"A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity. In this nature of its origin lies the judgement of it: There is no other." -Rainer Maria Rilke
"There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open."
-Martha Graham
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." -Voltaire
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life."
-Leo Tolstoy
"You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see."
-Black Elk
I have lost my smile,
but don't worry.
The dandelion has it.
-Anonymous (Quoted by Thich Nhat Hanh)
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious... This procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not very popular." -Carl Jung
"People I saw with chronic disease of all kinds--from malignancies or autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis to persistent skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, and neurological disorders like Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS), multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, and even dementia--were characterized by certain unmistakable emotional life patterns. Among these was the chronic repression of so-called negative emotions, especially of healthy anger, ...an overriding sense of duty, role, and responsibility; an undue concern for the emotional needs of others while ignoring one's own; and, finally, a core belief--again, often unconscious--that one is responsible for how other people feel and that one must never disappoint others." -Dr. Gabor Mate
"Lou Gehrig, the baseball great after whom ALS is named, embodied self-abnegation to the nth degree, as do all people with ALS I have ever treated, interviewed, or read about--or have been described in medical papers. His famous record of consecutive games played was not about his indestructibility, but about his unwillingness to surrender his self-identity as invulnerable, with no needs. He suffered injuries like all other athletes: All his fingers had been broken at least once; some more often. He would play even when wincing with pain and sick to the stomach with the agony of it, but his dutifulness would not allow him to rest."-Dr. Gabor Mate
"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness." -His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
We Wear the Mask
By Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
"To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving." -William Sloane Coffin
"Understanding makes tolerance unnecessary." -Dan Wilkins
The dandelion has it.
-Anonymous (Quoted by Thich Nhat Hanh)
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious... This procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not very popular." -Carl Jung
"People I saw with chronic disease of all kinds--from malignancies or autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis to persistent skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, and neurological disorders like Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS), multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, and even dementia--were characterized by certain unmistakable emotional life patterns. Among these was the chronic repression of so-called negative emotions, especially of healthy anger, ...an overriding sense of duty, role, and responsibility; an undue concern for the emotional needs of others while ignoring one's own; and, finally, a core belief--again, often unconscious--that one is responsible for how other people feel and that one must never disappoint others." -Dr. Gabor Mate
"Lou Gehrig, the baseball great after whom ALS is named, embodied self-abnegation to the nth degree, as do all people with ALS I have ever treated, interviewed, or read about--or have been described in medical papers. His famous record of consecutive games played was not about his indestructibility, but about his unwillingness to surrender his self-identity as invulnerable, with no needs. He suffered injuries like all other athletes: All his fingers had been broken at least once; some more often. He would play even when wincing with pain and sick to the stomach with the agony of it, but his dutifulness would not allow him to rest."-Dr. Gabor Mate
"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness." -His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
We Wear the Mask
By Paul Laurence Dunbar
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
"To show compassion for an individual without showing concern for the structures of society that make him an object of compassion is to be sentimental rather than loving." -William Sloane Coffin
"Understanding makes tolerance unnecessary." -Dan Wilkins
-Maya Angelou
"As we scramble for the crumbs they spit out,
frothing at the mouth about the scapegoats that they've chosen for us.
With every racist pointed finger I hear the goose-steps getting closer.
They no longer represent us. Is it not our obligation to confront this tyranny?"
-from The State Lottery by Propagandhi
"You gotta know that some people are soul dead; they will never hear. They have no ability to do anything but promote evil. If I can say one thing to you, focus your energy on those who can hear."
-from Yearning Wild, by R. Glendon Brunk
"Thoughts are the language of the brain. Sensations are the language of the body. Emotions are the language of the soul. Our job is to listen to our whole being; all three." -Me
"If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, you quickly come to understand that you have been set apart and that there's no will in this society to bring you back into the mainstream. The kids have eyes and they can see, and they have ears and they can hear. Kids notice that no politicians talk about this. Nobody says we're going to make them less separate and more equal. Nobody says that." -Jonathan Kozol
"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names." -Confucius
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." -Aesop
"But ordinarily we do not discover the wisdom of our feelings because we do not let them complete their work; we try to suppress them or discharge them in premature action, not realizing that they are a process of creation which, like birth, begins as a pain and turns into a child." -Alan Watts in his book Become What You Are
"There's no hiding for me
I'm forced to deal with what I feel
There is no distraction to mask what is real...
