Rabindranath Tagore, Mevlana Rumi, Dalai Lama, Vonnegut, Nhat Hahn, Lao Tzu, Yoko Ono, Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha <3

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☮Peace is every step.
- Thich Nhat Hahn

The Inner Sun

Love is longing and longing, the pain of being parted;
No illness is rich enough for the distress of the heart,
A lover’s lament surpasses all other cries of pain.
Love is the royal threshold to God’s mystery.
The carnival of small affections and polite attachments
Which litter and consume our passing time
Is no match to Love which pulses behind this play.
It’s easy to talk endlessly about Love,
To live Love is to be seized by joy and bewilderment;
Love is not clear-minded, busy with images and argument.
Language is too precocious, too impudent, too sane
To stop the molten lava of Love which churns the blood,
This practicing energy burns the tongue to silence;
The knowing pen is disabled, servile paper
Shrivels in the fire of Love. Bald reason too is an ass
Explaining Love, deceived by spoilt lucidity.
Love is dangerous offering no consolation,

Only those who are ravaged by Love know Love,
The sun alone unveils the sun to those who have
The sense to receive the senseless and not turn away.
Cavernous shadows need the light to play but light
And light alone can lead you to the light alone.
Material shadows weigh down your vision with dross,
But the rising sun splits the ashen moon in empty half.
The outer sun is our daily miracle in timely
Birth and death, the inner sun
Dazzles the inner eye in a timeless space.
Our daily sun is but a working star in a galaxy of stars,
Our inner sun is One, the dancing nuance of eternal light.
You must be set alight by the inner sun,
You have to live your Love or else
You’ll only end in words.
~ Mevlana Rumi

Translated by Raficq Abdulla

Knowing ignorance is strength; ignoring knowledge is sickness.
- Lao Tzu

I tell you one thing – if you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather learn to see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; this whole world is your own.
– SRI SARADA DEVI

Our world is in profound danger. Mankind must establish a set of positive values with which to secure its own survival.
This quest for enlightenment must begin now.
It is essential that all men and women become aware of what they are, why they are here on Earth and what they must do to preserve civilization before it is too late. ~ Richard Matheson (born 20 February 1926)

I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
~ Frederick Douglass ~

There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom. Friendship loves a free Air, and will not be penned up in streight and narrow Enclosures. It will speak freely, and act so too; and take nothing ill where no ill is meant; nay, where it is, ’twill easily forgive, and forget too, upon small Acknowledgments. ~ William Penn

All in all is all we are. ~ Kurt Cobain (born 20 February 1967)

We picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug-collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. ~ Hunter S. Thompson (died 20 February 2005)

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. ~ Frederick Douglass

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. ~ Frederick Douglass (died February 20, 1895; born February 1817/1818, birthdate unknown)

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. ~ Frederick Douglass

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
- Dogen Zenji

Words of wisdom
came to me at last
“the beloved you’ve lost
the one you’ve been seeking outside
can only be found inside”
- Rumi

All great truths begin as blasphemies.
- George Bernard Shaw

‎”…meditation is the only way to make you absolutely sane.”
~ Osho

The rose has come from beyond; it is from the other world. That’s why this world cannot encompass the rose. The rose is so graceful, so elegant that the world of dreams is too narrow to dream of the rose. What is meant by the rose, a messenger from the garden of the intellect, from the grove of spirit? What is the rose? A document that describes the beauty and the highness of the rose of truth that neither turns brown nor withers.
~ Rumi

Come come the roses are in bloom!
The Beloved has arrived!
Now it is time to unite the soul and the world.
~ Rumi

Without trying, the world is heading for perfect awareness – and you are part of it.
- Yoko Ono

We cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we curb our own harmful impulses and desires.

Large human movements spring from individual human initiatives.
- Dalai Lama

☮Peace is the only battle worth waging.
- Albert Camus (1913-1960)

☮All it takes for evil to rule a land is for good men to remain silent.
- Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others. ♥ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
♥ Ralph Waldo Emerson

‎”Responding to adverse situations or conditions with patience and tolerance rather than reacting with anger and hatred involves active restraint, which arises from a strong, self-disciplined mind. We should not see patience as a sign of weakness or giving in, but rather as a sign of strength.”
- Dalai Lama

Seek out the source
which shines forever.
- Mevlana Rumi

“In the midst of death life persists.
In the midst of untruth truth persists.
In the midst of darkness light persists.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
– George Bernard Shaw

I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher’s ideas are not subject to the judgement of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus (born 19 February 1473)

External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It’s important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that’s unique for yourself. ~ Amy Tan (born 19 February 1952)

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
~ Paul Simon ~
(Lyrics to “The Sound of Silence” — written on this day in 1964)

Now that your rose is in bloom,
A light hits the gloom on the grave,
I’ve been kissed by a rose on the grave.
~ Seal ~

And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence.”
~ Paul Simon ~ (song written on this day in 1964)

