Spiritual Matters
A Guidebook for
Spiritual Growth
Famous Writers in a “Poetic Quotation Symposium"
“Poetic Quotations” are historic quotes arranged in such a way as to make them sound like a “stream of consciousness” speech. And in some instances, a dialog happens between the writers on various subject matters that creates the effect of a “Literary Time-Machine.”
by Richard Alan Krieger
Copyright 2023
author of the book
Spiritual Matters
(Audio Highlights)
https://richardalankriegercrane.bandcamp.com/album/spiritual-matters
Table of Contents
MAYA
THE DREAM
THE PATH
TRUTH
KNOWLEDGE
WISDOM
LIFE
LOVE
HAPPINESS
HOPE
PEACE
DREAMS
COMPASSION
KINDNESS
FORGIVENESS
VIRTUE
COURAGE
SELF-RESPECT
CHARACTER BUILDING
ETHICAL CODES
PROVERBS
MATERIALISM
GOOD VS. EVIL
CHANGE
DEATH
MYSTERY
GOD
RELIGION
SPIRITUALITY
NATURE
THE GOLDEN AGE
Introduction
The Storyline Order of “Spiritual Matters”
(The title of each topic is in “quotation marks”)
We are born into a world that is known as “Maya” (meaning ‘Illusion’) in Eastern religions and philosophies. It is known to have an illusionary nature and “Dream” like quality to it. In the last century Western science has also confirmed this to be the case.
Our life’s search for true meaning doesn’t really begin until the day we find “The Path” that leads us to our spirituality. Once that happens, the “Truth” is revealed to us in greater clarity. For we are then empowered with the “Knowledge” we had been looking for all along that turns into “Wisdom.”
“Life” begins anew as we share our “Love” unconditionally which brings us and others “Happiness.” We “Hope” as well as create a greater “Peace” that inspires us to manifest our “Dreams.” Our hearts open with “Compassion,” “Forgiveness,” and “Virtue,” as we find the “Courage” to stand up for ourselves with “Self-Respect.”
It then dawns upon us the connection of how our life’s many challenges were important “Character Building” experiences that we had to go through as to grow our spirituality. Realizing this enhances the foundation of our “Ethical Codes” that are based on the time honored “Proverbs” that have been passed on from one generation to the next.
We encounter many temptations that “Materialism” tries to seduce us with. But that only leads us to better understand the “Good vs. Evil” paradigm by using our discernment to be able to differentiate correctly between the two.
We come to terms with the inevitably of “Change” and dance with it instead of fighting it. For as we grow older, we grow wiser and learn not to fear “Death.” For although it is a “Mystery,” we intrinsically feel that it’s only an ending here… which turns into a new beginning somewhere over there… in the Multiverse.
In time, most people awaken to the reality that a Divine Intelligence was behind the creation of everything. Some people label that as “God” and find him/her (or both) through “Religion,” while others connect with that Force/Source through “Spirituality.” Either way, it all eventually works out towards the “Enlightenment” of our entire civilization as a whole.
And when that happens, we shall once again embrace “Nature” as our Mother and live in peace and tranquility with her.
This will then create “The Golden Age” for you and me… that was long ago foretold as our destiny…
MAYA
“Maya is the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real.” ~ Encyclopaedia Britannica
“Your soul has a special mission. Your soul is supremely conscious of it. Maya, illusion or forgetfulness, makes you feel that you are finite, weak and helpless. This is not true. You are not the body. You are not the senses. You are not the mind. These are all limited. You are the soul, which is unlimited. Your soul is infinitely powerful. Your soul defies all time and space.” ~ Sri Chinmoy
“The only reality is the reality of the soul. What a human being achieves in his or her soul is reality.” ~ Rudolf Steiner
"Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached "reality"; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya [illusion]. Everything that is finite is illusion, all that which is eternal and infinite is reality.” ~ Helena Blavatsky
“Our reality is an illusion by its very nature considering the fact that scientists discovered that matter is mostly made up of empty space. If you were to combine all the atoms of the 7 billion people on earth it would be the size of a sugar cube.” ~ Author Unknown
“The world is only as real as the image that is seen in a mirror.” ~ Dakshinamurthy Stotra
“What is matter? Nothing but a particular rate of vibration of God’s cosmic energy. No form in the universe is really solid. That which appears so is merely a compact or gross vibration of His energy.” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“What we have called matter is energy whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter. The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. The illusion that we are separate from one another is an optical delusion of our consciousness.” ~ Albert Einstein
“What Albert Einstein termed ‘optical delusion,’ the Indians of Asia termed Maya or Illusion.” ~ Mohit K. Misra
“All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never-ending cycles all things and phenomena.” “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” ~ Nikola Tesla
“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. Therefore everything we humans think of as ‘’real’’ at ‘’our level of existence’’ is actually comprised of energy-force-filled space.” ~ Niels Bohr
“While the world we see is in some sense ‘real,’ it is not located at the fundamental level of reality. I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find none.” ~ Nick Bostrom
“We’re most likely in a simulation.” ~ Elon Musk
“If you study quantum physics, it says the same thing. The name and shapes of objects is not real, what is real is that they are all part of One Wave Function. Everything is made up of One energy. This is what the Vedanta (Vedic Scriptures) always said.” ~ Naveen Sanagala
“In Hindu philosophy the whole creation is regarded as the Vishnu Lila, the play of Vishnu. Lila means dance or play. They call the world illusion; and in Latin the root of the word illusion is ludere, to play.” ~ Alan Watts
“One should know that Nature is illusion, and that Brahman is the illusion maker. This whole world is pervaded with beings that are parts of him.” ~ Svetasvatara Upanishad
“Maya and Brahman together constitute the entire universe, just like two kinds of interwoven threads create a fabric. Maya is the manifestation of the world, whereas Brahman, which supports Maya, is the cause of the world.” ~ Prakasatman
“Maya is the “consciousness” of God “Brahma.” This definition of Maya gives it substantially more credibility than regarding it as illusion.” ~ Sri Aurobindo
“An illusion is not something that does not exist but something that is not the way it seems.” ~ Susan Blackmore
“Nothing is more probable than that what we call illusion is very real for the psyche.” ~ Carl Jung
“All illusions have a reality to them, and if we are experiencing an illusion we are, by definition, experiencing its reality. It is not possible to watch a movie without seeing the screen.” ~ Rupert Spira
“Maya and Lila answer the questions ‘how’ and ‘why’ with regard to the world. To the question ‘why’ creation? The answer is ‘Lila’ and to the question ‘How creation’ the answer is through Maya.” ~ Basant Kumar Lal
“So, without denying the existence of the illusory Maya, it is essential for one to understand and experience, through self contemplation, the impermanence of our body, our mind, and the objects and fruits of our attachments on the one hand and the enduring permanence of our true self on the other.” ~ Dr Ajay Kr. Sharma
“We see not the Self, concealed by Maya; When the veil falls, we see we are the Self.” ~ The Upanishads
“Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all Maya, Illusion?” ~ Walt Whitman
“Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.” ~ Ludwig Börne
“What is real? Is there more to reality than meets the eye? Yes! was Plato’s answer over two millennia ago. In his famous cave analogy, he likened us to people who’d lived their entire lives shackled in a cave, facing a blank wall, watching the shadows cast by things passing behind them, and eventually coming to mistakenly believe that these shadows were the full reality. Plato argued that what we humans call our everyday reality is similarly just a limited and distorted representation of the true reality, and that we must free ourselves from our mental shackles to begin comprehending it.” ~ Max Tegmark
“If Plato’s prisoners were able to examine the shadows from a higher perspective, the entire affair would make more sense. Basically, they would have found a model for their reality that fits better than the old model. This is exactly what mystics have been telling us for thousands of years—that the world around us is a kind of illusion, and there is a reality beyond what we can see.” ~ Rizwan Virk
“Look at the world as an illusion. Seeing this physical world as an illusion ironically allows you to enjoy it more and stay inspired.” ~ Wayne Dyer
“When one sees that everything exists as an illusion, one can live in a higher sphere than an ordinary man.” ~ Buddha
“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” ~ Morpheus, “The Matrix”
THE DREAM
“Open your eyes, for this world is only a dream. Wake up!” ~ Rumi
“Waking consciousness is dreaming – but dreaming constrained by external reality.” ~ Oliver Sacks
“In a real sense, all the visions that we see in our lifetime are like a big dream.” ~ Chögyal Namkhai Norbu
“Life, what is it but a dream?” ~ Lewis Carroll
“Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily… life is but a dream.” ~ Nursery Ryhme
“Once upon a time, a man dreamt he was a butterfly. When he awakened he wondered if he was then a man who dreamt he was a butterfly, or whether he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man.” ~ Taoist Parable
“Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” ~ Morpheus, “The Matrix”
“This ‘world’ began to forget it was Oneness, like a dream forgetting it is the dreamer.” ~ David Icke
“Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.” ~ Black Elk
“Those who stop dreaming are lost.” ~ Australian Aboriginal Proverb
“At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external.” ~ Sri Aurobindo
“Aborigines believe in two forms of time. Two parallel streams of activity. One is the daily objective activity to which you and I are confined. The other is an infinite spiritual cycle called the “dreamtime,” more real than reality itself.” ~ Peter Weir
“The whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is all at once scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience and critic.” ~ Carl Jung
“Mystics of all traditions have told us that what we perceive as reality is actually more like a dream.” ~ Rizwan Virk
“Life is only a dream… and we are the imagination of ourselves.” ~ Bill Hicks
“All that we see and seem is but a dream within a dream.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe
“The dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.” ~ T. S. Eliot
“The years that are gone seem like dreams — if one might go on sleeping and dreaming — but to wake up and find — oh! Well! Perhaps it is better to wake up after all. Even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.” ~ Kate Chopin
“My goodness, it’s all a dream. But what a magnificent dream! A great work of art. Art in the highest sense. Maya means illusion but a lot more besides. It means magic. It means art. It means creative power.” ~ Alan Watts
“Suffering just means you’re having a bad dream. Happiness means you’re having a good dream. Enlightenment means getting out of the dream altogether.” ~ Jed McKenna
“When you constantly keep your mind in God, you will realize that this world is His dream.” “We are here today, tomorrow we are gone, mere shadows in a Cosmic Dream. But behind the unreality of these fleeting pictures is the immortality of Spirit.” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
THE PATH
“You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.” ~ Buddha
“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.” ~ Ram Dass
“We have all been placed on this earth to discover our own path.” ~ James Van Praagh
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.” ~ Dakota Native American Proverb
“Do not be led by others, awaken your own mind, amass your own experience, and decide for yourself your own path.” ~ Atharva Veda
“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road does not mean they are lost.” ~ Dalai Lama
"The warrior who trusts his path doesn't need to prove the other is wrong." ~ Paulo Coelbo
“Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.” ~ Hindu Proverb
"The spiritual path is not a race, every flower blooms in its own time." ~ Martin Soulreader
“Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.” ~ Pema Chödrön
“An enlightened man had but one duty — to seek the way to himself, to reach inner certainty, to grope his way forward, no matter where it led.” ~ Hermann Hesse
“Man is lost and is wandering in a jungle where real values have no meaning. Real values can have meaning to man only when he steps onto the spiritual path.” ~ Sai Baba
