You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about...
Richard Feynman
As long as you are outside the door, a good portion of the journey is behind you.
Scandinavian saying
I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
Theodore Roosevelt
Unlike those nations whose rulers use their country's resources to seek conquests, to carry on warring contests with one another, and consequently plunge their people into debt and devastation, free societies are organized for the happiness and prosperity of their people, and this is best pursued in a state of peace.
Thomas Jefferson
Freedom: there's none unless you know the Self. But if you know the truth, then you are free.
The Upanishads
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Douglas Adams
Truth may walk through the world unarmed.
Bedouin proverb
I will not be involved in the dreams of angry men.
Hmong villager, Laos
Spirituality is connecting to the source of things, to the source of wonder and awe and pain and suffering and creativity and justice and compassion.
Matthew Fox
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.
Basho
The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.
Yasutani Roshi
Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while; A great wind is bearing me across the sky.
Ojibwa Saying
You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.
Indira Gandhi
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
Just like the two wings of a bird must be balanced for it to fly, so one cannot attain enlightenment unless wisdom is accompanied by compassion.
Ladakhi monk (NE Kashmir, Indian-Tibetan border)
It is only by following your deepest instinct that you can lead a rich life, and if you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, then your life will be safe, expedient and thin.
Katharine Butler Hathaway
To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
Bono
The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.
Epicurus
It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give happiness.
Thomas Jefferson
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
Helen Keller
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul Bellow
Contrary to what the politicians and religious leaders would like us to believe, the world won't be made safer by creating barriers between people.
Michael Palin
He who laughs most, learns best.
John Cleese
The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.
Vaclav Havel
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
Baruch Spinoza
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
Aldous Huxley
A moment comes when the true self reveals itself. That moment comes when you are willing to be unconditionally present in the imperfection of this moment. A simple change of attitude; instead of chasing after perfection, you allow a total and profound surrendering to the imperfection of the moment.
Tyohar
There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.
Harry Truman
The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself, because the self is the product and a part of the total process of human existence. To transform oneself, self-knowledge is essential, without knowing yourself there cannot be transformation.
J. Krishnamurti
That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is a grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the blessings of age is to learn not to part on a note of sharpness, to treasure the moments spent with those we love, and to make them whenever possible good to remember, for time is short.
Eleanor Roosevelt
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
Jimmy Carter
A good indignation brings out all one's powers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Perpetual inspiration is as necessary to the life of goodness, holiness and happiness as perpetual respiration is necessary to animal life.
Andrew Bonar Law
The world is a spell, an enchantement, an amazement, an arabesque of such stunning rhythm and a plot so intriguing that we are drawn by its web into a state of involvement where we forget that it is a game.
Alan Watts
The person resolute in the Way must from the beginning never lose sight of it, whether in a place of calm or in a place of strife. Beware of clinging to quiet places and shunning those where there is disturbance.
Daikaku
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.
Eric Hoffer
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
H. G. Wells, Outline of History
Just look away from all that happens in your mind and bring it to the feeling "I am". The "I am" is not a direction. It is the negation of all direction. Ultimately even the "I am" will have to go, for you need not keep on asserting what is obvious.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The tendency of man's nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. There are none but have this tendency to good, just as all water flows downwards.
Now by striking water and causing it to leap up, you may make it go over your forehead, and, by damming and leading it, you may force it up a hill; -- but are such movements according to the nature of water? Is it the force applied which causes them? When men are made to do what is not good, their nature is dealt with in this way. Mencius
Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't must a means to an end, but a unique event in itself.
Robert M. Pirsig
Treat those who are good with goodness,
Lao-Tzu
And also treat those who are not good with goodness.
Thus goodness is attained.
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
Francis Bacon
But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Friedrich Nietzsche
Demand not that events should happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.
Epictetus
The more faithfully you listen to the voices within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside.
Dag Hammarskjold
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.
Malcolm X
The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border.
Pablo Casals
If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much.
Lewis Carroll
Always be a first rate version of yourself, and not a second rate version of someone else.
Judy Garland
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Abraham Lincoln
When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
Edgar Watson Howe
It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying 'really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.
Quentin Crisp
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
Rabindranath Tagore
A human being is a part of the whole called by us "the universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening the circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein
Life is what we make it, and the world is what we make it. The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them.
Albert Pike
We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
Marcel Proust
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster.
Frederick Nietsche
It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
Lena Horne
If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions.
Padmasambhav
He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.
St. Augustine
It is wrong to think that misfortunes come from the east or from the west; they originate within one's own mind. Therefore, it is foolish to guard against misfortunes from the external world and leave the inner mind uncontrolled.
Buddha
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
Aristotle
The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real estate, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.
Bertrand Russell
Knowledge increases in proportion to its use - that is, the more we teach the more we learn.
H. P. Blavatsky
It is human nature to hate him whom you have injured.
Tacitus
Love people, use things. The opposite never works.
The Minimalists
The trouble with waking up to reality is that, once awake, you have to confront that you were, in some sense, asleep.
Holiday Mathis
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh
If the meditator is able to use whatever occurs in his life as the Path, his body becomes a retreat hut.
Jigme Lingpa
You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back
Clement Stone
Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done.
C. E. Stowe
Don't worry about temptation-- as you grow older, it starts avoiding you.
Old Farmer's Almanac
I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Khalil Gibran
Be good, be kind, be humane, and charitable; love your fellows; console the afflicted; pardon those who have done you wrong.
