Stop the World

STOP THE WORLD,
I WANNA GET ON!!!!

From "The Producers"

Life Is Just a Mirror

Life is just a mirror,
and what you see out there,
you must first see inside of you.

Wally Amos

Walk Through It Yourself

Teachers open the door but
you must walk through it yourself.

Chinese Proverb

We Do Not Grow Absolutely

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.
We grow sometimes in one dimension,
and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially.
We are relative. We are mature in one realm,
childish in another. The past, present, and future
mingle and pull us backward, forward, or
fix us in the present. We are made up of
layers, cells, constellations.

Anais Nin

Wisdom

Clever people master life;
the wise illuminate it and
create fresh difficulties.

Emil Nolde

Art of Living

The art of living lies less
in eliminating our troubles
than in growing with them.

Unknown

All the Good

No one can do all the good
that the world needs,
but the world needs all the good
that you and I can do.

Lama Surya Das

In a Gentle Way

In a gentle way,
you can shake the world.

Mahatma Gandhi

Exactly as It Does

Learn to wish
that everything
should come to pass
exactly as it does.

Epictetus

Flowers

There are always flowers
for those who want to see them.

Henri Matisse

What to Overlook

The art of being wise is
knowing what to overlook.

William James

In the Midst of Living

My ideas usually come
not at my desk writing
but in the midst of living.

Anais Nin

Truly Present

When truly present,
you are more
in control of situations,
you have more love,
patience, understanding,
and compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Experience

My experience is
what I agree to attend to.

William James

Defining Yourself

When you judge another,
you do not define them,
you define yourself.

Wayne Dyer

You Might Not Get There

You've got to be very careful
if you don't know where you are going,
because you might not get there.

Yogi Berra

Just Watching

You can observe a lot
by just watching.

Yogi Berra

Deep Depth

We have deep depth.

Yogi Berra

You Can't Tell 'em

There are some people who,
if they don't already know,
you can't tell 'em.

Yogi Berra

The Future

The future ain't what it used to be.

Yogi Berra

Theory and Practice

In theory there is no difference
between theory and practice.
In practice there is.

Yogi Berra

Someplace Else

If you don't know where you are going,
you might wind up someplace else.

Yogi Berra

Take It

If you come to
a fork in the road,
take it.

Yogi Berra

Perfect

If the world was perfect,
it wouldn't be.

Yogi Berra

Doing Nothing

To do nothing
is sometimes
a good remedy.

Hippocrates

Moments

If we take care of the moments,
the years will take care of themselves.

Maria Edgeworth

Enjoy Each Step

When you dance, your purpose is not
to get to a certain place on the floor.
It's to enjoy each step along the way.

Wayne Dyer

Jokes

The best ideas come as jokes.
Make your thinking as funny
as possible.

D.M. Ogilvy

Learning to Surf

You can't stop the waves,
but you can learn to surf.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

What Isn't Said

The most important thing in communication
is hearing what isn't being said.

Unknown

Greatest Mistake

The greatest mistake you can make in life
is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Unknown

How You Made Them Feel

People will forget what you did,
people will forget what you said,
but people will never forget
how you made them feel.

Unknown

Happy

You cannot be both unhappy
and fully present in the Now.

Eckhart Tolle

Past vs. Present

Nothing ever happened in the past
that can prevent you from being present now;
and if the past cannot prevent you
from being present now,
what power does it have?

Eckhart Tolle

Inner Purpose, Outer Purpose

Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose.
Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary.
Outer purpose concerns doing and it is secondary.
Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that.
You share that purpose with every other person on the planet -
because it is the purpose of humanity.
Your inner purpose is an essential part
of the purpose of the whole, the universe
and its emerging intelligence.
Your outer purpose can change over time.
It varies greatly from person to person.
Finding and living in alignment
with the inner purpose is the foundation
for fulfilling your outer purpose.
It is the basis for true success.
Without that alignment, you can still
achieve certain things through effort, struggle,
determination, and sheer hard work or cunning.
But there is no joy in such endeavor,
and it invariably ends in some form of suffering.

Eckhart Tolle

A More Powerful Question

Instead of asking
"what do I want from life?,"
a more powerful question is,
"what does life want from me?"