“To walk the spiritual path is to continually step out into the unknown.” ~ Wallace Huey
“Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic – this is the spiritual path.” ~ Pema Chödrön
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." ~ Robert Frost
“The spiritual path is not strewn with roses.” ~ Haridas Chaudhuri
“Obstacles do not block the path, they are the path.” ~ Zen Proverb
“If your path is more difficult, it is because of your high calling.” ~ Vassiliki Mandalou
“Being on a spiritual path does not prevent you from facing times of darkness. But it teaches you how to use the darkness as a tool to grow.” ~ Unknown Author
“The spiritual path wrecks the body and afterwards restores it to health. It destroys the house to unearth the treasure, and with that treasure builds it better than before.” ~ Rumi
“The idea is not to regard the spiritual path as something very luxurious and pleasurable but to see it as just facing the facts of life.” ~ Chogyam Trungpa
“If you find no one to support you on the spiritual path, walk alone. There is no companionship with the immature.” ~ Buddha
“There is no failure on the spiritual path, all experiences expand your Soul.” ~ Martian Soulreader
“Following the light, the sage takes care of all.” ~ Lao Tsu
"In shamanic cultures, synchronicities are recognized as signs that you are on the right path." ~ Daniel Pinchbeck
“There are two rules on the Spiritual Path: Begin and continue…” ~ Sufi Saying
“The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” ~ Psalms 32:8
“The spiritual path is to discover your true identity… which is The Ocean and not the drop.” ~ Dorl Ishwar Puri
“The spiritual path is not one of attainment, but of return.” ~ Alan Cohen
TRUTH
“There is no law higher than truth.” ~ Helena Blavatsky
“The truth shall set you free.” ~ John 8:32
“The pursuit of Truth is true devotion. It is the path that leads to God.” ~ Gandhi
“Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion.” ~ Ayn Rand
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle
“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of the truth.” ~ Albert Einstein
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” ~ Mark Twain
“The further a society drifts from the truth... the more it will hate those who speak it.” ~ George Orwell
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” ~ John F. Kennedy
“Truth does not change because it is or is not believed by a majority of the people.” ~ Giordano Bruno
“The truth is paradoxical to the extent of being exactly contrary to the usual perception.” ~ Georges Bataille
“All great truths begin as blasphemies.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“In a time of universal deceit — telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell
“When it is uncomfortable, when it is unpopular, even when it is dangerous to speak the truth… that is precisely the time that truth should be spoken.” ~ Unknown Author
“A lie has many variations, the truth none.” ~ African Proverb
“It’s hard to accept the truth when the lies were exactly what you wanted to hear.” ~ Unknown Author
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful.” ~ George Orwell
“Adversity is the first path to truth.” ~ Lord Byron
“If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.” ~ Julian Assange
“You can always recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.” ~ Richard Feynman
“It does not require many words to speak the truth.” ~ Chief Joseph
“Infinite love is the only truth. Everything else is illusion.” ~ David Icke
“The strength of a person's spirit would then be measured by how much 'truth' he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” ~ St. Augustine
“Truth can not be suppressed and always is the ultimate victor.” ~ Yajur Veda
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” ~ Buddha
“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light.” ~ George Washington
“For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.” ~ Luke 8:17
KNOWLEDGE
“Knowledge is power.” ~ Francis Bacon
“Knowledge is the true organ of sight, not the eyes.” ~ Panchatantra
“We don't see things the way they are; we see things the way we are.” ~ Anais Nin
"People only see what they are prepared to see." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts." ~ Albert Einstein
"You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” ~ Ayn Rand
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~ Pema Chödrön
“The trouble is, you think you have time.” ~ Buddha
“Recognize that ‘unlearning’ is the highest form of ‘learning.’” ~ Rumi
“Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.” ~ Walt Whitman
“Never utter these words: ‘I do not know this – therefore it is false.’ One must study to know, know to understand, understand to judge.” ~ Narada
"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” ~ Aristotle
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think. Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” ~ Socrates
“The fire of Knowledge burns all Karmas to ashes.” ~ Bhagavad Gita
“Self-knowledge is the basis of true knowledge.” ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” ~ Confucius
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance — it is the illusion of knowledge.” ~ Daniel Boorstin
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.” ~ Mark Twain
“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.” ~ James Thurber
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“What harm in getting knowledge even from a sot, a pot, a fool, a mitten, or an old slipper?” ~ Rabelais
“I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief.” ~ Gerry Spence
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” ~ Richard Feynman
“The greater our knowledge increases the greater our ignorance unfolds.” ~ John F. Kennedy
“Learning, the destroyer of arrogance, begets arrogance in fools; even as light, that illumines the eye, makes owls blind.” ~ Panchatantra
“To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.” ~ Confucius
“The raft of knowledge ferries the worst sinner to safety.” ~ Bhagavad-gita
“Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.” ~ Plato
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” ~ Hosea 4:6
“Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
WISDOM
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.” ~ Norman Cousins
“Wisdom rises upon the ruins of folly.” ~ Thomas Fuller
“Wisdom comes by disillusionment.” ~ George Santayana
“Wisdom comes alone through suffering.” ~ Agamemnon
“Wisdom is seeing wounds and obstacles as blessings.” ~ Maxime Lagacé
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding.” ~ Proverbs 4:7
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ~ Socrates
“The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” ~ Voltaire
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ~ Aristotle
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” ~ Socrates
“Doubt is the origin of wisdom.” ~ Augustine of Hippo
“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.” ~ Horace
“A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.” ~ Michel de Montaigne
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” ~ Lao Tzu
“If one is too lazy to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.” ~ Cyril Connolly
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” ~ Confucius
“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
“It is said that wisdom lies in not seeing things, but seeing through things.” ~ Manly P. Hall
“The true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind.” ~ Maurice Maeterlinck
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” ~ Immanuel Kant
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” ~ Isaac Asimov
“None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.” ~ Daniel 12:10
“The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.” ~ Cicero
“Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold.” ~ Bob Marley
“No man was ever wise by chance.” ~ Seneca
“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
“He is not wise that is not wise for himself.” ~ English Proverb
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” ~ William Shakespeare
“A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence.” ~ Pythagoras
“The heart of fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“Much wisdom often goes with fewest words.” ~ Sophocles
“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.” ~ Francis Bacon
“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.” ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Common sense suits itself to the ways of the world. Wisdom tries to conform to the ways of Heaven.” ~ Joseph Joubert
“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
“Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.” ~ Jordan B. Peterson
“Each one must learn for himself the highest wisdom. It cannot be taught in words.” ~ Smowhala, Wanapum
LIFE
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” ~ Helen Keller
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ~ Gandhi
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” ~ Grandma Moses
“Life has value only when it has something valuable as its object.” ~ Georg Hegel
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” ~ Confucius
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard
“Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Life is trying things to see if they work.” ~ Ray Bradbury
“Life is a culmination of the past, an awareness of the present, an indication of a future beyond knowledge, the quality that gives a touch of divinity to matter.” ~ Charles Lindbergh
“Life is a pilgrimage. The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns. He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his ultimate destination.” ~ Swami Sivananda
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” ~ Hans Christian Andersen
“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” ~ John Lennon
“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~ E. M. Forster
“Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” ~ Pablo Picasso
“Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” ~ Mark Twain
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“It's a luxury to pursue what makes you happy; it's a moral obligation to pursue what you find meaningful.” ~ Jordan B. Peterson
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” ~ Joseph Campbell
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” ~ Albert Einstein
“The most important thing is to enjoy your life — to be happy — it’s all that matters.” ~ Audrey Hepburn
“That it will never come again is what makes life sweet. Dwell in possibility. Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” ~ Emily Dickinson
“The greatest pleasure of life is love.” ~ Euripides
“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” ~ George Sand
“We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Life is a flower of which love is the honey.” ~ Victor Hugo
"The unexamined life is not worth living.” ~ Socrates
“The history of our spiritual life is a continuing search for the unity between ourselves and the world. Religion, art, and science follow, one and all, this aim.” ~ Rudolf Steiner
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist that is all.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.” ~ Osho
“Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can be.” ~ Mary Mapes Dodge
“Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.” ~ Seneca
“May you live all the days of your life.” ~ Jonathan Swift
“Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life.” ~ John Wooden
“We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snowflake.” ~ Sir Francis Bacon
“The time of life is short! To spend that shortness basely were too long.” ~ William Shakespeare
“What most counts is not to live, but to live aright.” ~ Socrates
“From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live.” ~ Jean Rousseau
“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.” ~ C.S. Lewis
“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
“Men cling to life even at the cost of enduring great misfortune.” ~ Aristotle
“The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much.” ~ William Hazlitt
“It has always been difficult for man to realize that his life is all an art. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it so.” ~ Havelock Ellis
“Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.” ~ Albert Camus
“A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.” ~ Rita Mae Brown
“Man arrives as a novice at each age of his life.” ~ Nicolas Chamfort
“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“What is a great life if not a youthful idea executed by the man of mature years?” ~ Alfred de Vigny
“The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” ~ Tom Bodett
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ~ Marie Curie
“The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.” ~ Frank Sinatra
“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.” ~ Marilyn Monroe
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” ~ John Lennon
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
LOVE