Zoroaster
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.
Audrey Hepburn
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.
Viktor E. Frankl
For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love - this is an old rule.
The Dhammapada
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Helen Keller
He said not 'Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased'; but he said, 'Thou shalt not be overcome.'
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
The quality of mercy is not strained.
William Shakespeare
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
When man awakens, he finds that he is part of the one great Reality and he realizes his union with all things.
Paramananda
Nirvana is not the blowing out of the candle. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come.
Rabindranath Tagore
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
Herman Melville
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
Goethe
Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world.
Margaret Laurence
Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'
Mary Anne Radmacher
The challenge of the saints of the twenty-first century is to begin again to comprehend the sacred in the ten thousand things of our world; to reverence what we have come to view as ordinary and devoid of spirit.
Edward Hays in Secular Sanctity
Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Harold Whitman
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
John Dryden
If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.
Francis Bacon
The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.
Albert Camus
The great awareness comes slowly, piece by piece. The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning. The experience of spiritual power is basically a joyful one.
M. Scott Peck
Life is a song - sing it. Life is a game - play it. Life is a challenge - meet it. Life is a dream - realize it. Life is a sacrifice - offer it. Life is love - enjoy it.
Sai Baba
Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.
Baruch Spinoza
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.
Johann W. Goethe
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
Richard Bach
Harmony is eating and resting, sleeping and waking; balance in all you do. This is the path to peace.
Bhagavad Gita
History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.
Thomas Jefferson
Hate is like acid. It can damage the vessel in which it is stored as well as destroy the object on which it is poured.
Ann Landers
What matters is to live in the present, live now, for every moment is now. It is your thoughts and acts of the moment that create your future. The outline of your future path already exists, for you created its pattern by your past.
Sai Baba
It reduces itself to this. You have to be in the right place at the right time, but when it comes, you better have something on the ball.
Groucho Marx
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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
The quieter you become the more you can hear.
Ram Dass
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
Abraham Lincoln
You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.
Maya Angelou
The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.
James A. Baldwin
Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Frederick Douglass, died February 20, 1895
When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.
Carter G. Woodson
Man is a credulous animal and must believe in something. In the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell
Some say if you want success surround yourself with successful people. I say if you want true and lasting success surround yourself with people of integrity.
Charles F. Glassman
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius
You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.
Eric Hoffer
Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex.
M. Scott Peck
Examples are few of men ruined by giving.
Christian Bovèe
Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it is too late. Today, this hour, this minute is the day, the hour, the minute for each of us to sense the fact that life is good, with all of its trials and troubles, and perhaps more interesting because of them.
Robert R. Updegraff
Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
Charles Mingus
My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
T. S. Eliot
The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you. The world is what you are.
Thomas Dreier
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
Voltaire
You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.
Henry Emerson Fosdick
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
Albert Einstein
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
Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Mark Twain
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
America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.
George H. W. Bush
During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions; but none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual, or the ability to think.
Bernard Baruch
In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
Mahatma Gandhi
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Stand Tall and Proud
Ilan Shamir, Advice from a Tree
Sink your roots deeply into the Earth
Reflect the light of a greater source
Think long term
Go out on a limb
Remember your place among all living beings
Embrace with joy the changing seasons
For each yields its own abundance
The Energy and Birth of Spring
The Growth and Contentment of Summer
The Wisdom to let go of leaves in the Fall
The Rest and Quiet Renewal of Winter.
The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.
Virginia Woolf
Seek after the treasure that is unfailing, that is abiding, where no moth comes to consume, and no worm destroys.
The Gospel of Thomas
My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.
Maya Angelou
Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river.
Saying of Madagascar
The world is new to us every morning--this is God's gift, and every person should believe he is reborn everyday.
Baal Shem Tov
Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
Meister Eckhart
The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.
Henry S. Hoskins
The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.
Ivy Baker Priest
Enlightenment means life lived in accord with all the laws of nature.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
If you want joy, give joy to others; if you want love, learn to give love; if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation; if you want material affluence, help others to become materially afluent. In fact, the easiest way to get what you want is to help others get what they want.
Deepak Chopra in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
Louis L'Amour
Every tomorrow is an outcome of what I do today, and the beauty of it all is that today is happening all the time.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
John Adams
I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
H. L. Mencken
Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Christmas gives us the opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us - a time when we can look back on the year that has passed and prepare for the year ahead.
David Cameron
Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love
Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
Benjamin Franklin
You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can decide how you're going to live now.
Joan Baez
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
Chief Crowfoot
If you understand, things are just as they are.
Zen Proverb
If you do not understand, things are just as they are.
Whoever controls the language, the images, controls the race.
Allen Ginsberg
To the dull mind nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not think that you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment.
Zen Saying
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
Cicero
Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.
Joseph Campbell
It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
W. Somerset Maugham
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.
Voltaire
Learn the truth, live in truth, open the heart and let your life be filled with love, then you will experience absolute joy, peace and the unity of all mankind.
Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Hatred ever kills, love never dies; such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.
Martha Washington
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
Helen Keller
A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.
Jessamyn West
Anything you strive to hold captive will hold you captive and if you desire freedom you must give freedom.
Peace Pilgrim
I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels.
Pearl S. Buck
The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.
George Eliot
I have learned not to worry about love;
Alice Walker
But to honor its coming with all my heart.
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.
Henry David Thoreau
People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.
James Baldwin
©2017 Tom Barrett