Eckhart Tolle

Experience

Life will give you whatever experience
is most helpful for the evolution
of your consciousness.
How do you know this is
the experience you need?
Because this is the experience
you are having at this moment.

Eckhart Tolle

One With Life

Once you have made peace with the present moment,
see what happens, what you can do or choose to do,
or rather what life does through you.
There are three words that convey
the secret of the art of living,
the secret of all success and happiness:
One with Life.
Being one with life is being one with Now.
You then realize that you don't live your life,
but life lives you.
Life is the dancer and you are the dance.

Eckhart Tolle

That Means Now

To end the misery that has
afflicted the human condition
for thousands of years,
you have to start with yourself
and take responsibility
for your inner state
at any given moment.
That means now.

Eckhart Tolle

Others vs. Yourself

For what you do to others,
you do to yourself.

Eckhart Tolle

Worry

Worry pretends to be necessary
but serves no useful purpose.

Eckhart Tolle

Forgiveness, Compassion, Peace

If her past were your past,
her pain your pain,
her level of consciousness
your level of consciousness,
you would think and act
exactly as she does.
With this realization
comes forgiveness, compassion, peace.
The ego doesn’t like to hear this,
because if it cannot be reactive
and righteous anymore,
it will lose strength.

Eckhart Tolle

Relationship

The relationship is here
to make you conscious
instead of happy.

Eckhart Tolle

Letting Go

Sometimes letting go
is an act of
far greater power
than defending
or hanging on.

Eckhart Tolle

Primary Focus of Your Life

Realize deeply that the present moment
is all you ever have. Make the Now
the primary focus of your life.

Eckhart Tolle

Accepting

Accepting means you allow yourself
to feel whatever it is you are feeling
at that moment. It is part of the is-ness
of the NOW. You can't argue with what is.
Well, you can, but if you do, you will suffer.

Eckhart Tolle

Who You Are

Who you are speaks so loudly
I can't hear what you're saying.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Making Peace

We can never obtain peace
in the outer world until
we make peace with ourselves.

Dalai Lama

Kindness and Compassion

Whether one believes in a religion or not,
and whether one believes in rebirth or not,
there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate
kindness and compassion.

Dalai Lama

Temples and Philosophies

There is no need for temples,
no need for complicated philosophies.
My brain and my heart are my temples;
my philosophy is kindness.

Dalai Lama

Ultimate Authority

The ultimate authority must always rest
with the individual's own reason
and critical analysis.

Dalai Lama

Make It Meaningful

Old friends pass away, new friends appear.
It is just like the days.
An old day passes, a new day arrives.
The important thing is to make it meaningful:
a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.

Dalai Lama

Creating Impressions

Sometimes one creates
a dynamic impression
by saying something,
and sometimes one creates
as significant an impression
by remaining silent.

Dalai Lama

My Religion

My religion is very simple.

My religion is kindness.

Dalai Lama

The Best Teacher

In the practice of tolerance,
one's enemy is the best teacher.

Dalai Lama

Do Not Harm

If you can, help others;
if you cannot do that,
at least do not harm them.

Dalai Lama

Change

Change will not come if we wait
for some other person or some other time.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek.

Barack Obama

The Key to Failure

I don't know the key to success,
but the key to failure
is trying to please everybody.

Bill Cosby

Follow Your Bliss

Follow your bliss
and the universe
will open doors for you
where there were only walls.

Joseph Campbell

Being Rich

A man is rich in proportion
to the number of things
he can afford to let alone.

Henry David Thoreau

Finding Ourselves

Why are we so full of restraint?
Why do we not give in all directions?
Is it fear of losing ourselves?
Until we do lose ourselves
there is no hope of finding ourselves.

Henry Miller

Friends

When one is trying to do something
beyond his known powers
it is useless to seek
the approval of friends.
Friends are at their best
in moments of defeat.

Henry Miller

Daring

Whatever there be of progress in life
comes not through adaptation
but through daring.

Henry Miller

The Truth

What does it matter how one comes by the truth
so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it?

Henry Miller

Mystery

Until we accept the fact that life itself
is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.

Henry Miller

No Salvation

There is no salvation in becoming adapted
to a world which is crazy.

