I often compare

I often compare my attempts at meditation to pushing a boat down the beach into the water: One pushes and pushes, till suddenly it is afloat and the current catches it. I can stay a long time in this state - floating on the current.

~Sri Gyanamata

The things that happen

The things that happen to us do not matter; what we become through them does.

~Sri Gyanamata

Do that which

Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

~Emerson

Obstacles

Obstacles are things to be overcome.

~Samuel Gridley Howe

Nothing is more certain

Nothing is more certain, than that improvement in human affairs is wholly the work of uncontented characters.

~Mills

A man must be

A man must be strong enough to mold the peculiarity of his imperfections into the perfection of his peculiarities.

~Walther Rathenau

Never worry

Never worry as long as you can pray. When you can't pray - you'd better begin to worry! For then you have something to worry about.

~Edgar Cayce

Spirit is the life

Spirit is the life; mind is the builder; physical is the result.

~Edgar Cayce

When life seems chaotic

When life seems chaotic, you don't need people giving you easy answers or cheap promises. There might not be any answers to your problems. What you need is a safe place where you can bounce with people who have taken some bad hops of their own.

~Real Live Preacher, August 12, 2003

Time is a great teacher

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

~Hector Berlioz

Life is a gift

Life is a Gift
Unwrap It!

~unknown

Lost time

Lost time can never be found.

~Unknown

God will not allow

God will not allow us to depend on anything but himself.

~Sri Gyanamata

It's not foresight

It’s not foresight or hindsight we need. We need sight, plain and simple. We need to see what is right in front of us.

~Real Live Preacher, Weblog, April 22, 2003

There is no here

There is no here, no there, infinity is right before your eyes.

~Seng Ts'an

Iron rusts

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.

~Leonardo Da Vinci

In life you must choose

In life you must choose between boredom and suffering.

~Madam De Stael

Don't go searching

Don't go searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions.

~Seng Ts'an

The sooner

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.

~Steven Wright

I never blame myself

I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?

~Yogi Berra

I woke up one morning

I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates.

~Steven Wright

Sometimes the mind

Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don't necessarily understand, just decides to go to the store for a quart of milk.

~Northern Exposure, Three Doctors, 1993

Just remember

Just remember, if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.

~Steven Wright

Life's dirty

Life's dirty. Life's unclean you know. It's birth, it's sex, it's the intestinal tract. One big squishy, unsanitary mess. It never gets any cleaner either. You know, dust to dust, worms crawl in, worms crawl out, right? Even though we know that, we still walk the walk, we still live the life. We're like a bunch of little kids. Little kids, you know, we jump in this big old pond of mud and we're slapping it all over our face, rubbing our hair all down our backs and we're making these glorious, gooey, mud pies. That's us.

~Northern Exposure, Mite Makes Right, 1994

Please give me

Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

I've had

I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it.

~Groucho Marx

The best way

The best way out is always through.

~Frost

Do one thing

Do one thing every day that scares you.

~Eleanor Roosevelt

If you're going

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

~Winston Churchill

Today, like every other day

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~Rumi

Even a stopped clock

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

~Unknown

As long as I am

As long as I am this or that, I am not all things.

~Meister Eckhart

When I let go

When I let go of what I am,
I become what I might be.

~Lao Tzu

By doing just a little

By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me.

~Ashleigh Brilliant

A good many

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming.

~Barbarella

Without order

Without order nothing can exist
Without chaos nothing can evolve.

~unknown

Only when the cold

Only when the cold sets in do you notice the pines and cypresses turning green.

~Chinese Saying

A piece of brain

A piece of brain the size of a grain of rice contains 1 million nerve cells, 10 billion synapses and 20 MILES of axons. Each of these nerve cells both 'hears from' and 'talks to' 10,000 other cells,

~Newsletter on Advances in Brain Research, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies

I'm not rushing

I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard enough.

~ Regina 'Age 10'

I married the first man

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.