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.” ~ Jean Anouilh
“Love is cure. Love is power. Love is the magic of changes. Love is the mirror of divine beauty.” ~ Rumi
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” ~ Aristotle
“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only with what you are expecting to give — which is everything.” ~ Katharine Hepburn
“Love is not love until love’s vulnerable.” ~ Theodore Roethke
“Love should be a tree whose roots are deep in the earth, but whose branches extend into heaven.” ~ Bertrand Russell
“Love dies only when growth stops.” ~ Pearl S. Buck
“Love makes the time pass. Time makes love pass.” ~ French Proverb
“Love knows hidden paths.” ~ German Proverb
“Love is an excuse for its own faults.” ~ Italian Proverb
“Love is sweet, but tastes best with bread.” ~ Yiddish Proverb
“Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.” ~ Gandhi
“The greatest love is a mother’s; then comes a dog’s; then comes a sweetheart’s.” ~ Polish Proverb
“Where there is love there is pain.” ~ Spanish Proverb
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.” ~ Sophocles
“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” ~ Plato
“I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still… I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose.” ~ Emily Dickinson
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” ~ Song of Solomon 8:7
“There is no remedy for love but to love more.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.” ~ John 4:18
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
“That's what real love amounts to — letting a person be what they really are. Most people love you for who you pretend to be.” ~ Jim Morrison
“Immature love says: “I love you because I need you.” Mature love says: “I need you because I love you.” ~ Erich Fromm
“There is more pleasure in loving than in being beloved.” ~ Thomas Fuller
“The supreme happiness in life is the connection that we are loved.” ~ Victor Hugo
“If you’d be loved, be worthy to be loved.” ~ Ovid
“We live in the world when we love it.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” ~ Lord Tennyson
“A heart filled with love is like a phoenix that no cage can imprison.” ~ Rumi
“No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Since love grows with you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.” ~ Saint Augustine
“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
“The absolute value of love makes life worth while, and so makes man’s strange and difficult situation acceptable. Love cannot save life from death; but it can fulfill life’s purpose.” ~ Arnold J. Toynbee
“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Walk beside me that we may be as one.” ~ Ute Native American Proverb
HAPPINESS
“Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions.” “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” ~ Aristotle
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ~ Dalai Lama
“Happiness starts with you. Not with your relationships, not with your job, not with your money… but with you.” ~ Unknown Author
“Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts.” ~ Chinese Proverb
“Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.” ~ Joseph Wood Krutch
“Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body.” ~ Cyril Connolly
“Happiness depends, as Nature sows, less on exterior things than most suppose.” ~ William Cowper
“Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.” ~ Maxim Gorky
“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” ~ Robert Frost
“Happiness is your birthright. Live it!” ~ Yogi Bhajan
“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition, and not our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.” ~ Martha Washington
“No man is happy who does not think himself so.” ~ Publilius Syrus
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
“Two men looked out from prison bars, one saw the mud, the other saw stars.” ~ Dale Carnegie
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you.” ~ Walt Whitman
“He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.” ~ Proverbs 15:15
“He is happy that knoweth not himself to be other wise.” ~ Thomas Fuller
“I am happy and content because I think I am.” ~ Alain-Rene Lesage
“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” ~ Omar Khayyam
“I have the happiness of the passing moment, and what more can mortal ask?” ~ George Gissing
“It is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while.” ~ Don Marquis
“We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.” ~ Francois La Rochefoucauld
“We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.” ~ Maurice Maeterlinck
“He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sunrise.” ~ William Blake
“The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.” ~ John Berry
“The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” ~ Erich Hoffer
“Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don’t set any conditions.” ~ Arthur Rubinstein
“Indeed man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.” ~ St. Augustine
“A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.” ~ Samuel Johnson
“The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” ~ Jeremy Bentham
“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Modern man’s happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in buying all the he can afford to buy, either for cash or on installments.” ~ Erich Fromm
“When we are not rich enough to be able to purchase happiness, we must not approach too near and gaze on it in shop windows.” ~ Tristan Bernard
“It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly.” ~ Epicurus
“Happiness of any given life is to be measured, not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering - from positive evil.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
“The happiest is he who suffers the least pain; the most miserable, he who enjoys the least pleasure.” ~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“One moment may with bliss repay unnumbered hours of pain.” ~ Thomas Campbell
“Do anything, but let it produce joy.” ~ Walt Whitman
“What’s a joy to the one is a nightmare to the other. That’s how it is today, that’s how it’ll be forever.” ~ Bertolt Brecht
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” ~ Helen Keller
“Unhappy is the man, though he rule the world, who doesn’t consider himself supremely blest.” ~ Seneca
“It is God’s giving if we laugh or weep.” ~ Sophocles
“Eden is that old-fashioned House we dwell in every day without suspecting our abode until we drive away.” ~ Emily Dickinson
“There is only one real happiness in life, and that is the happiness of creating.” ~ Frederick Delius
“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.” ~ George Sand
“Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.” ~ Peter Deunov
“This Universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.” ~ Rumi
HOPE
“Hope is a waking dream.” ~ Aristotle
“Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.” ~ Pliny the Elder
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.” ~ Alexander Pope
“Hope is a passion for the possible.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard
“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering 'it will be happier’…” ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness.” ~ Desmond Tutu
“Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable.” ~ Samuel Johnson
“Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” ~ G.K. Chesterton
“Hope is the last thing ever lost.” ~ Italian proverb
“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” ~ Emily Dickinson
“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.” ~ John Lennon
“We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” ~ Amy Tan
“When there’s life there’s hope.” ~ Cicero
“Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“Everything that is done in this world is done by hope.” ~ Martin Luther
“He who has hope has everything.” ~ Arabian Proverb
“He fishes on who catches one.” ~ French Proverb
“A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope.” ~ Thomas Carlyle
“Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.” ~ Samuel Johnson
“What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ~ Thomas Merton
“No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.” ~ Dalai Lama
“Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us to invent it.” ~ Albert Camus
“Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope, and few are reduced so low as that.” ~ William Hazlitt
“If it were not for hopes, the heart would break.” ~ Thomas Fuller
“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” ~ Proverbs 13:12
“The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.” ~ William Shakespeare
“The reason of idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes.” ~ John F. Kennedy
“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” ~ Nelson Mandela
“In all things it is better to hope than to despair.” ~ Johann von Goethe
“We always kept in our hearts the most noble, beautiful feeling that sets human beings apart: hope.” ~ Manel Loureiro
“Earth’s troubles fade in the light of heaven’s hope.” ~ Billy Graham
“Even now I am full of hope, but the end lies in God.” ~ Pindar
“Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, — ‘Wait and hope.’” ~ Alexandre Dumas
“Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, makes nothing of usurping infinity, immensity, eternity, and of supplying its master’s indigence, at its pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire.” ~ Michel de Montaigne
“Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Yesterday is but a dream, Tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.” ~ Kālidāsa
PEACE
“Peace is liberty in tranquility.” ~ Cicero
“Peace begins with a smile.” ~ Mother Teresa
“Peace is always beautiful.” ~ Walt Whitman
“Peace is the presence of love.” ~ Sri Chinmoy
“Peace comes from within, do not seek it without.” ~ Buddha
“Peace is when time doesn’t matter as it passes by.” ~ Maria Schell
“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” ~ Wayne Dyer
“Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment.” ~ Nikola Tesla
“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.” ~ Unknown Author
“Peace begins in your heart. Grows in your mind. Manifests through your will and spreads through your action.” ~ Anna Pereira
“Peace is not something you wish for, it is something you make, something you are, something you do, and something you give away.” ~ Robert Fulghum
“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations... entangling alliances with none.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.” ~ John Greenleaf Whittier
“Peace hath victories no less renowned than war.” ~ John Milton
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Arms alone are not enough to keep the peace. It must be kept by men.” ~ John F. Kennedy
“We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion.” ~ Mother Teresa
“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.” ~ Thomas Mann
“After all, no one is stupid enough to prefer war to peace; in peace sons bury their fathers and in war fathers bury their sons.” ~ Herodotus
“There never was a good war, or a bad peace.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“Certain peace is better and safer than anticipated victory.” ~ Livy
“All men desire peace, but very few desire those things that make for peace.” ~ Thomas a Kempis
“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.” ~ Aristotle
“No one can have peace longer than his neighbor pleases.” ~ Dutch Proverb
“You may call for peace as loudly as you wish, but where there is no brotherhood there can in the end be no peace.” ~ Max Lerner
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ~ Mother Teresa
“Don’t let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” ~ Dalai Lama
“There is no path to peace, peace is the path.” ~ Gandhi
“All we are saying… is give peace a chance.” ~ John Lennon
“Learning to distance yourself from all the negativity is one of the greatest lessons to achieve inner peace.” ~ Roy T. Bennett
“To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.” ~ Milan Kundera
“Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book.” ~ Thomas a Kempis
“Many people think excitement is happiness... But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” ~ Dalai Lama
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” ~ Lao Tzu
“Ego says: 'Once everything falls into place, I will find peace.' Spirit says: 'Find peace and everything will fall into place.” ~ Marianne Williamson
“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
“We don’t realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert
“If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nations. When there is order in the nations, there will be peace in the world.” ~ Confucius
“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~ Gandhi
DREAMS
“Nothing happens unless first we dream.” ~ Carl Sandburg
“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.” ~ Khalil Gibran
“Don’t dream your life… but live your dream.” ~ Mark Twain
“You’ve got to follow that dream, wherever that dream may lead.” ~ Elvis Presley