People have such terrible assumptions about ghosts — you know, phantoms that haunt you, that make you scared, that turn the house upside down. Yin people are not in our living presence but are around, and kind of guide you to insights. Like in Las Vegas when the bells go off, telling you you’ve hit the jackpot. Yin people ring the bells, saying, “Pay attention.” And you say, “Oh, I see now.” Yet I’m a fairly skeptical person. I’m educated, I’m reasonably sane, and I know that this subject is fodder for ridicule. … To write the book, I had to put that aside. As with any book. I go through the anxiety, “What will people think of me for writing something like this?” But ultimately, I have to write what I have to write about, including the question of life continuing beyond our ordinary senses. ~ Amy Tan

Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grave.
Ooh, the more I get of you,
Stranger it feels, yeah.
And now that your rose is in bloom,
A light hits the gloom on the grave.
~ Seal ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/February#19

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I’m sure you’ve noticed that more and more people are getting aware.
- Yoko Ono

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
— William W. Purkey

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
— Dr. Seuss

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.”
— Dr. Seuss

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
— Maya Angelou

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
— Marcus Tullius Cicero

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
— Albert Camus

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
— Mark Twain

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
— Oscar Wilde

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
— Abraham Lincoln

“Twenty 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 bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
— Mark Twain

“So many books, so little time.”
— Frank Zappa

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
— C.S. Lewis

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
— Robert Frost

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
— John Lennon

“If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”
— Malcolm X

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why we call it ‘The Present’.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
— William Shakespeare (As You Like It)

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
— Albert Einstein

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
— Mark Twain

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
— Marilyn Monroe

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”
— Elie Wiesel

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
— Groucho Marx (The Essential Groucho)

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
— Mark Twain

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
— Steve Martin

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
— Albert Einstein

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde (Lady Windermere’s Fan)

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”
— Jim Henson

via en.wikiquote.org

The Great Spirit does not toil within the bounds of human time, place, or casualty.
The Great Spirit is superior to these human questionings. It teems with many rich and wandering drives which to our shallow minds seem contradictory; but in the essence of divinity they fraternize and struggle together, faithful comrades-in-arms.
The primordial Spirit branches out, overflows, struggles, fails, succeeds, trains itself. It is the Rose of the Winds.
~ Nikos Kazantzakis ~

What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis (born 18 February 1883)

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can. ~Toni Morrison (born 18 February 1931)

The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

My prayer is not the whimpering of a beggar nor a confession of love. Nor is it the petty reckoning of a small tradesman: Give me and I shall give you. My prayer is the report of a soldier to his general: This is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I encountered, this is how I plan to fight tomorrow. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Where are we going? Do not ask! Ascend, descend. There is no beginning and no end. Only this present moment exists, full of bitterness, full of sweetness, and I rejoice in it all. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

I am a mariner of Odysseus with heart of fire but with mind ruthless and clear.

My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.

I said to the almond tree: “Speak to me of God”
and the almond tree blossomed.
~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Do not let your peace depend on the hearts of others; whatever they say about you, good or bad, you are not because of it another, for as you are, you are.
– THOMAS A KEMPIS

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‎”I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.”
— Louise L. Hay

‎”Love yourself as much as you can and all of life will mirror this love back to you.”
- Louise L. Hay

“Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.”
- Eckhart Tolle

The law of nature is that one can never unknow what one knows. So all of us are getting wiser and wiser. There’s no stopping it!

Change is inevitable. And it’s up to us to make it a good change.
- Yoko Ono

☮Peace will be victorious. — Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)

‎”Ambition is bondage.”
–Ibn Gabirol

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.
♥ Buddha

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.
♥ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.
♥ Buddha

The BIG question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty YES to your adventure!
♥ Joseph Campbell

You cannot travel on the path until you become the path itself.
♥ Buddha

“The seemingly impossible is possible. We can have a good world.”
~ Hans Rosling

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
♥ Horace

“It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it.”
— Terry Pratchett

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
— Henry David Thoreau

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”
— Siddhārtha Gautama

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
— Albert Einstein

“Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin (The Lathe of Heaven)

(I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.)”
— Pablo Neruda

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
— Albert Einstein

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC”
— Kurt Vonnegut

“By virtue of being human, each of us has the capacity to choose, to change, to grow.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. . . . I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.
– MAHATMA GANDHI

Our body needs peace of mind and is not suited to agitation. This shows that an appreciation for peace of mind is in our blood.
- Dalai Lama

I understand Being in all and over all, as there is nothing without participation in Being, and there is no being without Essence. Thus nothing can be free of the Divine Presence.
~ Giordano Bruno ~

Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be. ~ Anonymous

There is one simple Divinity found in all things, everything has Divinity latent within itself. For she enfolds and imparts herself even unto the smallest beings. Without her presence nothing would have being, because she is the essence of the existence of the first unto the last being. ~ Giordano Bruno (died 17 February 1600)

Even to have come forth is something, since I see that being able to conquer is placed in the hands of fate. However, there was in me, whatever I was able to do, that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: Not to have feared to die, not to have yielded to any equal in firmness of nature, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life. ~ Giordano Bruno (executed 17 February 1600)

A voiceless song in an ageless light
Sings at the coming dawn
Birds in flight are calling there
Where the heart moves the stones
It’s there that my heart is calling
All for the love of you.
~ Loreena McKennitt ~

All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity. ~ Giordano Bruno

The Divine Light is always in man, presenting itself to the senses and to the comprehension, but man rejects it. ~ Giordano Bruno

Writing…is an art; and artists…are human beings. As a human being stands, so a human being is…

Poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality….poetry is being, not doing….if poetry is your goal, you’ve got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about selfstyled obligations and duties and responsibilities . . .