"You gotta know that some people are soul dead; they will never hear. They have no ability to do anything but promote evil. If I can say one thing to you, focus your energy on those who can hear."
-from Yearning Wild, by R. Glendon Brunk
"Thoughts are the language of the brain. Sensations are the language of the body. Emotions are the language of the soul. Our job is to listen to our whole being; all three." -Me
"If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, you quickly come to understand that you have been set apart and that there's no will in this society to bring you back into the mainstream. The kids have eyes and they can see, and they have ears and they can hear. Kids notice that no politicians talk about this. Nobody says we're going to make them less separate and more equal. Nobody says that." -Jonathan Kozol
"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names." -Confucius
"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." -Aesop
"But ordinarily we do not discover the wisdom of our feelings because we do not let them complete their work; we try to suppress them or discharge them in premature action, not realizing that they are a process of creation which, like birth, begins as a pain and turns into a child." -Alan Watts in his book Become What You Are
"There's no hiding for me
I'm forced to deal with what I feel
There is no distraction to mask what is real...
And now I just sit in silence" -Twenty One Pilots
Frodo: No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food... nor the sound of water... nor the touch of grass. I'm... naked in the dark, with nothing, no veil... between me... and the wheel of fire! I can see him... with my waking eyes!
Sam: Then let us be rid of it... once and for all! Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can't carry it for you... but I can carry you!" From The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
"It is no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society." -J. Krishnamurti
"Mindfulness is Enlightenment itself. You only need a few seconds to get enlightened. Aware that you are alive, with a body that is strong enough and healthy enough – that is Enlightenment. Our body is a wonder."
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.” -L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
"Will they ever have another fighter who writes poems, predicts rounds, beats everybody, makes people laugh, makes people cry, and is as tall and extra pretty as me? A prize fight is like a war: the real part is won or lost somewhere far away from witnesses, behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road long before I dance under those lights." -Muhammad Ali
"He has two chances. Slim and none, and slim just left town." -Muhammad Ali
"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life." -Muhammad Ali
"When a man says I cannot, he has made a suggestion to himself. He has weakened his power of accomplishing that which otherwise would have been accomplished." -Muhammad Ali
"Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." -Muhammad Ali
"No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger." -Muhammad Ali
"Nobody has to tell me that this is a serious business. I'm not fightin' one man. I'm fighting a lot of men, showing a lot of them, here is one man they couldn't defeat, couldn't conquer...My mission is to bring freedom to 30 million black people." -Muhammad Ali
"How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail." -Muhammad Ali
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
"People who have the capacity to ruthlessly maltreat their children tend toward self-justification, not shame." -Emily Yoffe
"If hubris is totally absent, self-love is not really a sin, but a completely healthy state of mind." -A friend (R.M.)
"It's dark because you're trying too hard," said Susila. "Dark because you want it to be light. Remember what you used to tell me when I was a little girl. 'Lightly, child, lightly. You've got to learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly, even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.' ...Lightly, lightly - it was the best advice ever given me. Well, now I'm going to say the same thing to you, Lakshmi...Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying." -Aldous Huxley, Island
"Kathi says a lot of things and it all has that familiar ring." -J Church, Kathi
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. / Just keep going. No feeling is final." -Rainer Maria Rilke
"There is an important idea in Nietzsche of 'amor fati,' the 'love of your fate,' which is in fact your life. As he says, if you say no to a single factor in your life, you have unraveled the whole thing. Furthermore, the more challenging or threatening the situation or context to be assimilated and affirmed, the greater the stature of the person who can achieve it. The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life's pain, the greater life's reply." -Joseph Campbell
"There are many ways we have of standing outside ourselves in ignorance. Those who have learned as children to become strangers to themselves do not find this a difficult task. Habit has made it natural not to feel. To ignore the consequences of what one does in the world becomes ordinary." -Susan Griffin
"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" -Kurt Vonnegut
"If there's a world here in a hundred years, it's going to be saved by tens of millions of little things. The powers-that-be can break up any big thing they want. They can corrupt it or co-opt it from the inside, or they can attack it from the outside. But what are they going to do about ten million little things? They break up two of them, and three more like them spring up!" -Pete Seeger
"We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness." -Thich Nhat Hanh
From the movie, V for Vendetta:
Finch: "Who was he?"
Evey Hammond: "He was Edmond Dantés... and he was my father. And my mother... my brother... my friend. He was you... and me. He was all of us."
"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin..." -Malcolm X
"I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." -Rainer Maria Rilke
"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." -Rumi
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