“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?'” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“If you don’t have a dream, how are you going to make a dream come true?” ~ Oscar Hammerstein
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” ~ Walt Disney
“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” ~ Douglas H. Everett
“I don’t dream at night, I dream all day; I dream for a living.” ~ Steven Spielberg
“Dreams are not those which comes while we are sleeping, but dreams are those when you don't sleep before fulfilling them.” ~ A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.” ~ T. E. Lawrence
“Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them.” ~ Unknown Author
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.” ~ Paul Valery
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” ~ Vincent van Gogh
“We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” ~ Jesse Owens
“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.” ~ Napoleon Hill
“Keep true to the dreams of your youth.” ~ Friedrich Schiller
“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” ~ John Barrymore
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C. S. Lewis
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” ~ Napoleon Hill
“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” ~ Earl Nightingale
“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowling. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover!” ~ Mark Twain
“Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.” ~ Khalil Gibran
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.” ~ Edgar Cayce
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” ~ Albert Einstein
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
COMPASSION
“Compassion is the basis of morality.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
“Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.” ~ Thomas Merton
“Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” ~ Pema Chödrön
“Compassion is the chief law of human existence.” ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Compassion is the ultimate expression of your highest self.” ~ Russell Simmons
“Compassion is to look beyond your own pain, to see the pain of others.” ~ Yasmin Mogahed
“Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.” ~ Jane Goodall
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” ~ Lao Tzu
“Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike, each has their sufferings.” ~ Buddha
“When you look deeply into your anger, you will see that the person you call your enemy is also suffering. As soon as you see that, the capacity of accepting and having compassion for them is there.” ~ Nhat Hanh
“We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.” ~ Desmond Tutu
“No one has ever become poor by giving.” ~ Anne Frank
“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.” ~ Steve Maraboli
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~ Jack Kornfield
“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.” ~ Booker T. Washington
“If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi
“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein
KINDNESS
“Kindness it is that brings forth kindness always.” ~ Sophocles
“Kindness is the light that dissolves all walls between souls, families, and nations.” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” ~ Lao Tzu
“Kindness is language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” ~ Mark Twain
“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.” ~ Eric Hoffer
“Kindness effects more than severity.” ~ Aesop
“You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot do by force.” ~ Publilius Syrus
“The highest form of wisdom is kindness.” ~ The Talmud
“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” ~ William Arthur Ward
“Be kind to unkind people, they need it the most.” ~ Robin Williams
"Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a harder battle." ~ Plato
“True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one’s own the suffering and joys of others.” ~ Andre Code
“The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to.” ~ Aristotle
“The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.” ~ Lord Byron
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.” ~ Mother Teresa
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” ~ Leo Buscaglia
“Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.” ~ Jackie Chan
“No act of kindness however small is never wasted.” ~ Aesop
“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
“The simplest acts of kindness are by far more powerful then a thousand heads bowing in prayer.” ~ Gandhi
“One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls.” ~ Jack Kerouac
“A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.” ~ Amelia Earhart
“If a person seems wicked, do not cast him away. Awaken him with your words, elevate him with your deeds, repay his injury with your kindness. Do not cast him away; cast away his wickedness.” ~ Lao-Tzu
“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
“Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.” ~ Confucius
“Great persons are able to do great kindnesses.” ~ Miguel de Cervante
“That best portion of a good man’s life… his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” ~ William Wordsworth
“You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.” ~ Jack Kerouac
FORGIVENESS
"Forgiveness is the way to inner freedom and peace of mind. It is not just an act of kindness towards others, but also towards yourself." ~ Buddha
“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.” ~ Jonathan Lockwood Hule
“Forgive us of our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” ~ Matthew 6:12
“Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean.” ~ Dag Hammarskjold
“Forgiveness does not change the past but it does enlarge the future.” ~ Paul Lewis Boese
“Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.” ~ Desmond Tutu
“To err is human, to forgive divine.” ~ Alexander Pope
“To forgive is the highest most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.” ~ Robert Muller
“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power of love.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“We pardon as long as we love.” ~ François de La Rochefoucauld
“You should not consider tolerance and forgiveness signs of weakness… but signs of strength.” ~ Dalai Lama
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ~ Gandhi
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” ~ Lewis B. Smedes
“Pray you now, forget and forgive.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Time says forgive, eternity says forget.” ~ Matshona Dhliwayo
“You owe it to yourself to forgive and forget. Holding grudges is like punishing yourself for others’ actions and rewarding them for hurting you.” ~ Majid Kazmi
“So forgive and forget the past baggage of life to refresh your life. The best kind of humans are the ones who never forget to forgive.” ~ Debasish Mridha
“‘I can forgive, but I cannot forget,’ is only another way of saying I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note — torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
“Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is remembering without pain.” ~ Celia Cruz
“The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” ~ Hebrews 8:12
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ~ Marianne Williamson
“To understand everything is to forgive everything.” ~ Buddha
VIRTUE
“Virtue even attempted virtue brings light; indulgence brings fog.” ~ C. S. Lewis
“Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Virtues are virtues only to those who can appreciate them.” ~ Panchatantra
“Virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.” ~ John Dryden
“Virtue herself is her own fairest reward.” ~ Silius Italicus
“Virtue must shape itself in deed.” ~ Lord Tennyson
“Virtue is the roughest way, but proves at night a bed of down.” ~ Sir Henry Wotton
“Honor is the reward of Virtue.” ~ Cicero
“The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.” ~ Charles Caleb Colton
“The measure of any man’s virtue is what he would do, if he had neither the laws nor public opinion, nor even his own prejudices, to control him.” ~ William Hazlitt
“The chief cause of our misery is less the violence of our passions than the feebleness of our virtues.” ~ Joseph Boux
“Seldom indeed does human virtue rise from trunk to branch.” ~ Dante
“If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?” ~ Jean de La Bruyère
“Silver and gold are not the only coin: virtue too passes as currency all over the world.” ~ Euripides
“Magnify the virtues, minimize the faults.” ~ Edgar Cayce
“Of all the pleasures I know, I know of none comparable to that of feeling capable of virtue.” ~ Eugenio Maria de Hostos
“The glory that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.” ~ Sallust
COURAGE
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.” ~ Mark Twain
“Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.” ~ Captain Eddie Rickenbacker
“Courage isn’t having the strength to go on — it is going on when you don’t have strength.” ~ Napoleon
“Courage — a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.” ~ General William T. Sherman
“Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.” ~ Johann Goethe
“Courage means going against majority opinion in the name of the truth.” ~ Vaclav Havel
“Courage is the love affair with the unknown.” ~ Osho
“Courage is a kind of salvation.” ~ Plato
“Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.” ~ J. M. Barrie
“One man with courage makes a majority.” ~ General Andrew Jackson
"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" ~ Admiral David Farragut
“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” ~ Winston Churchill
“Inhale courage. Exhale fear.” ~ Unknown Author
“This is the courage in a man: to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends.” ~ Euripides
“The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.” ~ G. K. Chesterton
“It is a brave act of valor to contemn death; but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valor to dare to live.” ~ Sir Thomas Browne
“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.” ~ Lao Tzu
“Life without the courage for death is slavery.” ~ Seneca
“That is at bottom the only courage demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” ~ Vincent Van Gogh
“What good are wings without the courage to fly?” ~ Atticus
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~ E. E. Cummings
“It takes courage to deal with failures. It takes courage to admit when you are wrong.” ~ R. Dooley
“The secret to happiness is freedom. And the secret to freedom is courage.” ~ Thucydides
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” ~ Anais Nin
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” ~ Muhammad Ali
“Fortune is on the side of the one who dares.” ~ Virgil
"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~ William Faulkner
“There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract but not for the concrete.” ~ Helen Keller
“It’s easy to stand with the crowd. It takes courage to stand alone.” ~ Gandhi
“It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.” ~ Aesop
“They are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense of both the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger.” ~ Thucydides
“Perfect valor consists in doing without witnesses that which we would be capable of doing before everyone.” ~ Francois La Rochefoucauld
“Few persons have courage enough to appear as good as they really are.” ~ A. W. Hare
“Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous or honest.” ~ Maya Angelou
“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity. It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” ~ Mark Twain
“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” ~ General George S. Patton
“A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others.” ~ General Douglas MacArthur
“The best thing in life is to go ahead with all your plans and your dreams, to embrace life and to live everyday with passion, to lose and still keep the faith and to win while being grateful. All of this because the world belongs to those who dare to go after what they want.” ~ Charlie Chaplin
“First think, second dream, third believe, and finally… dare. All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” ~ Walt Disney
SELF-RESPECT
“Self-respect, that cornerstone of all virtue.” ~ John Herschel
“Above all things, reverence yourself.” ~ Pythagoras
“To thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Be a friend to yourself and others will.” ~ Scotch Proverb
“Can you remember who you were before the world told you what you should be?” ~ Danielle LaPorte
“It’s time to give up the idea of who you think you’re supposed to be… and start loving who you really are.” ~ Unknown Author
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ~ Carl Jung
“There is one thing we can do better than anyone else: we can be ourselves.” ~ William Arthur Ward
“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“You owe it to yourself to be yourself.” ~ Yogi Bhajan
“What you seek is seeking you.” ~ Rumi
“In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.” ~ Krishnamurti