Henry Miller

Order Incarnate

The world is not to be put in order;
the world is order, incarnate.
It is for us to harmonize with this order.

Henry Miller

The Real Leader

The real leader has no need to lead -
he is content to point the way.

Henry Miller

The New

The new always carries with it
the sense of violation, of sacrilege.
What is dead is sacred; what is new,
that is different, is evil, dangerous,
or subversive.

Henry Miller

Close Attention

The moment one gives close attention to any thing,
even a blade of grass,
it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself.

Henry Miller

Security

The man who looks for security,
even in the mind,
is like a man who would chop off his limbs
in order to have artificial ones
which will give him no pain or trouble.

Henry Miller

Perpetuation

The great work must inevitably be obscure,
except to the very few,
to those who like the author himself
are initiated into the mysteries.
Communication then is secondary:
it is perpetuation which is important.
For this only one good reader is necessary.

Henry Miller

To Be Aware

The aim of life is to live,
and to live means to be aware,
joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

Henry Miller

Tree of Knowledge

Sin, guilt, neurosis;
they are one and the same,
the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Henry Miller

Let Her Rip

Plots and character don't make life.
Life is here and now,
anytime you say the word,
anytime you let her rip.

Henry Miller

Wisdom of the Body

Our own physical body possesses a wisdom
which we who inhabit the body lack.

Henry Miller

Stifling

One of the reasons why so few of us
ever act, instead of react,
is because we are continually
stifling our deepest impulses.

Henry Miller

Our Own Guidance

No man is great enough or wise enough
for any of us to surrender our destiny to.
The only way in which anyone can lead us
is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.

Henry Miller

The Miraculous

Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs,
doctrines - these are of trifling import.
All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.

Henry Miller

Master of Everything

Man has demonstrated that
he is master of everything
except his own nature.

Henry Miller

Postponing Life

Life, as it is called,
is for most of us one long postponement.

Henry Miller

Giving Life Meaning

Life has to be given a meaning
because of the obvious fact
that it has no meaning.

Henry Miller

The Greatest Lesson

In this age, which believes
that there is a short cut to everything,
the greatest lesson to be learned
is that the most difficult way is,
in the long run, the easiest.

Henry Miller

The Voice of Daring

Imagination is the voice of daring.
If there is anything Godlike about God
it is that. He dared to imagine everything.

Henry Miller

One's Destination

One's destination is never a place
but rather a new way of looking at things.

Henry Miller

Peace Through Being

If there is to be any peace
it will come through being,
not having.

Henry Miller

Golden Moments

Every moment is a golden one
for him who has the vision
to recognize it as such.

Henry Miller

Growth

All growth is a leap in the dark,
a spontaneous unpremeditated act
without benefit of experience.

Henry Miller

A Tolerable World

When you make a world tolerable for yourself,
you make a world tolerable for others.

Anais Nin

Blind Adoption

When we blindly adopt a religion,
a political system, a literary dogma,
we become automatons. We cease to grow.

Anais Nin

Laughter

The human race has one really effective weapon,
and that is laughter.

Mark Twain

The Meaning We Each Give to Our Life

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all,
there is only the meaning we each give to our life,
an individual meaning, an individual plot,
like an individual novel, a book for each person.

Anais Nin

What We Are Unable to Say

The role of a writer is not
to say what we all can say,
but what we are unable to say.

Anais Nin

Living Deeply

The personal life deeply lived
always expands into truths beyond itself.

Anais Nin

Worn Out

Living never wore one out so much
as the effort not to live.

Anais Nin

Courage

Life shrinks or expands
in proportion to one's courage.

Anais Nin

A Kind of Death

Life is a process of becoming,

a combination of states we have to go through.

Where people fail is that they wish

to elect a state and remain in it.

This is a kind of death.

Anais Nin

Postponing Death

I postpone death by living,

by suffering, by error, by risking,

by giving, by losing.

Anais Nin

Blossoming

And the day came when the risk
to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk
it took to blossom.

Anais Nin

Light Within

When you possess light within,
you see it externally.

Anaïs Nin

Living in Harmony

He who lives in harmony with himself
lives in harmony with the universe.