~Barbara Bush

Life is so short

Life is so short we must move very slowly.

~Thai saying

You wander

You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!

~Rumi

Be mindful

Be mindful of how you approach time. Watching the clock is not the same as watching the sun rise.

~Sophia Bedford-Pierce

Nothing is created

Nothing is created without the support of others, especially anything that moves the heart and educates the soul.

~Maria Nemeth

There is a power

There is a Power for Good in the universe and you can use it.

~Ernest Holmes

You exist so that

You exist so that this Power might have another, a unique outlet for Its expression .

~Ernest Holmes, This Thing Called You

Do not wait

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

~Mother Theresa

There is no part

There is no part of me that is not part of any other.

~Grace Gibson

I want to know

I want to know the thoughts of God; the rest are details.

~Albert Einstein

There is no one

there is no one in this world
who is not looking for God

everyone is trudging along
with as much dignity, courage
and style

as they possibly
can

~ Hafiz

Any coward can

Any coward can sit at home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather by far die on a mountainside than in bed.

~Charles Lindbergh

Ordinarily, when we speak

Ordinarily, when we speak of withdrawal, we think of having a substance removed from us. We give up alcohol, drugs, sugar, fats, caffeine, nicotine - and we suffer withdrawal. It's useful to view creative withdrawal a little differently. We ourselves are the substance we withdraw to, not from, as we pull our over extended and misplaced creative energy back into our own core.

~Julia Cameron

I can't understand

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

~John Cage

When Jesus the Christ

When Jesus the Christ spoke the Word, his healing statement was declared with great power and conviction. He didn't say, "Oh please, God, let Lazarus be healed." He said, "Lazarus, come forth!"

~Science of Mind concerning John 11:43

No matter how great

No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats - approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.

~Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom

The more I study

The more I study science, the more I believe in God.

~Albert Einstein

I never came

I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.

~Albert Einstein

All of us are watchers

All of us are watchers - of television, of time clocks, of traffic on the freeway - but few are observers. Everyone is looking, not many are seeing.

~Peter M. Leschak

From other facts

From other facts we may run away, but after every consciously or unconsciously maneuvered escape, we find ourselves back where we started, with ourselves on our hands.

~Harry Emerson Fosdick

The key is

The key is to not resist or rebel against emotions or to try to get around them by devising all sorts of tricks; but to accept them directly, as they are.

~Takahisa Kora

Opening our hearts

Opening our hearts to the mystery and meaning of our suffering can bring us into God's presence. Be grateful for this opportunity.

~Mark Rosen

We need to find God

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

~Mother Teresa

I have found

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

~Mother Teresa

Love begins at home

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.

~Mother Teresa

I don't believe

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

~Joseph Campbell

It ain't what you don't know

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

~Mark Twain

Lo, there do I see

Lo, there do I see my father
Lo, there do I see my mother and my sisters
and my brothers
Lo, there do I see the line of my people back
to the beginning
Lo, they do call to me
They bid me take place among them
in the Halls of Valhalla
Where the brave may live forever...

~death song from The Thirteenth Warrior

A human being

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.

~Albert Einstein

A verse from the Veda

A verse from the Veda says, 'What you see, you become.' In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement.

~Deepak Chopra

We think too small

We think too small. Like the frog at the bottom of the well. He thinks the sky is only as big as the top of the well. If he surfaced, he would have an entirely different view.

~Mao Tse-Tung

Better keep yourself

Better keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world.

~G. B. Shaw

I give myself

I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.

~Alice, Alice in Wonderland

the very word grow

...the very word grow is a word appropriate to children. After a certain age you do not grow. You don’t grow teeth, you don’t grow muscles. If you start growing after that age it’s cancer…becoming more and more oneself – the actual experience of it is a shrinking, in that very often it’s a dehydration, a loss of inflations, a loss of illusions…Shedding pseudoskins, crusted stuff that you’ve accumulated. Shedding dead wood. That’s one of the big sheddings. Things that don’t work anymore, that is that don’t keep you alive. Sets of ideas that you’ve had too long….Anytime you’re gonna grow, you’re gonna lose something…

~James Hillman

Everyone wants to understand

Everyone wants to understand painting. Why don't they try to understand the singing of birds?"