“If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.” ~ Lewis Carroll
“If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.” ~ T. D. Jakes
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” ~ Rumi
“When you follow your bliss a kind of track opens up, that’s always been there, waiting for you. And the life that you should be living, is the one that you will be living.” “Your sacred space is where you will find yourself over and over again.”~ Joseph Campbell
“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” ~ Lao Tsu
“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the Stillness underneath the mental noice, the Love and Joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
“It takes nothing to join the crowd. It takes everything to stand alone.” ~ Hans F. Hansen
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
CHARACTER BUILDING
“Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow. Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising every time we fall. A man is great not because he hasn’t failed. A man is great because failure hasn’t stopped him.” ~ Confucius
“The secret of life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” ~ Paulo Coelho
“Don't be afraid to fail… be afraid to not try.” ~ Unknown Author
“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
“The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.” ~ Lloyd Jones
“Sometimes the truest lives of all are lived by those who fail.” ~ Myron Hansford Veon
“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” ~ Mary Tyler Moore
“What some people label as “failures” in life, other people consider to be “Lessons in Self-Improvement.” ~ Unknown Author
“There is a Tibetan saying, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.’” ~ Dalai Lama
“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude towards it, for that determines our success or failure. In adversity keep motivated, for often the best comes from difficulty.” ~ Vincent Norman Peale
“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” ~ Dale Carnegie
“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” ~ Truman Capote
“Do not try to be the best. Just do your best.” ~ Sadhguru
“The virtue lies in the struggle, not the prize.” ~ Richard Monckton Milnes
“Don’t feel sorry for yourself if you have chosen the wrong road, turn around.” ~ Edgar Cayce
“Nor deem the irrevocable past as wholly wasted, wholly vain… if rising on its wrecks at last to something nobler we attain.” ~ Henry Longfellow
“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” ~ Carl Jung
“In the rolls of Heaven, where it will live a theme for angels when they celebrate the high-souled virtues which forgetful earth has witnessed.” ~ William Wordsworth
“All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.” ~ Nikola Tesla
“History has shown us that people who end up changing the world are always nuts… until they are right and then they are geniuses.” ~ John Elliot
“All great acts of genius began with the same consideration: Do not be constrained by your present reality. I awoke only to see that the rest of the world was still asleep.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“Only to the extent that we can expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.” ~ Pema Chodron
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
“The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.” ~ Jordan B. Peterson
“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: The fear of failure.” ~ Paulo Coelho
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” ~ Les Brown
“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” ~ Napoleon Hill
“When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then for that’s just the place and time when the tide will turn.” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement." ~ Helen Keller
“Ready must thou be to burn thyself in thine own flame; how couldst thou become new if thou have not first become ashes!” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when the bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, her ashes new-create another heir as great in admiration as herself.” ~ William Shakespeare
“The ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.” ~ Joseph Campbell
“To heal the wound, you have to go into the ‘Dark Night of the Soul.’” ~ Tori Amos
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ~ Victor Hugo
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” ~ Albert Camus
ETHICAL CODES
“Ethics is a code of values which guide our choice and actions and determine the purpose and course of our lives.” ~ Ayn Rand
“Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.” ~ Confucius
“Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Obedience is doing what is told regardless of what is right.” ~ H. L. Mencken
“It is not enough to know what is ‘good,’ you must be able to do it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“A reputation for good judgment, for fair dealing, for truth, and for rectitude, is itself a fortune.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher
“The moment you accept responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you gain the power to change anything in your life.” ~ Hal Elrod
“A principle is a principle and in no case can it be watered down because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We have to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be conscious, deliberate and hard.” ~ Gandhi
“If you leave your children a world where you never stood up, they’ll inherit a world where they can’t.” ~ Unknown Author
“All the glory of greatness has no luster for people who are in search of understanding.” ~ Blaise Pascal
“A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that captured your heart.” ~ Native American Proverb
“Charity is the root of all good works.” ~ St. Augustine
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” ~ Aesop
“Patience is the best prayer.” ~ Latin Proverb
“Modesty is the highest elegance.” ~ Coco Chanel
“A quiet consciousness sleeps in thunder.” ~ English Proverb
“Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.” ~ John Wooden
“Politeness is the flower of humanity.” ~ Joseph Joubert
“There is a courtesy of the heart. It is akin to love. Out of it arises the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.” ~ Johan Goethe
“Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purity, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.” ~ Edmund Burke
“He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope has everything.” ~ Thomas Carlyle
“A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have.” ~ Irish Proverb
“Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars.” ~ Serbian Proverb
“I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an “Honest Man.” ~ George Washington
“Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.” ~ Henry Longfellow
PROVERBS
“A journey of thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Chinese Proverb
“Two footprints do not make a path.” African Proverb
“If a blind man leads another, they both fall together.” Swedish Proverb
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Old Proverb
"When the explorer is ready, the guide will appear.” Nepalese Proverb
“It’s not enough to know how to ride, you must also know how to fall." Mexican Proverb
“A danger foreseen is half avoided.” English Proverb
"A man’s greatest support is not the gods but his own two arms.” African Proverb
“One finger cannot lift a pebble.” Native American Proverb
“Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.” Proverbs 12:11
“One that has wax as a head must not walk in the sun.” Latin Proverb
“A lazy shepherd is a wolf’s friend.” Welsh Proverb
“Better wear out shoes than sheets.” Scottish Proverb
“The way you make your bed, is the way you shall lie.” Swedish Proverb
“As you sow, so you shall reap.” Galatians 6:7
“Labor is bitter but the bread it buys is sweet.” Indian Proverb
“It’s too late to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
Norwegian Proverb
“When you’re thirsty it’s too late to think about digging a well.” Japanese Proverb
“The day of the storm is not the time for thatching the roof.” Irish Proverb
“Although it may rain, cast not away the watering pot.” Malaysian Proverb
“Don’t throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds water.” Swedish Proverb
“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Old Proverb
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” American Proverb
“If there is no wind, row.” Latin Proverb
“A boat does not go forward if each man is rowing his own way.” African Proverb
“Don’t change horses in mid-stream.” Dutch Proverb
“When you are in the water you swim.” Native American Proverb
“A drowning man will clutch a straw.” English Proverb
“Do not push the river, it will flow by itself.” Polish Proverb
“Not every spring becomes a stream.” German Proverb
“During calm waters, every ship has a great Captain.” Swedish Proverb
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Chinese Proverb
“It is ill fishing if the hook is bare.” Scottish Proverb
“A happy heart is better than a full purse.” English Proverb
“The best things in life are free.” English Proverb
“Once I had strength but no wisdom; now I have wisdom but no strength.” Persian Proverb
“The old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one, in turn, looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth.” African Proverb
“Speaking without thought is like shooting without taking aim.” Spanish Proverb
“Surely the worth of a man lies in two of his smallest parts – his heart and his tongue.” Egyptian Proverb
“Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know.” Japanese Proverb
“Action speaks louder than words.” English Proverb
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” Old Proverb
“The loftiest towers rise from the ground.” Chinese Proverb
“Birds of a feather flock together.” Old Proverb
“A bird never flew with one wing.” Irish Proverb
“Before you start up a ladder, count the rungs.” Jewish Proverb
“When all else fails… read the instructions.” ~ Old Proverb
"Empty sacks will never stand upright.” Italian Proverb
“Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse.” Japanese Proverb
“The hammer shatters glass but forges steel.” Russian Proverb
“Even a clock that is not going is right twice a day.” Polish Proverb
“Don’t set the cart before the horse.” English Proverb
"Don't put all your eggs in one basket." Old Proverb
“A leopard doesn’t change its spots.” Jeremiah 13:23
“The same dog that bit you in the morning will bite you in the evening.” Jamaican Proverb
"Don't bite the hand that feeds you." Old Proverb
“Wood that grows warped can never be straightened.” Greek Proverb
“The larger a man’s roof, the more snow it collects.” Arabian Proverb
“Knock on the door before entering.” Palestinian Proverb
“Visits always give a pleasure; if not the arriving, so the departing.” Portuguese Proverb
“Woe to the stranger when trouble comes, for there will be no friend to take his part.” Irish Proverb
“One has always strength enough to bear the misfortunes of one’s friends.” French Proverb
“Love is a two way street.” Old Proverb
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” English Proverb
“It is easy to frighten a bull from the window.” Italian Proverb
“When the mouse laughs at the cat there is a hole nearby.” African Proverb
“Do not wrong or hate your neighbor for it is not he that you wrong but yourself.” Native American Proverb
“Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.” Proverbs 16:3
“Never cut what can be untied.” Portuguese Proverb
“He who ties well unties well.” Spanish Proverb
“Where there is smoke there is fire.” English Proverb
“Add not fire to fire.” Greek Proverb
“A little oil may save a great deal of friction.” English Proverb
“One who recovers from sickness forgets about God.” African Proverb
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” English Proverb
“Eat according to your provisions; walk according to the length of your step.” Tibetan Proverb
“If you go to bed without supper, you will rise without having slept.” Yiddish Proverb
“Though a tree grow ever so high, the falling leaves return to the root.”Malaysian Proverb
“A tree is known by its fruit.” Luke 6:43
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” Greek Proverb
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.” Chinese Proverb
MATERIALISM
“Materialism: A tendency to think material objects are more important than people: desire for money over ethics.” ~ Dictionary Definition
“Materialism, which gives priority to material needs and objects, is obviously the opposite of spirituality.” ~ Dallin H. Oaks
“Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.” ~ Douglas Horton
“Materialism is toxic to happiness, and we are losing our connection to the natural world.” ~ James Gustave Speth
“Material things don’t empress me, your soul does.” ~ Unknown Author
“People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.” ~ The Dalai Lama
“Instead of buying your children all the things you never had, you should teach them all the things you were never taught. Material wears out but Knowledge stays.” ~ Bruce Lee
