what we see is not who we are.”
41. “No one had I met but you with whom I dared be as childish as sometimes I felt, as silly, as knowing, as close and touching. If love wasn't a word twisted and mutilated by possession and hypocrisy, if it was a word that meant what I wanted it to mean, I might be on the edge of believing I was in love with you.”
42. “Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true.”
43. “Nothing happens by chance, my friend... No such thing as luck. A meaning behind every little thing, and such a meaning behind this. Part for you, part for me, may not see it all real clear right now, but we will, before long.”
44. “One of a charmed pair must always supply what the other might lack.”
45. “Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”
46. “Real loves stories never have endings.”
47. “Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.”
48. "Sometimes when learning comes before experience It doesn't make sense right away."
49. “Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.”
50. “Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel. The same questions, asked again, being you just the answers you need just the minute you need them.”
51. “That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.”
52. “The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.”
53. “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
54. “The idea that we are physical beings descended from primeval cells in nutrient soups, that idea does violence to my intuition, stomps all over it with football-shoes. The idea that we are descended from a jealous God who formed us out of dust to choose between kneel--praying or fires-of- damnation, that stomps me worse.”
55. “The impacts...are our tests for each other. You can decide to be happy yourself no matter what I do, and chances are that when you're happy I'll be glad, because I like being with you when you're happy. But it's me making me happy, not you.”
56. “The man who flies an airplane ... must believe in the unseen.
To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.
Flyers have a sense of adventures yet to come, instead of dimly recalling adventures of long ago as the only moments in which they truly lived.
For pilots sometimes see behind the curtain, behind the veil of gossamer velvet, and find the truth behind man, the force behind a universe
Instead of our drab slogging forth and back to the fishing boats, there's a reason to life! We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill. We can be free! We can learn to fly!
Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight -- how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.
You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment you touch the perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, of flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfect speed, my son, is being there.”
57. “The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
58. “The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.”
59. “The next part of the lesson was a reminder that we are teachers, one of us to another. We bring each other into our lives, soulmates and instructors carefully chosen to hand us the lessons we need. When we graduate, though, no matter our gratitude to the person who taught us, it is the lesson and not the teacher we bring to our next class.”
60. ”There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.”
61. “There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.”
62. ”The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.”
63. “The simplest things are often the truest.”
64. “The world's crazy, when it comes to beauty.”
65. “The world is your exercise book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.”
66. “There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.”
67. "...there is such a thing as perfection...and our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth....Each of us is in truth an unlimited idea of freedom. Everything that limits us we have to put aside."
68. “The original sin is to limit the Is. Don't.”
69. “The simplest things are often the truest.”
70. ”The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we're afraid. We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we'll lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy.”
71. “This is how you love me? Lock me away? Keep me from being a part of your life? I lived the hard times for you, I deserve to know what you know, and I don't! You locked me up! Not even windows, you locked me up! Do you know what that feels like? It feels like a diamond in a safe! It feels like a butterfly in chains! It feels life-less! Do you know life-less? Do you know cold? Do you know dark? Do you know someone who ought to love you more than anyone in the world and they don't care whether you live or die?”
72. “To bring anything into your life, imagine that it's already there.”
73. “Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else's list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land, and decided I'd better not marry the natives.”
74. “We generate our own environment. We get exactly what we deserve. How can we resent a life we've created ourselves? Who's to blame, who's to credit but us? Who can change it, anytime we wish, but us?”
75. “We're different, we're the same. You thought you'd never find a word to say to a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I couldn't imagine myself spending time with a man who didn't love music. Could it be it's not as important to be alike as it is to be curious? Because we're different, we can have the fun of exchanging worlds, giving our loves and excitements to each other. You can learn music, I can learn flying. And that's only the beginning. I think it would go on for us as long as we live.”
76. “We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It's us and our homemade masks.”
77. "When we come to the last moment of this lifetime, and we look back across it, the only thing that's going to matter is "What was the quality of our love?"
78. “With all the books we have, so many still waiting to be written! Like fresh deep plums way up in the treetops. Not much fun to climb up some teetery ladder, snake through the branches going way out on limbs to pick 'em, but how delicious they are when the work is over.”
79. “You're always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.”
80. “You are creatures of light, we read. From light have you come, to light shall you go, and surrounding you through every step is the light of your infinite being.”
81. “You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don't turn away from possible futures before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.”
82. “You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however.”
83. “You don't want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel.”
84. “You teach best what you most need to learn. “
85. “Your armor, it shields you from any woman who would destroy you, sure enough. but unless you let it go, it will shield you as well from the only one who can love you, nourish you, save you from your own protection. There is one perfect woman for you. She is singular, not plural.”
86. "Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself."
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Beware...
Just because things are obvious doesn't mean they're true.
Terry Pratchett.
Terry Pratchett.
Note from Sandra: Funny how sometimes we read those words at the right moment. I had proof of that yesterday... The timing was nearly perfect. One should not make any assumptions about anyone, ever!
On the birthday of Aphrodite...
On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep; and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, [203c] and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived Love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; [203d] and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, [203e] sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge. The truth of the matter is this: No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, [204a] for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom. Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom. For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want." "But who then, Diotima," I said, "are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?" [204b] "A child may answer that question," she replied; "they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant. And of this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish. Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love.
Conversation between Socrates and Diotima in Plato's Symposium
Conversation between Socrates and Diotima in Plato's Symposium
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