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time —and whenever we do it, we are not poets.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. ~ e. e. cummings

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~ Henry Adams (born 16 February 1838)

The counsels of impatience and hatred can always be supported by the crudest and cheapest symbols; for the counsels of moderation, the reasons are often intricate, rather than emotional, and difficult to explain. And so the chauvinists of all times and places go their appointed way: plucking the easy fruits, reaping the little triumphs of the day at the expense of someone else tomorrow, deluging in noise and filth anyone who gets in their way, dancing their reckless dance on the prospects for human progress, drawing the shadow of a great doubt over the validity of democratic institutions. And until people learn to spot the fanning of mass emotions and the sowing of bitterness, suspicion, and intolerance as crimes in themselves — as perhaps the greatest disservice that can be done to the cause of popular government — this sort of thing will continue to occur. ~George F. Kennan

Public opinion, or what passes for public opinion, is not invariably a moderating force in the jungle of politics. It may be true, and I suspect it is, that the mass of people everywhere are normally peace-loving and would accept many restraints and sacrifices in preference to the monstrous calamities of war. But I also suspect that what purports to be public opinion in most countries that consider themselves to have popular government is often not really the consensus of the feelings of the mass of the people at all, but rather the expression of the interests of special highly vocal minorities — politicians, commentators, and publicity-seekers of all sorts: people who live by their ability to draw attention to themselves and die, like fish out of water, if they are compelled to remain silent. ~ George F. Kennan

All experience is an arch, to build upon. ~ Henry Brooks Adams

What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn. ~ Henry Adams

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. ~ Henry Adams

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
–Walter Benjamin

I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and hook up with them later.
- Mitch Hedberg

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
- William Wrigley Jr.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw

‎”The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.”
- Benjamin Disraeli

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
—
Siddhārtha Gautama

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
- Swami Vivekananda

Love is invisible except here, in us.
Sometimes I praise love,
sometimes love praises me.
Love, a little shell somewhere
on the ocean floor,
open its mouth.
You and I and we, those imaginary beings,
enter that shell as a single sip of seawater.
- Rumi

“Be Yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”
- Oscar Wilde

“The actions of men are the best interpreters of thoughts.”
–Zig Ziglar

Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.
♥ Albert Einstein

☮Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
- Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Friends and enemies do not exist as such; friendship and enmity depend on many factors, of which the primary one is our own mental attitude.

Whoever wants to tell a variety of stories ought to have a variety of beginnings.
–Marie de France

“We all need joy, and we can all receive joy in only one way, by adding to the joy of others.”EKNATH EASWARAN(1910–1999)

As Plato sometimes speaks of the divine love, it arises not out of indigency, as created love does, but out of fullness and redundancy.
– JOHN SMITH THE PLATONIST

“The widest possibilities for spiritual growth lie in the give-and-take of everyday relationships.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“This is the central principle of meditation: we become what we meditate on.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

“The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just. ~ Blaise Pascal

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“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

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
– WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

“By virtue of being human, each of us has the capacity to choose, to change, to grow.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

If God gave the soul his whole creation she would not be filled thereby but only with himself.
– MEISTER ECKHART

“Nothing can be more important than being able to choose the way we think.”
EKNATH EASWARAN
(1910–1999)

‎”Your progress depends upon your degree of sustained intensity in a given direction.”
- Roger McDonald

‎”This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.”
— Paulo Coelho

look at water and fire
earth and wind
enemies and friends all at once
- Rumi

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, and engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
—
John Keating (Dead Poets Society)

The house of my heart is empty,
devoid of desire, like paradise.
Within it is no work but the LOVE OF GOD,
no inhabitant but the image of union with Him.
I have swept the house clear of good and bad -
my house is full of love for the One…
- Rumi

The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined.

Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell – keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping a year.

The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.

The wilful filing off of gear teeth, the wilful doing without certain obvious pieces of information.

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

“Fuck every cause that ends in murder and children crying.”
– Iain M. Banks

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
♥ Martin Luther King Jr.

Fear breeds fear. Hate breeds hate. And Love breeds love.
- Yoko Ono

A given situation can be viewed as either unbearable or beneficial: it depends how we look at it. We must make certain that things don’t begin to seem unbearable. If we look too closely at problems we will see nothing else and they will appear all out of proportion with reality; that is when they become intolerable. If we can stand back from them, we will be better able to judge them and they will seem less serious.
- Dalai Lama

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
- Paul Valery

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
- Ronald Reagan

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.
- Fran Lebowitz

Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.
- Bob Edwards

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
- Robert Heinlein

God wasn’t too bad a novelist except he was a Realist.
- John Barth

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us ~ Bill Watterson

Never give in and never give up.
- Hubert H. Humphrey

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche

“Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair.”
- T.S. Eliot

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made.”
- Robert Browning

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
- Samuel Johnson

You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.
- Warren Beatty

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
- Gustave Flaubert

The only things in my life that compatibly exist with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit.