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“Not everything that can be counted counts… and not everything that counts can be counted.” ~ Albert Einstein
“We are all materialistic. There are different levels of materialism! Some aspire to have a fancy car, other only wish to go to bed at night with a full stomach.” ~ D. J. Jouett
“Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.” ~ Ali Idn Abi Talib
“For the love of money is the root of all evil.” ~ 1 Timothy 6:10
“The ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.” ~ Karl Marx
“To believe that mind is all, that thought is all is only a higher materialism.” ~ Swami Vivekananda
“In fact, we have suffered under a variety of illusions about who and what we are that have kept us trapped in a prison of materialistic thought.” ~ David Wilcock
“Any kind of consciousness that is not related to the production or consumption of material goods is stigmatized in our society today.” ~ Graham Hancock
“Materialism ends up denying the existence of any irreducible subjective qualitative states of sentience of awareness.” ~ John Searle
“Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.” ~ Malcolm Muggeridge
“The most important things in life aren’t things.” ~ Anthony J. D'Angelo
“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.” ~ Ellen Goodman
“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” ~ Will Rogers
“The fewer our wants the nearer we resemble the gods.” ~ Socrates
“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.” ~ Plato
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” ~ Seneca
“Be more… rather than to have more.” ~ Erich Fromm
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance. He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing.” ~ Epicurus
“Perhaps you are overvaluing what you don’t have and undervaluing what you do.” ~ Jordan B. Peterson
“Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have.” ~ Sanchita Pandey
“If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down.” ~ Buddha
“In today’s rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
“There’s more to life than increasing its speed.” ~ Gandhi
“It is the tragedy of our time that the average individual learns too late that the materialistic concept of life has failed utterly in every department of living.” ~ Manly P. Hall
“Contemporary science is based on the philosophy of materialism, which claims that all reality is material or physical.” ~ Rupert Sheldrake
“We are perceivers, we are awareness, we are not objects, we have no solidity… we are boundless. But the control system is constantly trying to get us to see ourselves in physical terms and to identify ourselves only with our bodies.” ~ Amazon Shaman
“The problem of human existence is the forgetfulness of the Divine essence of the Self and the identification with the body as the Self.” ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead
“The planet does not need more ‘successful people.’ The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of all kinds.” ~ Dalai Lama
“The great question of our time is, ‘Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?” ~ Billy Graham
GOOD VS. EVIL
“There is no denying that there is evil in this world but the light will always conquer the darkness.” ~ Idowu Koyenikan
“By faith we will become strong and withstand the spiritual battle warring against us.” ~ Sunday Adelaja
“I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.” ~ Charles Dickens
“It’s wiser being good than bad; It’s safer being meek than fierce; It’s fitter being sane than mad.” ~ Robert Browning
“The meaning of good and bad, or better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The power of choosing good and evil is within the reach of all.” ~ Origen
“I don't think that you have any insight whatsoever into your capacity for good until you have some well-developed insight into your capacity for evil.” ~ Jordan B. Peterson
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.” ~ Georges Bataille
“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.” ~ Socrates
“Nothing is good for him for whom nothing is bad.” ~ Baltasar Garcian
“Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein
“We often do good in order to accomplish evil with impunity.” ~ Francois La Rochefoucauld
“Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales, and the good suffers while the bad prevails.” ~ Homer
“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.
“Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts of winter. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.” ~ Vincent van Gogh
“There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
“People like to say that the conflict is between good and evil. The real conflict is between truth and lies.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz
"History is a set of lies agreed upon." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.” ~ Alesandr Solzhenitsyn
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” ~ Socrates
“Willing or preferring is the same with respect to good and evil, that judging is with respect to truth or falsehood.” ~ Samuel Butler
“Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.” ~ Bertrand Russell
“The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things — the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.” ~ Samuel Johnson
“The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.” ~ Immanuel Kant
“Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.” ~ George Orwell
“What bothers most critics of my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is fallacy.” ~ Tom Robbins
“All human beings are commingled out of good and evil.” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” ~ William Shakespeare
“While time lasts there will always be a future, and that future will hold both good and evil, since the world is made to that mingled pattern.” ~ Dorothy L. Sayers
“For every life and every act consequence of good and evil can be shown and as in time results of many deeds are blended so good and evil in the end become confounded.” ~ T. S. Eliot
“The battle-line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ~ Epicurus
“The very beginning of creation gave rise to the law of duality: light and darkness, good and evil, the law of relativity necessary to divide the One “God” into the many (“Maya”). By the storm of vibration, God’s thoughts of multiplicity brought forth the waves of manifestation: His ‘Lila,” or ‘Divine Play.’” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“The world is a play of Divine Consciousness.” ~ Swami Muktandanda
“All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.” ~ Richard P. Feynman
“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“There is an old illusion, which is called good and evil.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.” ~ Marcus Aurelius
“One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.” ~ Edmund Burke
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” ~ Isaiah 5:20
“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” ~ Gilbert Keith Chesterton
“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” ~ Hannah Arendt
“When you feel you cannot do good, at least desist from doing evil.” ~ Sai Baba
“Good and evil. Right and wrong. Those are two fundamental opposing concepts that define the nature of humankind.” ~ Wayne LaPierre
“We cannot freely and wisely choose the right way for ourselves unless we know both the good and evil.” ~ Helen Keller
“The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.” ~ Maria Montessori
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ~ Edmund Burke
“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” ~ Romans 12:21
“Evil spreads with the wind; truth is capable of spreading even against it.” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” ~ Plato
“I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.” ~ Mary Shelley
“Good people know about both good and evil. Bad people do not know about either.” ~ C. S. Lewis
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary, the evil it does is permanent.” ~ Gandhi
“All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone.” ~ Charles Dickens
“A good End cannot sanctify evil Means, nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.” ~ William Penn
“A good thing which prevents us from enjoying a greater good is in truth an evil.” ~ Baruch Spinoza
"You are under no moral obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils. Indeed, voting for a lesser evil is still voting for evil.” ~ John W. Whitehead
“In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” ~ Ayn Rand
"Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked." ~ Proverbs 25:26
“Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.” ~ Gandhi
“Goodness is the only investment which never fails.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” ~ John Wesley
“Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.” ~ 9:118 Dhammapada
“Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.” ~ John Locke
“Good and evil are polar concepts, one can't exist without the other.” ~ Bruno Dumont
“There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.” ~ Buddha
“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” ~ Ephesians 6:12
"Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out." ~ Proverbs 24:19
“I see the triumph of good over evil as a manifestation of the error-correcting process of evolution.” ~ Jonas Salk
“According to the Essene Gnostics in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Earth Goddess “Sophia’s Correction” shall one day neutralize all the evil in the world prior to the coming of the “Golden Age.” ~ Unknown Author
“Forces of Light on earth shall overcome the forces of darkness. Complete spiritual enlightenment on earth will occur.” ~ Edgar Cayce
“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” ~ John 3:19
“Have Nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” ~ Ephesians 5:11
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~ Plato
“Just look at us. Everything is backwards, everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, psychiatrists destroy minds, scientists destroy truth, major media destroys information, religions destroy spirituality and governments destroy freedom.” ~ Michael Ellner
"The individual is handicapped, by coming face to face, with a conspiracy so monstrous, he cannot believe it exists. The American mind, simply has not come to a realization of the evil, which has been introduced into our midst... It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy, which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent." ~ FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, 1956
“For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence -- on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day.” ~ John F. Kennedy
"People think that those who share conspiracy stuff are just paranoid - I see the opposite, I see empowerment, responsibility and strength. I think those who avoid it are far more paranoid. They are afraid of themselves, afraid of change, afraid of the truth and afraid of looking into something that so many are saying matters. Listen to the people, rather than the governments, as they have always covered stuff up - and then decide!" ~ Laura Magdalene Eisenhower
“There is a true law, a right reason, conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil. Whether it enjoins or forbids, the good respect its injunctions, and the wicked treat them with indifference. This law cannot be contradicted by any other law, and is not liable either to derogation or abrogation. Neither the senate nor the people can give us any dispensation for not obeying this universal law of justice. It needs no other expositor and interpreter than our own conscience. It is not one thing at Rome and another at Athens; one thing today and another tomorrow; but in all times and nations this universal law must for ever reign, eternal and imperishable. It is the sovereign master and emperor of all beings. God himself is its author,—its promulgator,—its enforcer. He who obeys it not, flies from himself, and does violence to the very nature of man. For his crime he must endure the severest penalties hereafter, even if he avoid the usual misfortunes of the present life.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
CHANGE
“Every morning we are born again.” ~ Buddha
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” ~ John C. Maxwel
“In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change lies your happiness and freedom.” ~ Buddha
"They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." ~ Confucius
“Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” ~ Reinhold Neibuhr ("Serenity Prayer")
“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out, and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~ Cynthia Occelli
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
“No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it is not the same river, and it is not the same man. There is nothing permanent except change.” ~ Heraclitus
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ~ Rumi
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” ~ Albert Einstein
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socrates
