There are times when
it helps to hear, read or see something that makes us think differently. It
could be inspirational or offer a new way to cope with our current situation.
It can provide an insight into the mystery of life or help us recognize what we
should be doing versus what we are doing.
Over the years, when
I come across something that makes me stop and take notice, I add them to my “quotes
files.” When I’m feeling a bit perplexed or in a funk, I find it helpful to
read them.
The first quote that
I remember wanting to memorize was by the humorist and author of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, James Thurber. Let us not look back in anger, nor
forward in fear, but around in awareness. Thurber
was into mindfulness way before it became popular.
While I’ve included
some of the phrases from my "Quotes" stash below, I encourage you to develop your
own and store them where you have easy access to them.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone
else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of
other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your
own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and
intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything
else is secondary. Steve Jobs
The
intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We
have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Albert Einstein
We are
all in this world together - people , plants and animals - and we had better
make the most of our opportunities. We are all here for some purpose: I believe
that it is to live a good life, individually and collectively. That means for
us humans to do as little harm as possible, to other humans, to animals and to
the whole environment, and to do as much good as possible. to live simply,
not elaborately; to consume the least possible, not the most possible. If you
have any religion, let it be helpfulness, love and unity. We will then fulfil
the purpose and take our part in the great plan. It is as simple as that. Helen
Nearing
Truth is
a pathless land." Man cannot come to it through any organization, through
any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic
knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of
relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind,
through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective
dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security --
religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The
burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his
daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man
from man. Krishnamurti
I finally learned, with the help of this therapist, that
depression didn't need to be pictured as the hand of an enemy trying to crush
me, but rather the hand of a friend trying to press me down to ground on which
it was safe to stand. And through that realization, I understood that part of
what took me into depression was that I was living life at artificial heights,
at untenable elevations, so that the elevation involving a kind of inflated ego
or a free-floating spirituality or a detached sense of "oughts" and
in that sense a false ethic, or simply living intellectually in my head more
than in my feelings and in my body, that all of those things put you at such
altitude that if you trip and fall, which you're inevitably going to do. Parker
Palmer
Forget about fear of pain. It's usually much worse than the
actual pain. Epicurus
You gain strength,
courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look
fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. Eleanor
Roosevelt
No tree has branches so foolish as to fight amongst
themselves. Ojibwa saying
Paul Goble (From: Beyond the Ridge):
“Anything that has a
birth must also have a death.
The spirit is not born with a
person,
But is given at the
time of birth.
Therefore, because the spirit has no birth,
It will never die.”
Don't Turn an Excuse into an
Identity Tony Robbins
Om [his term for God] told me that there is not one universe
but many-in fact, more than I could conceive-but that love lay at the center of
them all. Evil was present in all the other universes as well, but only in the
tiniest trace amounts. Evil was necessary because with out it free will was
impossible, and without free will there could be no growth-no forward movement,
no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be. Horrible and
all-powerful as evil sometimes seemed to be in a world like ours, in the larger
picture, love was overwhelmingly dominant, and it would ultimately be
triumphant." “Proof of Heaven: A neurosurgeon’s Journey into the
Afterlife.” Eben Alexander MD
"Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"People often ask me at
this age, ‘Who am I passing the torch to?’ First of all, I’m not giving up my
torch, thank you! I’m using my torch to light other people’s torches. … If we
each have a torch, there’s a lot more light." Gloria Steinem