Marcus Aurelius

Outer vs. Inner

The outer conditions of a person's life
will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.

James Allen

A Creative Life

To live a creative life,
we must lose our fear
of being wrong.

Joseph Chilton Pearce

Never Be Alone

If you make friends with yourself
you will never be alone.

Maxwell Maltz

Success

Success in any endeavor
depends on the degree to which
it is an expression
of your true self.

Ralph Marston

Only One Good

There is only one good.
And that is to act according
to the dictates of one's conscience.

Simone de Beauvoir

Helping

Never look down on anybody
unless you're helping him up.

Jesse Jackson

Everyone Will Respect You

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you. Lao Tzu

Still Mind

To the mind that is still,

the whole universe surrenders.

Lao Tzu

See Things in the Seed

To see things in the seed,

that is genius.

Lao Tzu

Realize That You Do Not Understand

To realize that you do not understand

is a virtue;

Not to realize that you do not understand

is a defect.

Lao Tzu

Walk Behind

To lead people,

walk behind them.

Lao Tzu

One Step

The journey of a thousand miles
begins with one step.

Lao Tzu

Great Strength

Silence is a source of great strength.

Lao Tzu

Internal Peace

One can not reflect in streaming water.

Only those who know internal peace

can give it to others.

Lao Tzu

Everything is Accomplished

Nature does not hurry,
yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

Let Things Flow Naturally

Life is a series of natural
and spontaneous changes.
Don't resist them -
that only creates sorrow.
Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward
in whatever way they like.

Lao Tzu

Doing One's Duty

It is better to do one's own duty,
however defective it may be,
than to follow the duty of another,
however well one may perform it.
He who does his duty
as his own nature reveals it,
never sins.

Lao Tzu

Nor Do I Serve Any

I do not concern myself
with gods and spirits
either good or evil
nor do I serve any.

Lao Tzu

We Did It Ourselves

A leader is best when

people barely know he exists.

When his work is done,

his aim fulfilled,

they will say:

we did it ourselves.

Lao Tzu

Our Problems

If we all threw our problems
in a pile and saw everyone else's,
we'd grab ours back.

Unknown

Looking Fear in the Face

You gain strength, courage, and confidence
by every experience in which you really stop
to look fear in the face.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Feeling Inferior

Nobody can make you feel inferior
without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Liberation

As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela

Teaching Our Children

We should teach our children nothing
which they shall ever need to unlearn.

Felix Adler

Going Too Far

Only those who will risk going too far
can possibly find out how far one can go.

T.S. Eliot

Popular vs. Right

Something that is popular
is not always right;
something that is right
is not always popular.

Unknown

Approval

A man cannot be comfortable
without his own approval.

Mark Twain

Nothing Lacking

When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.

Lao Tzu

All the Answers

He who knows all the answers
has not yet been asked all the questions.

Unknown

Riches

The greatest good that you can do for another
is not just share your riches,
but reveal to them their own.

Disraeli

Forgiveness vs. Permission

It is better to ask forgiveness
than permission.

Jesuit Saying

Moderation

Moderation in all things. 

Terence, Roman comic dramatist

185 BC - 159 BC

(I would include: "... including moderation.")

The Best Psychiatrist

There is no psychiatrist
in the world
like a puppy
licking your face.

Ben Williams

The One I Would Like to Talk To

The purpose of words
is to convey ideas.
When the ideas are grasped,
the words are forgotten.
Where can I find a man
who has forgotten the words?
He is the one I would like to talk to.

Chuang Tzu

They Gradually Pass Away

We cling to our own point of view,
as though everything depended on it.
Yet our opinions have no permanence,
like autumn and winter,
they gradually pass away.

Chuang Tzu

Happiness

Happiness is the absence
of the striving for happiness.

Chuang Tzu

You Cannot Teach

You cannot teach a man anything.
You can only help him find it
within himself.

Galileo

Making Everybody Your Judge

Our dependency makes slaves out of us, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self-esteem. If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge. Fritz Perls

The Therapeutic Question

In my early professional years,
I was asking the question:
"How can I treat, or cure,
or change this person?"

Now I would phrase the question
in this way:
"How can I provide a relationship
which this person may use
for his own personal growth?"

Carl Rogers