No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied — it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.
- Ansel Adams (Born February 20, 1902)

“I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.”
- Kurt Kobain (Born February 20, 1967)

via en.wikiquote.org

The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.

Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance.

Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love.

God, the Great Giver, can open the whole universe to our gaze in the narrow space of a single land.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

Love is the ultimate meaning of everything around us. It is not a mere sentiment; it is truth; it is the joy that is at the root of all creation.

When we define a man by the market value of the service we can expect of him, we know him imperfectly.

Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.

The human soul is on its journey from the law to love, from discipline to liberation, from the moral plane to the spiritual.

Joy is the realisation of the truth of oneness, the oneness of our soul with the world and of the world-soul with the supreme lover.

The infinite being has assumed unto himself the mystery of finitude. And in him who is love the finite and the infinite are made one.

Your idol is shattered in the dust to prove that God’s dust is greater than your idol.

The wise man warns me that life is but a dewdrop on the lotus leaf.

In the world’s audience hall, the simple blade of grass sits on the same carpet with the sunbeams, and the stars of midnight.

Wishing to hearten a timid lamp
great night lights all her stars.

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty
that can modulate their isolation
into a harmony with the whole.

Color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.
- Rabindranath Tagore

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gPn87l

A Green Flash From The Sun – Dalai Lama, Einstein, Gandhi, Rumi, Sagan, Newton (Born Jan. 4, 1643), TS Eliot<3

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I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ~ Isaac Newton (born 4 January 1643)

Men learn little from others’ experience. But in the life of one man, never the same time returns. ~ T. S. Eliot, in Murder in the Cathedral (died 4 January 1965)

The main Business of natural Philosophy is to argue from Phenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects, till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical. ~ Isaac Newton (born 4 January 1643)

It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).
~ R.E.M. ~ (birthday of Michael Stipe, lead singer and major song writer in the band — which divides the credit on all its songs equally)

That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough.
~ R.E.M. ~

The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt.
The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify mens curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world. For the event of things predicted many ages before will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by Providence.
~ Isaac Newton

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#4

Every man’s memory is his private literature.
- Aldous Huxley

“There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
- Everett Dirksen

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.
- Lao Tzu

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
- Voltaire

Determination and hope are key factors for a brighter future.

As I see it, compassion is the essence of a spiritual life.
-Dalai Lama

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. ~Frank Herbert, Dune Chronicles

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the and the blind can see.
~ Mark Twain

Fall down seven times, stand up eight.
♥ Japanese Proverb

☮Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.
- Jill Jackson and Sy Miller

Ever since happiness heard your name,
it has been running through the streets trying to find you.
~ Hafiz

Our possibilities, opportunities and horizons expand and increase as our fears diminish and decrease. Fear itself has no physical reality of it’s own. The fact that it is a mental construct is the key to its own undoing. We are the only force that gives it any meaning or power over us through our belief in it and thus we can withdraw its hold over us by replacing it with a new meaning.
~ Hal Tipper

Friends are kisses blown to us by angels.
♥ Author Unknown

via spacetelescope.org

via apod.nasa.gov

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee… ~ John Donne

Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man, except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age? ~ Cicero (born 3 January 106 BC)

Each comprehended only that part of the mind of Ilúvatar from which he came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion (Tolkien born 3 January 1892)

The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. ~ “Gandalf” inThe Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

This is an ancient hallow, and ere the kings failed or the Tree withered in the court, a fruit must have been set here. For it is said that, though the fruit of the Tree comes seldom to ripeness, yet the life within may then lie sleeping through many long years, and none can foretell the time in which it will awake. ~ Gandalf in The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

Of the theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in harmony together a Great Music. And since I have kindled you with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will. But I will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

He who looks on a true friend looks, as it were, upon a kind of image of himself: wherefore friends, though absent, are still present; though in poverty, they are rich; though weak, yet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, though dead, they are alive.
~ Cicero ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#3

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
– Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Even he, to whom most things that most people would think were pretty smart were pretty dumb, thought it was pretty smart.
– Douglas Adams

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.
– Groucho Marx

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
- Heinrich Heine

via apod.nasa.gov

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profundity. Kindness in giving creates love.
~ Lao Tzu ♥

Better to remain silent & be thought a fool that to speak & remove all doubt.
- English proverbs

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.
- Wordsworth

I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.
~ Harold Kushner

Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!
-Ram Dass

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
~ Albert Einstein

We are all in this together. ~ English proverb

via en.wikiquote.org

How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection…That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers. ~ Isaac Asimov (born 2 January 1920)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. ~ Isaac Asimov

When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise — even in their own field. ~ Isaac Asimov

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be … ~ Isaac Asimov

I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be. ~ Isaac Asimov

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
~ Isaac Asimov ~

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January#2

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
- Pablo Picasso

“All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree… Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking… The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
- Albert Einstein

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”
- Carl Sagan

“Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.”
- Henry David Thoreau

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.

My life is my message.