“It is best to win without fighting.” ~ Sun Tzu
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. If just blooms.” ~ Zen Shin
“A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” ~ James N. Watkins
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; and the realist adjusts the sails.” ~ William Arthur Ward
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ~ James R. Sherman
DEATH
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.” ~ Tecumseh Shawnee
“Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.” ~ James Dean
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” ~ Mark Twain
“It is a good day to live… it is a good day to die. I am ready for whatever comes.” ~ Native American Proverb
“A good life fears not life or death. Dying is as natural as living.” ~ Thomas Fuller
“It is as natural to die as to be born.” ~ Francis Bacon
“We cannot love to live if we cannot bear to die.” ~ William Penn
“The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.” ~ Epicurus
“Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.” ~ Tennessee Williams
“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.” ~ Samuel Johnson
“Death’s stamp gives value to the coin of life; making it possible to buy with life what is truly precious.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
“The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on Life.” “There was a time when we were not: this gives us no concern – why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?” ~ William Hazlitt
“Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.” “Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death?” ~ Epictetus
“Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.” ~ Erik H. Erikson
“In an attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inevitably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.” ~ Henry Miller
“It hath often said, that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible.” ~ Henry Fielding
“One must take all one’s life to learn how to live, and, what will perhaps make you wonder more, one must take all one’s life to learn how to die.” ~ Seneca
“That to study philosophy is to learn to die.” “A man who has learned to die has unlearned how to be a slave.” “The perpetual work of your life is but to lay the foundation of death.” ~ Michel de Montaigne
“Do not seek death. Death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment.” ~ Dag Hammarskjold
“To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.” ~ Samuel Butler
“He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present, than the living man.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupert
“Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.” ~ William Hazlitt
“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.” ~ Erich Fromm
“Death always comes too early or too late.” ~ English Proverb
“Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.” ~ La Rchefoucauld
“One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov
“Death either destroys or unhusks us. If it means liberation, better things await us when our burden’s gone: if destruction, nothing at all awaits us; Blessings and curses abolished.” ~ Seneca
“Death is an absolute mystery. We are all vulnerable to it, it’s what makes life interesting and suspenseful.” ~ Jeanne Moreau
“Nobody knows, in fact, what death is, nor whether to man it is not perchance the greatest of all blessings; yet people fear it as if they surely knew it to be the worst of evils.” ~ Socrates
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“He that dies pays all debts.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Old men must die, or the world would grow moldy, would only breed the past again.” ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” ~ Dylan Thomas
‘When we look at life and death from a broader perspective, then dying is just like changing our clothes!” ~ Dalai Lama
“To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.” ~ Walt Whitman
“Indefinite time, without beginning and without end, hath been given to me; I inherit eternity, and everlastingness has been bestowed upon me.” ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead
“Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” ~ Mark Twain
"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." ~ Cherokee Native American Proverb
“We grow to heaven. We don’t go to heaven.” ~ Edgar Cayce
“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth — and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up — that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.” ~ Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
“Birth is not the beginning of life — only of an individual awareness. Change into another state is not death — only the ending of this awareness.” ~ Hermes
“There is no death. Only a change of worlds.” ~ Chief Seattle
“Soul to heaven, body to earth.” ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead
“All souls were created in the beginning and are finding their way back to whence they came from.” ~ Edgar Cayce
Christianity
“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” ~ 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.” ~ Isaiah 43:1-2 “And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” ~ Ecclesiastes 12:7
Judaism
“Many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life, others to reproaches, to everlasting abhorrence.” ~ Daniel 12:2 “I believe with perfect faith that the dead will be brought back to life when G‑d wills it to happen.” ~ 13th Principle of Faith “This world is like a lobby before the Olam Ha Ba (‘World to Come’). Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall.” ~ Pirkei Avos 4:21 “God will bring every deed into judgement … whether it is good or evil.” ~ Ecclesiastes 12:14
Islam
“Allah takes the souls at the time of their death.” ~ Quran, 39:42 “When their specified time arrives, they cannot delay it for a single hour nor can they bring it forward.” ~ Quran, 16:61 “Every self will taste death. You will be paid your wages in full on the Day of Rising. Anyone who is distanced from the Fire and admitted to the Garden, has triumphed. The life of this world is only the enjoyment of delusion.” ~ Quran, 3:185 “O soul that are at rest! Return to your Lord, well-pleased (with him), well-pleasing (Him), So enter among My servants, And enter into My garden.” ~ Quran, 89:27-30
Hinduism
“One fears death because of ignorance but when the ‘flame of knowledge’ is enkindled in the mind then the ‘fear of death’ ceases to exist.” ~ Atharva Veda “The all-knowing Self was never born, nor will it die. Beyond cause and effect, this Self is eternal and immutable. When the body dies, the Self does not die.” ~ Katha Upanishad “Even as water becomes one with water, fire with fire, and air with air, so the atman (soul) becomes one with the Infinite Atman (Brahman) and thus attains final freedom.” ~ Maitri Upanishad “From the unreal lead me to the real, from the darkness lead me to the light, from death lead me to immortality. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Om.” ~ Bridadaranyaka-Upadishad
Buddhism
“(Instructions after dying) Be not fond of that dull bluish-yellow light from the human [world]. That is the path of thine accumulated propensities of violent egotism come to receive thee. If thou art attracted by it, thou wilt be born in the human world and have to suffer birth, age, sickness, and death; and thou wilt have no chance of getting out of the quagmire of worldly existence. That is an interruption to obstruct thy path of liberation. Therefore, look not upon it, and abandon egotism, abandon propensities; be not attracted towards it; be not weak.” “Remember the ‘Clear Light,” the pure clear white light from which everything in the universe comes, to which everything in the universe returns; the original nature of your own mind. The natural state of the universe un-manifest. Let go into the clear light, trust it, merge with it. It is your own true nature, it is home.” ~ The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Spiritualism
“After you die, you will soon see a 'Tunnel of White Light' that’s often spoken about in 'Near Death Experiences.' If you choose to go into that tunnel your soul will be recycled and reincarnate on earth again. But there’s another choice that your soul can make. You can turn around and put the 'Tunnel of Light' behind you. And when you do that you’ll see ‘The Entire Universe.’ And if you choose to go in the direction of 'The Entire Universe,' you will be given the opportunity to return to whatever dimension you originally came from before coming to earth.” ~ Alex Collier
MYSTERY
“Mystery is not always about traveling to new places, it is about looking with new eyes.”~ Esther Perel
“Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.” ~ Julia Cameron
“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.” ~ Neil Armstrong
“Look at this life — all mystery and magic.” ~ Harry Houdini
“I am a mystery to myself.” ~ Angelina Grimke
“It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.” ~ Antoine Rivarol
“Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
“When you’re in love, you’re capable of learning everything and knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love is the key to understanding of all the mysteries.” ~ Paulo Coelho
“And now you are and I am and we’re a mystery which will never happen again.” ~ E. E. Cummings
“Is it not strange, that an infant should be heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?” ~ Thomas Trahern
“Every branch of human knowledge if traced up to its source and final principles vanishes into mystery.” ~ Arthur Machen
“Those who are acquainted with the Mysteries insure to themselves very pleasing hopes against the hour of death.” ~ Socrates
“Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.” ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysterious of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.” ~ Albert Einstein
“Both the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it; both always, as to the measure of their creation, have had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos.” ~ Robert Oppenheimer
“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.” ~ Anais Nin
“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.” ~ Mark Twain
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” ~ William Shakespeare
“The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine.” ~ J.B.S. Haldane
“The highest happiness of man… is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.” ~ Goethe
“There are some mysteries of the universe that ought to remain mysteries.” ~ Nathan Hill
“Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.” ~ Andre Gide
“Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.” ~ Bertrand Russell
“The unrest which keeps the never stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the nonexistence of this world is just as possible as its existence.” ~ William James
“If existence had not been better than non-existence, there would have been no being.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
“Great Mystery teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body and the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my Sacred Space and love beyond my fear and thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun.” ~ Native American Prayer
“He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to the end.” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:11
“The Great Architect did wisely to conceal and not divulge his secrets to be scanned by them who ought rather admire.” ~ John Milton
GOD
“God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.” ~ Alan Sandage
“The probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd.” ~ Sir Fred Hoyle
“The visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of creation that a rational creature who will but seriously reflect on them cannot miss the discovery of a deity.” ~ John Locke
“Philosophy is nothing else than striving through constant contemplation and saintly piety to attain knowledge of God.” ~ Hermes Trismegistus
“What is God? What is not God? What is between man and God? Who shall say?” ~ Euripides
“Light is the shadow of God.” ~ Plato
“There are many names for God… but only one God.” ~ Spiritual Saying
‘It makes no difference as to the name of the God, since love is the real God of all the world.” ~ Apache Native American Proverb
“God does not think, he creates. He does not exist: he is eternal.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard
“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.” ~ Elbert Hubbard
“God enters by a private door into every individual.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“God loves each of us as if there are only one of us.” ~ St. Augustine
“God made life simple. It is man who complicates it.” ~ Charles A. Lindbergh
“Do not be conformed to this world (“be in it but not of it”), but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” ~ Romans 12:2
“I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is.” ~ Albert Camus
“Mysticism is the passionate longing of the soul for God.” ~ Evelyn Underhill
"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." ~ Matthew 6:33
