Playful, Rebellious, and Immature

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced,
not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious,
but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

Tom Robbins

Unfolding As It Should

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars.
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding
as it should.

From "Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann

To Speak the Truth

It takes two to speak the truth -
one to speak and the other to hear.

Henry David Thoreau

Spiritual Death

It is not the end of the physical body
that should worry us.
Rather, our concern should be to live
while we're alive -
to release our inner selves
from the spiritual death
that comes from living behind a facade
designed to conform to external definitions
of who and what we are.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Our Prime Purpose

Our prime purpose in this life
is to help others.
And if you can't help them,
at least don't hurt them.

The Dalai Lama

Desires

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.

Elwyn Brooks White

Listening

No man ever listened himself
out of a job.

Calvin Coolidge

You, Yourself

You, yourself, as much as
anyone in the entire universe,
deserve your love and affection.

The Buddha

The Only True Guide

There is something in every one of you that waits
and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.
It is the only true guide you will ever have.
And if you cannot hear it, you will all your life
spend your days on the ends of strings
that somebody else pulls.

Howard Thurman

Love is ...

Love is not need and it is not dependence.
I see love as two mature people walking parallel paths,
profoundly respecting the essence of the other,
honoring the differences in each other and
giving each other space to develop their own uniqueness.

Marion Woodman

Confusion

Confusion is a word we have invented
for an order which is not understood.

Henry Miller

Change

Change occurs when one becomes what one is,
not when one tries to become what one is not.

Arnold Beisser

What the World Needs

Don't ask what the world needs.

Ask what makes you come alive and go do it.

Because what the world needs is

people who have come alive.

Howard Thurman

Finding God

If you don't find God in the next person you meet,
it is a waste of time looking for him further.

Mahatma Gandhi

Don't Talk Much

The older I grow,

the more I listen

to people who

don't talk much.

Germain Glien

Works of Art

Beautiful young people

are accidents of nature,
but beautiful old people

are works of art.

Eleanor Roosevelt

To Thine Own Self Be True

To thine own self be true.
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou can'st then be false to any man.

William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

Working on Ourselves

The trick is in what one emphasizes.
We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves happy.
The amount of work is the same.

Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan

What Lies Within Us

What lies behind us and
what lies in front of us
are tiny matters compared to
what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Victory is Yours

Better than a thousand
Hollow words
Is one word that brings peace.
Better than a thousand
Hollow verses
Is one verse that brings peace.
Better than a hundred
Hollow lines
Is one line of the law,
Bringing peace.
It is better to
Conquer yourself
Than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.

The Dhammapada

Geniuses

All children are born geniuses.
9,999 out of every 10,000
are swiftly, inadvertently,
de-geniused by grown-ups.

Buckminster Fuller

Buttons

You have to learn to get rid of the buttons
instead of the button pushers.

Yogi Amrit Desai

The Truth

Even if you are in a minority of one,
the truth is still the truth.

Mahatma Gandhi

Success

To laugh often and love much.
To win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affection of children.
To earn the approbation of honest critics
and to endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty.
To find the best in others.
To give of one's self.
To leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition.
To have played and laughed
with enthusiasm and sung in exultation.
To know that even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Where You Are Headed

Where you are headed
is more important
than where you are going.

Steven Covey

Judgments

Of all the judgments we pass in life,
none is as important as the one
we pass on ourselves.

Nathanial Branden

Anger

When you are right, you have no need to be angry.
When you are wrong, you have no right to be angry.

Mahatma Gandhi

Receiving Truth

There are very few human beings who receive the truth,
complete and staggering, by instant illumination.
Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment,
on a small scale, by successive developments,
cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.

Anais Nin

Be Who You Are

Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter
and those who matter don't mind.

Dr. Seuss

Discovering Your Path

Only if you reject all the other paths

can you discover your own path.

U.G. Krishnamurti (the "other" Krishnamurti)

Doing No Harm

There's a significant service to humanity
in spending time doing no harm.

Ted Kooser, former US Poet Laureate

For the First Time

With the drawing of this Love
and the voice of this Calling,
we shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring will be
to arrive where we started and
know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

Changing Direction

If you don't change the direction
in which you are going,
you will end up
where you are headed.

Confucius (reputedly)

What Most People Need

What most people need

is a good listening to.

Unknown

Success

There is but one success -
to be able to spend your life
in your own way.

Christopher Morley

Wisdom

Only by unlearning

[comes] Wisdom.

James Russell Lowell

Solving Problems

Problems cannot be solved
at the same level of awareness
that created them.

Albert Einstein

God's Religion

God has no religion.

Mahatma Gandhi

A Truth

Say not, "I have found the truth,"
but rather, "I have found a truth."

Kahlil Gibran

No Paths

Travelers, there is no path.
Paths are made by walking.

Antonio Machado

Certainty

Doubt is an uncomfortable condition,
but certainty is a ridiculous one.

Voltaire

The Buddha's Last Words

All conditioned things are impermanent.
Work out your own salvation with diligence.

The Buddha

Peace

Nothing can bring you
peace but yourself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Learn to Love Hell

When you learn to love hell,

you will be in heaven.

Thaddeus Golas

Going Back To God

Every day people are
straying away from church
and going back to God.

Lenny Bruce

What We Have Unlearned

Education consists mainly

in what we have unlearned.

Mark Twain

Appallingly Clear

It's become appallingly clear
that our technology has
surpassed our humanity.

Albert Einstein

A Different Kind of Life

The minute you begin to do
what you want to do,
it's really a different kind of life.

Buckminster Fuller