Every moment of your life is infinitely creative, and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.”
- William Butler Yeats

“By Being, It Is.”
- Parmenides

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
- Nietzsche

“When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear; when that happens, The Warriors of the Rainbow will come to save them.”
- Chief Seattle

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
- George Santayana

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”
- Carl Jung

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
- Rene Descartes

“We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.”
- Richard Feynman

“Then he said ‘Remember Bob, No Fear, No Envy, No Meanness’” “And I said ‘hmmm, right.’”
- Bob Dylan

“The reverse side also has a reverse side.”
- Japanese Proverb

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
- William James

“If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do… How would I be? What would I do?”
- Buckminster Fuller

“The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge….”
- Sri Aurobindo

“The Self alone exists; and the Self alone is real. Verily the Self alone is the world, the I-I and God. All that exists is but the manifestation of the Supreme Being.”
- Ramana Maharshi

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”
- John F. Kennedy

Dont GO through life, GROW through life. ♥ Eric Butterworth

When will you begin your long journey into yourself?
- Mevlana Rumi

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.
- Charles Dickens

“If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
- Oscar Wilde

“My love of poetry is love of joy.”
- Jack Kerouac

I you can’t love do not come to my alley; if you can’t be naked don’t come to my river, if you have resentments stay on your side
- Rumi

We can’t wait for a miracle or simply pray for our dreams/ We can’t just condemn the violence and denounce the mean/ We are the ones who must be held to account/ For the mountain ahead, we can’t just give commentary; we must fight, climb and surmount.
- Cory Booker

We stand on this beautiful planet enjoying the sunrise sunset changeofseasons oceans mountains & lovely towns & cities we created together
- Yoko Ono

http://twitter.com/yokoono

An ancient dictum says that when Zeus wanted to destroy someone, he would first drive him mad.
- Jean-Marie Le Pen

If once in this world I win a moment with thee,
I will trample on both worlds; I will dance in triumph forever !
~Maulana Rumi

These words are a drop,
From love’s infinite ocean.
To the world,
thirst-quenching nectar,
To the soul,
everlasting life.

Stand with dignity in the magnificent current of my words and they will carry you into God’s arms.
~Rumi

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, yet again, come, come.

~Inscribed on Rumi’s Shrine in Konya, Turkey
What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognise myself.

I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.

I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;

I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heaven.

I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;

I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.

I am not of India , nor of China , nor of Bulgaria , nor of Saqsin.

I am not of the kingdom of ’Iraqian, nor of the country of Khorasan

I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise , nor of Hell.

I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan.

My place is the Placeless; my trace is the Traceless;

’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.

- Rumi
The Soul of the Beloved

What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognise myself.
I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.

I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;
I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heaven.

I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;
I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.

I am not of India , nor of China , nor of Bulgaria , nor of Saqsin.
I am not of the kingdom of ’Iraqian, nor of the country of Khorasan

I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise , nor of Hell.
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan.

My place is the Placeless; my trace is the Traceless;
’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.

I have put duality away; I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.

He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;
I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken;

If once in my life I spent a moment without thee,
From that time and from that hour I repent of my life.

If once in this world I win a moment with thee,
I will trample on both worlds; I will dance in triumph forever.

~Maulana Rumi

Translate­d by Reynold A. Nicholson

http://www.facebook.com/beloved.of.rumi

“The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone”
- Eknath Easwaran

✦ Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.
- Aristotle

A hug is like a boomerang – you get it back right away.
- Bil Keane

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. ♥ Jim Rohn

☮Nonviolence is absolute respect for each human being. – Adolpho Perez Esquival

☮If you let go a little you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace. ~ Ajahn Cha

via apod.nasa.gov

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
- Italo Calvino

http://themodernword.com/

Be an angel to someone else whenever you can, as a way of thanking God for the help your angel has given you. ♥ Eileen Elias Freeman

via en.wikiquote.org

via en.wikiquote.org

All we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.
~ J. D. Salinger ~

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die. ~ E. M. Forster (date of birth)

I do not believe in Belief. But this is an Age of Faith, and there are so many militant creeds that, in self defence, one has to formulate a creed of one’s own. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy are no longer enough in a world where ignorance rules, and Science, which ought to have ruled, plays the pimp. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy — they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long. ~ E. M. Forster

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also the creative impulse. ~ E. M. Forster

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal. ~ E. M. Forster

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it. ~ J. D. Salinger

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/January

A person hears only what they understand.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. ♥ Albert Einstein

☮Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain. — Marquis de Sade

via nasa.gov

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Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”
— Leo Tolstoy

via en.wikiquote.org

At each stage I reach a balance, a conclusion. At the next sitting, if I find that there is a weakness in the whole, I make my way back into the picture by means of the weakness — I re-enter through the breach — and I reconceive the whole. Thus everything becomes fluid again.
~ Henri Matisse ~

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,
Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep
And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged
Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:
And down the wave and in the flame was borne
A naked babe…
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the King ~

For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
~ “Auld Lang Syne” by Robert Burns ~

For my part I have never avoided the influence of others. I would have considered it cowardice and a lack of sincerity toward myself. ~ Henri Matisse (born December 31, 1869)

It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy… Let’s go exploring! ~ Bill Watterson – Final strip of Calvin and Hobbes, published December 31, 1995

The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it. ~ George Marshall

When a thing is done, it’s done. Don’t look back. Look forward to your next objective. ~ George Marshall

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#31

Compassion creates a positive, friendly atmosphere. With such an attitude, you can create the possibility of receiving affection or a positive response from someone else. If the other person doesn’t respond to you in a positive way, your own feeling of openness gives you the flexibility and freedom to change your approach as needed and still allows for the possibility of having a meaningful conversation with them.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Awareness of impermanence and appreciation of our human potential will give us a sense of urgency that we must use every precious moment.
~Dalai Lama

☮If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. — Mother Theresa (1910-1997)

☮We do not inherit the earth from our fathers. We borrow it from our children.