“I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.” ~ St. Francis of Assisi
“Do not be cast down over the struggle — the Lord loves a brave warrior. The Lord loves the soul that is valiant.” ~ St. Silouan the Athonite
“If God is slow in answering your request, or if you ask but do not promptly receive anything do not be upset, for you are not wiser than God.” ~ St. Isaac of Syria
“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard
“Trust in Divine timing… its spiritual synchronicity. The alignment of people, places and events choreographed for your soul’s highest good.” ~ Unknown Author
“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.” ~ Corrie ten Boom
“Everything happens for a reason. Don’t question it, trust it.” ~ Buddha
“Let us put our trust in God and Console ourselves with the thought that all is well, if it is in accordance with the will of the Almighty, as He knows best what is profitable and beneficial to our temporal happiness and our eternal salvation.” ~ Wolfgang Mozart
“All is change in the world of the senses, But changeless is the supreme Lord of Love. Meditate on him, be absorbed by him, Wake up from this dream of separateness.” ~ Shvetashvatara Upanishad
“If you break the shell of your personality, you will simply be presence - as life is, as God is, just a presence.” ~ Sadhguru
“When you move silently, then you are that which is God was before nature and creature, out of which He created your nature and creature.” ~ Jakob Bohme
“God sleeps in the rocks, stirs in the plants, dreams in the animals, and finally awakens in man.” ~ Vedic Proverb
“So God created man in his own image.” ~ Genesis 1:27
“Being made in the image of God, man was the crown of creation.” ~ Walter Lang
“The significance of being born human is that you have the potential to become limitless. It is up to you to live your Godliness.” ~ Sadhguru
“Man is to become God-like through a life of virtue and the cultivation of the spirit through scientific knowledge, practice and bodily discipline.” ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead
“I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us.” ~ John Lennon
“I know that you are part of me and I am part of you because we are all projections of the universal principles of creation/destruction polarities of the same infinite consciousness that we call God.” ~ David Icke
“The world is a holographic universe, with every piece containing the whole.” ~ Marianne Williamson
“Blessed is the place you are and glorious to the eye of the heart. Each atom, by your grace, is a universe, each drop of water a soul.” ~ Rumi
“We are the gods of the atoms that make up ourselves but we are also the atoms of the gods that make up the universe.” ~ Manly P. Hall
“That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below. As above… so below.” ~ Hermetic Axiom
“The ultimate purpose of our life is to rejoin God in conscious participation of Divinity.” ~ Edgar Cayce
“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.” ~ Black Elk
RELIGION
“Religion is a candle inside a multicolored lantern. Everyone looks through a particular color, but the candle is always there.” ~ Mohammed Naguib
“Religion is something infinitely simple, ingenuous. It is not knowledge, not content of feeling… it is not duty and not renunciation, it is not restriction: but in the infinite extent of the universe it is a direction of the heart.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
“Religions which have any very strong hold over men’s actions have generally some instinctive basis.” ~ Bertrand Russell
“Religion are such stuff as dreams are made of.” ~ H. G. Wells
“Religion has nothing more to fear than not being sufficiently understood.” ~ Stanislaus I of Poland
“The test of a religion or philosophy is the number of things it can explain.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.” ~ Oliver Sacks
“I believe that the only true religion consists of having a good heart. My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” ~ Dalai Lama
“Be kind to all creatures; this is the true religion.” ~ Buddha
“All religion relates to life, and life of religion is to do good.” ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” ~ Seneca
“Religion is the opium of the people.” ~ Karl Marx
“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.” ~ Anais Nin
“Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite.” ~ Will Rogers
“We have just religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” ~ Jonathan Swift
“The founders of the great world religions, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Mohammed, all seem to have striven for a worldwide brotherhood of man; but none of them could develop institutions which would include the enemy, the unbeliever.” ~ Geoffrey Gorer
“Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it: anything but live for it.” ~ Charles Caleb Colton
“The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.” ~ Albert Einstein
“One’s religion is whatever he is most interested in.” ~ J. M. Barrie
“One man finds in religion his literature and his science, another finds in it his joy and his duty.” ~ Joseph Joubert
“No man’s religion ever survived his morals.” ~ English Proverb
“In prosperity no altars smoke.” ~ Italian Proverb
“The Gnostics (“Christian Mystics”) held that the essential nature of human is Divine. They look upon men and women as gods and goddesses who have forgotten who they are. It’s from this predicament that the Gnostic aspires to be freed by Gnosis ('Divine Knowledge').” ~ Manly P. Hall
“When I have a terrible need of, shall I say the word… religion, then I go out and paint the stars. Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all. Someday death will take us to another star.” ~ Vincent van Gogh
“Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.” ~ George Santayana
“There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“Each religion has its own contribution to make to human evolution. I regard the great faiths of the world as so many branches of a tree, each distinct from the other though having the same source.” ~ Gandhi
“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.” ~ Khalil Gibran
SPIRITUALITY
“Spirituality does not come from religion. It comes from our soul.” ~ Douglas Williams
“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher, but your own soul.” ~ Swami Vivekananda
“Soul development should take precedence over all things.” ~ Edgar Cayce
“Spirituality is about transforming yourself.” ~ Sadhguru
“We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Seek spiritual riches within. What you are is much greater than anyone or anything else you have ever yearned for.” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it.” ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen
“When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others as if they were his own, he has attained the highest state of spiritual union.” ~ Bhagavad Gita
“The living man who finds Spirit, finds Truth. The man who can see the same Spirit in every creature, clings neither to this nor that, attains immoral life.” ~ Kena-Upanishad
“The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love.” ~ Marianne Williamson
“The heart of all spiritual teaching is simple. Be love. Be peace. Be harmony. Be compassion. Be joy.” ~ Unknown Author
“Men who are devoid of the power of spiritual perception are unable to recognize anything that cannot be seen externally.” ~ Paracelsus
“To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions.” ~ Nikola Tesla
“If you have developed enough spiritual sensitivity to understand that there is no abiding peace or happiness to be found in ordinary human existence, you are qualified to study the deeper mysteries of spiritual life.” ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead
“Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.” ~ Buddha
“We can no more do without spirituality than we can do without food, shelter, or clothing.” ~ Ernest Holmes
“Spiritual awakening – is becoming awake to the aliveness of this moment.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
“Spiritual process is not about chanting a mantra or closing your eyes, spiritual process is essentially about enhancing your perception.” ~ Sadhguru
“Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.” ~ Ram Dass
“Some people awaken spiritually without ever coming into contact with any meditation technique or any spiritual teaching. They may awaken simply because they can’t stand the suffering anymore.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
“Finding that core of truth within yourself… That truth that knows and trusts that All is Well, and that chooses Love… Is the greatest spiritual attainment you can ever make.” ~ David Wilcock
“The Soul’s supreme tranquility, brooding in silence, dissolves the unsubstantial buildings of the mind; from this, through the supreme Self, which is the Eternal, straightway comes joy in undivided bliss.” ~ Vivekachudamani
“Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism.” ~ Chögyam Trungpa
“All creation is nothing but Spirit, seemingly and temporarily diversified by Spirit’s creative vibratory activity. In it the being, Its cosmic consciousness, and Its omnipotence, all were without differentiation: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever newly joyous Spirit. Spirit, being one and indivisible, had to imagine and will Itself to be many.” ~ Paramahansa Yogananda
“The “Spiritual Evolution” of our souls shall at some point seek to transcend this planetary system of “Predators & Prey.’” ~ Unknown Author
“The light that shines above the heavens and above this world, the light that shines in the highest world, beyond which there are no others – that is the light that shines in the hearts of men.” ~ Chandogya Upanishad 3:13:7
“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one.” ~ Chief Crazy Horse
ENLIGHTENMENT
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” ~ Zen Koan
“Enlightenment is the key to everything, and it is the key to intimacy because it is the goal of true authenticity.” ~ Marianne Williamson
“Enlightenment is not a change into something better or more, but a simple recognition of who we truly already are.” ~ Unknown Author
“Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you’re being right now.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch
“Enlightenment is not a goal to be attained, it is a state of being to be regained.” ~ Kim Chestney
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.” ~ Immanuel Kant
“Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.” ~ William Blake
“Enlightenment is always preceded by confusion.” ~ Milton H. Erickson
“Discomfort is always a necessary part of the process of enlightenment.” ~ Pearl Cleage
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~ Adyashanti
“Enlightenment is waking up from the dream while it is still going on and recognizing that what we thought was real is actually not real.” ~ Rizwan Virk
“Enlightenment will come little by little, otherwise it would overwhelm.” – Idries Shah
“An ordinary man seeks freedom through enlightenment. An enlightened man expresses freedom through being ordinary.” ~ Adyashanti
“Enlightenment is ego’s ultimate disappointment. The attainment of enlightenment from the ego’s point of view is extreme death.” ~ Chögyam Trungpa
“The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with being.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
“The ego tries to convince us that we must do things to achieve enlightenment. The spirit knows that enlightenment is not a matter of doing, but a magnificent consequence of being.” ~ Dean Jackson
“So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this. Learn to dis-identify from your mind.” ~ Echart Tolle
“It isn’t by getting out of the world that we become enlightened, but by getting into the world by getting so tuned in that we can ride the waves of our existence and never get tossed because we become the waves.” ~ Ken Kesey
“Enlightenment is when the wave realizes it is the ocean.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“You may have expected that enlightenment would come Zap! instantaneous and permanent. This is unlikely. After the first ‘ah ha’ experience, it can be thought of as the thinning of a layer of clouds.” ~ Ram Dass
“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around us in awareness.” ~ James Thurber
"I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward." ~ Charlotte Bronte
“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.” ~ Lao Tzu
“Enlightenment is the Journey from the head back to the heart, from words back to silence.” ~ Jack Brocas
"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." ~ Carl Jung
“Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not.” ~ Deepak Chopra
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” ~ Lao Tzu
“You’re as enlightened as you want to be at any given moment in time.” ~ Unknown Author
“In the calm of self-surrender, the seers renounce the fruits of their actions, and so reach enlightenment. Then they are free from the bondage of rebirth, and pass to that state which is beyond evil.” ~ Bhagavad-Gita
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does n