☮Either war is obsolete or men are. — Buckminster Fuller

☮How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. — Anne Frank

☮The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens. — Baha’ullah

☮Nonviolence is the supreme law of life. — Indian Proverb

☮Imagine all the people living life in peace You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. — John Lennon

☮ — Albert Camus (1913-1960)

☮Nonviolence is absolute respect for each human being. – Adolpho Perez Esquival

http://twitter.com/PeaceQuotes

Man won’t fly for a thousand years.
- Wilbur Wright

http://themodernword.com/

“Love is the Ultimate Expression of Faith” -
- AntHallTheJedi

via apod.nasa.gov

I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too…
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
~ Rudyard Kipling ~ (born 30 December 1865)

The greatest book is not the one whose message engraves itself on the brain, as a telegraphic message engraves itself on the ticker-tape, but the one whose vital impact opens up other viewpoints, and from writer to reader spreads the fire that is fed by the various essences, until it becomes a vast conflagration leaping from forest to forest. ~ Romain Rolland(died 30 December 1944)

It is the artist’s business to create sunshine when the sun fails. ~ Romain Rolland
Justice has nothing to do with victor nations and vanquished nations, but must be a moral standard that all the world’s peoples can agree to. To seek this and to achieve it — that is true civilization. ~ Hideki Tojo

One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved. ~ Romain Rolland

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:Quote_of_the_day/December#30s

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
- Herman Melville

http://themodernword.com/

Procrastination isn’t the problem, it’s the solution. So procrastinate now, don’t put it off.
– Ellen DeGeneres

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
– Ernest Rutherford

I was the kid next door’s imaginary friend.
– Emo Phillips

He who knows patience knows peace.
♥ Chinese Proverb

Success is not the key to happiness. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
- Albert Schweitzer

The worried, heroic doings of men and women seem weary and futile to dervishes enjoying the light breeze of spirit
~ Rumi

Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities. ♥ Terry Josephson

via apod.nasa.gov

I will make company with creators, with harvesters, with rejoicers; I will show them the rainbow and the stairway to the Superman. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra

If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet. ~ Andrew Johnson (born 29 December 1808)

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 love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man. ~ Pablo Casals

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not

poet enough to call forth its riches. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke (Date of death)

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. ~ William Ewart Gladstone (born December 29, 1809)

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Never mistake motion for action.
- Ernest Hemingway

http://themodernword.com

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust ☺

The good man is the friend of all living things.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
~ G.K. Chesteron

When you say it’s difficult, it becomes more difficult. When you say it’s easy, it actually becomes easier.
♥ Nithya

At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards.
- Hunter S. Thompson

We all must seek and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

I believe a proper use of our time is to serve others if we can or at least refrain from harming them. That is the basis of my philosophy.
- Dalai Lama

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.
– George Santayana

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
– Francois de La Rochefoucauld

There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes.
– Doctor Who

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.
♥ Zig Ziglar

Speak truth to power. ~Marian Wright Edelman

I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. … Recently, we’ve managed to wade a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting.

For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise.

We are made of starstuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
- Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
– Aldous Huxley

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.
– Laurence J. Peter

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
– A. A. Milne

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
♥ Albert Einstein

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge.

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group.

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us ââ,¬” there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise.

We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true.

We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there ââ,¬” on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
- Carl Sagan

A person hears only what they understand.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.
- Marquis de Sade

I am still learning. ~ Michelangelo ☺

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift ~ Albert Einstein

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
- Carl Sagan

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
- Victor Hugo
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A Green Flash from the Sun Credit & Copyright: Juan José Manzano (Grupo de Observadores Astronómicos de Tenerife)

Explanation: Many think it is just a myth. Others think it is true but its cause isn’t known. Adventurers pride themselves on having seen it. It’s a green flash from the Sun. The truth is the green flash does exist and its cause is well understood. Just as the setting Sun disappears completely from view, a last glimmer appears startlingly green. The effect is typically visible only from locations with a low, distant horizon, and lasts just a few seconds. A green flash is also visible for a rising Sun, but takes better timing to spot. A dramatic green flash, as well as an even more rare blue flash, was caught in the above photograph recently observed during a sunset visible from Teide Observatory at Tenerife, Cannary Islands, Spain. The Sun itself does not turn partly green or blue – the effect is caused by layers of the Earth’s atmosphere acting like a prism. Read more at apod.nasa.gov

 

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Baruch Spinoza (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677) – “How much do I love that noble man…” – Albert Einstein

When you say that if I deny, that the operations of seeing, hearing, attending, wishing, &c., can be ascribed to God, or that they exist in Him in any eminent fashion, you do not know what sort of God mine is; I suspect that you believe there is no greater perfection than such as can be explained by the aforesaid attributes. I am not astonished; for I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped.

The briefness of a letter and want of time do not allow me to enter into my opinion on the divine nature, or the questions you have propounded. Besides, suggesting difficulties is not the same as producing reasons. That we do many things in the world from conjecture is true, but that our redactions are based on conjecture is false. In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

Again, we cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.
Letter 56 (60), to Hugo Boxel (1674)

My opinion concerning God differs widely from that which is ordinarily defended by modern Christians. For I hold that God is of all things the cause immanent, as the phrase is, not transient. I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different; I will even venture to affirm that I agree with all the ancient Hebrews, in so far as one may judge from their traditions, though these are in many ways corrupted. The supposition of some, that I endeavour to prove in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus the unity of God and Nature (meaning by the latter a certain mass or corporeal matter), is wholly erroneous.

As regards miracles, I am of opinion that the revelation of God can only be established by the wisdom of the doctrine, not by miracles, or in other words by ignorance.
Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November (1675)

I make this chief distinction between religion and superstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge; this, I take it, is the reason why Christians are distinguished from the rest of the world, not by faith, nor by charity, nor by the other fruits of the Holy Spirit, but solely by their opinions, inasmuch as they defend their cause, like everyone else, by miracles, that is by ignorance, which is the source of all malice; thus they turn a faith, which may be true, into superstition.
Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November (1675)

I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different…

I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh: but with regard to the Eternal Son of God, that is the Eternal Wisdom of God, which has manifested itself in all things and especially in the human mind, and above all in Christ Jesus, the case is far otherwise. For without this no one can come to a state of blessedness, inasmuch as it alone teaches, what is true or false, good or evil. And, inasmuch as this wisdom was made especially manifest through Jesus Christ, as I have said, His disciples preached it, in so far as it was revealed to them through Him, and thus showed that they could rejoice in that spirit of Christ more than the rest of mankind. The doctrines added by certain churches, such as that God took upon Himself human nature, I have expressly said that I do not understand; in fact, to speak the truth, they seem to me no less absurd than would a statement, that a circle had taken upon itself the nature of a, square. This I think will be sufficient explanation of my opinions concerning the three points mentioned. Whether it will be satisfactory to Christians you will know better than I.
Letter 21 (73) to Henry Oldenburg , November (1675)

Variant translation: The eternal wisdom of God … has shown itself forth in all things, but chiefly in the mind of man, and most of all in Jesus Christ.

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

You seem to wish to employ reason, and ask me, “How I know that my philosophy is the best among all that have ever been taught in the world, or are being taught, or ever will be taught?” a question which I might with much greater right ask you; for I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy. If you ask in what way I know it, I answer: In the same way as you know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: that this is sufficient, will be denied by no one whose brain is sound, and who does not go dreaming of evil spirits inspiring us with false ideas like the true. For the truth is the index of itself and of what is false.

But you, who presume that you have at last found the best religion, or rather the best men, on whom you have pinned your credulity, you, “who know that they are the best among all who have taught, do now teach, or shall in future teach other religions. Have you examined all religions, ancient as well as modern, taught here and in India and everywhere throughout the world? And, if you, have duly examined them, how do you know that you have chosen the best” since you can give no reason for the faith that is in you? But you will say, that you acquiesce in the inward testimony of the Spirit of God, while the rest of mankind are ensnared and deceived by the prince of evil spirits. But all those outside the pale of the Romish Church can with equal right proclaim of their own creed what you proclaim of yours.

As to what you add of the common consent of myriads of men and the uninterrupted ecclesiastical succession, this is the very catch-word of the Pharisees. They with no less confidence than the devotees of Rome bring forward their myriad witnesses, who as pertinaciously as the Roman witnesses repeat what they have heard, as though it were their personal experience. Further, they carry back their line to Adam. They boast with equal arrogance, that their Church has continued to this day unmoved and unimpaired in spite of the hatred of Christians and heathen. They more than any other sect are supported by antiquity. They exclaim with one voice, that they have received their traditions from God Himself, and that they alone preserve the Word of God both written and unwritten. That all heresies have issued from them, and that they have remained constant through thousands of years under no constraint of temporal dominion, but by the sole efficacy of their superstition, no one can deny. The miracles they tell of would tire a thousand tongues. But their chief boast is, that they count a far greater number of martyrs than any other nation, a number which is daily increased by those who suffer with singular constancy for the faith they profess; nor is their boasting false. I myself knew among others of a certain Judah called the faithful, who in the midst of the flames, when he was already thought to be dead, lifted his voice to sing the hymn beginning, “To Thee, O God, I offer up my soul,” and so singing perished.
Letter 74 (76) to Albert Burgh (1675)

Nature is satisfied with little; and if she is, I am also.
As quoted in The Story of Philosophy (1933) by Will Durant, p. 176

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I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them.

I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say… that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular…

We must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow…

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain…

I say that all things are in God and move in God, thus agreeing with Paul, and, perhaps, with all the ancient philosophers, though the phraseology may be different…

I do not presume that I have found the best philosophy, I know that I understand the true philosophy.

The properties of things are not understood so long as their essences are unknown.

Everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits…

The multitude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included…

In regard to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest, and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather than another.

The true aim of government is liberty.

The real disturbers of the peace are those who, in a free state, seek to curtail the liberty of judgment which they are unable to tyrannize over.

I have resolved to demonstrate by a certain and undoubted course of argument, or to deduce from the very condition of human nature, not what is new and unheard of, but only such things as agree best with practice.

Nothing is forbidden by the law of nature, except what is beyond everyone’s power.

Nature offers nothing that can be called this man’s rather than another’s; but under nature everything belongs to all…

He is called just who has a constant will to render to every man his own…

All laws which can be broken without any injury to another, are counted but a laughing-stock, and are so far from bridling the desires and lusts of men, that on the contrary they stimulate them.

By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite — that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.

God and all attributes of God are eternal.

Individual things are nothing but modifications of the attributes of God, or modes by which the attributes of God are expressed in a fixed and definite manner.

He, who knows how to distinguish between true and false, must have an adequate idea of true and false.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love: and love is thereupon greater than if hatred had not preceded it…

One and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent.

Minds are not conquered by force, but by love and high-mindedness.

It is before all things useful to men to associate their ways of life, to bind themselves together with such bonds as they think most fitted to gather them all into unity, and generally to do whatsoever serves to strengthen friendship.

In so far as we are intelligent beings, we cannot desire anything save that which is necessary, nor yield absolute acquiescence to anything, save to that which is true…

The mind has greater power over the emotions and is less subject thereto, in so far as it understands all things as necessary.

The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains of it something which is eternal.

How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

The mightiest love was granted him
Love that does not expect to be loved. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

How much do I love that noble man
More than I could tell with words
I fear though he’ll remain alone
With a holy halo of his own. ~ Albert Einstein

• I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza: that I should have turned to him just now, was inspired by “instinct.” Not only is his overtendency like mine—namely to make all knowledge the most powerful affect—but in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself; this most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me precisely in these matters: he denies the freedom of the will, teleology, the moral world-order, the unegoistic, and evil. Even though the divergencies are admittedly tremendous, they are due more to the difference in time, culture, and science. In summa: my lonesomeness, which, as on very high mountains, often made it hard for me to breathe and make my blood rush out, is now at least a twosomeness. Strange! Incidentally, I am not at all as well as I had hoped. Exceptional weather here too! Eternal change of atmospheric conditions!—that will yet drive me out of Europe! I must have clear skies for months, else I get nowhere. Already six severe attacks of two or three days each!! — With affectionate love, Your friend.
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, in a postcard to Franz Overbeck, Sils-Maria, July 30, 1881, from the Nietzsche Channel Letters

Time carries him as the river carries
A leaf in the downstream water.
No matter. The enchanted one insists
And shapes God with delicate geometry.
Since his illness, since his birth,
He goes on constructing God with the word.
The mightiest love was granted him
Love that does not expect to be loved.

• “Baruch Spinoza” by Jorge Luis Borges, as translated in Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason (1989) by Yirmiyahu Yovel

• Spinoza is, for me, the prince of philosophers.
  • Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza (cited in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• Spinoza: the absolute philosopher, whose Ethics is the foremost book on concepts.
  • Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations (cited in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• Spinoza is the Christ of philosophers, and the greatest philosophers are hardly more than apostles who distance themselves from or draw near to this mystery.
  • Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (cited in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
  • Albert Einstein

• How much do I love that noble man
  More than I could tell with words
  I fear though he’ll remain alone
  With a holy halo of his own.
  • Albert Einstein, in “Zu Spinozas Ethik” (1920), a poem written in admiration of Spinoza, as quoted in Einstein and Religion (1999) by Max Jammer “Einstein’s Poem on Spinoza” (with scans of original German manuscript) at Leiden Institute of Physics, Leiden University

• Thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy.
  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

• A God-intoxicated man.
  • Novalis

• SPINOZA (1634-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some others have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme.
  • Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy, Chapter X, pg. 569

• My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety toward the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.
  • George Santayana

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“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
- Albert Einstein, in response the telegrammed question of New York’s Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein in (24 April 1929); he later expanded on his comments about Spinoza’s and his own ideas on religion elsewhere : “I can understand your aversion to the use of the term “religion” to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza… I have not found a better expression than “religious” for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason.” — as quoted in Einstein : Science and Religion by Arnold V. Lesikar

An Essay By Einstein — The World As I See It

via aip.org

“How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving…

“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts — possessions, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.

“My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude…”

“My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality… The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

“This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor… This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man… I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”

See also Einstein’s Third Paradise, an essay by Gerald Holton

The text of Albert Einstein‘s copyrighted essay, “The World As I See It,” was shortened for our Web exhibit. The essay was originally published in “Forum and Century,” vol. 84, pp. 193-194, the thirteenth in the Forum series, Living Philosophies. It is also included in Living Philosophies (pp. 3-7) New York: Simon Schuster, 1931. For a more recent source, you can also find a copy of it in A. Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl Seelig, New York: Bonzana Books, 1954 (pp. 8-11).

via aip.org

Lynx Arc SuperCluster – Albert Einstein On Mystery & Beauty

via en.wikiquote.org

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man… I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence — as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”
- Albert Einstein in Mein Weltbild / The World As I See It (1931)