~Pablo Picasso

Don't sit there thinking

Don't sit there thinking; go out and immerse yourself in God's sea. Having only one hair wet with water will not put knowledge in that head.

~Hafiz

The best defence

The best defense against contemplation is a long list of chores and the fierce drive to beat them down just before collapsing into bed.

~Grace Gibson

Anything worth doing

Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

~Mae West

Whatever you do

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

~Mahatma Gandhi

Not knowing

Not knowing
when the dawn will come,
I open every door.


~Emily Dickinson

More Encouraging Quotes and cool quotes with pictures can be found at my new website, Way Cool Quotes.

We have not come

We have not come into this exquisite world to hold ourselves hostage from love.

~Hafiz

Begin doing

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snowflake.

~Marie Beyon Ray

We have not come here

We have not come here to take prisoners, but to surrender ever more deeply to freedom and joy.

~Hafiz

You must not try

You must not try to get; you must not try to have; you must not try to draw to you: You must learn how to let Infinity flow out from you.

~Joel Goldsmith

Most people are prisoners

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.

~Carlos Santana

Merciful Father

Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee God for forgiveness.

~From the 13th Warrior, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan

There is no supply

There is no supply outside of your being. If you want to enjoy the abundance of supply, you must open out a way for that supply to escape.

~Joel Goldsmith

There is no miracle

There is no miracle of prayer that produces rabbits out of hats. Nobody can do that unless the rabbits were there in the first place.

~Joel Goldsmith

It's not hard

It’s not hard. Every day you need to brush your teeth. In the same way, every day you have to think, “I am a child of God."

– from Before Becoming This

Experience is

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

~F. P. Jones

Love and success

Love and success, always in that order. It's that simple, and that difficult.

~Mr. Rogers

Just because

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with everything they've got.

~Unknown

There's a dark side

There's a dark side to each and every human soul. We wish we were Obi-Wan Kenobi, and for the most part we are, but there's a little Darth Vader in all of us. Thing is, this ain't no either-or proposition. We're talking about dialectics, the good and the bad merging into us. You can run but you can't hide. My experience? Face the darkness. Stare it down. Own it. As brother Nietzsche said, being human is a complicated gig. So give that ol' dark night of the soul a hug. Howl the eternal yes!

~Northern Exposure, Chris Stevens

Jump in

Jump in and fail miserably
Life is a lot easier than it looks!

~Grace Gibson

The bread that you cast

The bread that you cast upon the water is the bread that comes back to you. It is not your neighbor's bread; it is your own bread; and if you do not cast it upon the water, there will be no bread to come back to you. All the bread on the water is earmarked for return to the person who has sent it forth.

~Joel Goldsmith

Wealth can not exist

Wealth can not exist in the wrong place.
Growth can not exist where no foundation is established.
Prosperity occurs where good foundation is set at the right place.

~Master Tan

Artists live in deep places

Artists live in deep places. Our psyches work strangely, like rhizomes and roots, curling around dark little stones and reaching through eyeless places to an underground ocean that flows far below useless words.

~Grace Gibson

Death is inevitable

Death is inevitable but constant occurrence is very inauspicious.

~unknown author

Whither goest thou

Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?

~Jack Kerouac

The Father wove the skein

The Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing.

~The Thirteenth Warrior

And so here I am

And so here I am, 11 o’clock at night, thinking that I finally have the answer that has been eluding me all this time. I do not need to thrash around in my life anymore unless I actually really want to. I do not need other people to come and help me. I do not need a guru, a hypnotist, or a miracle worker. I can, between me and God, find my center and get clear. It can be done.

~Shirley Gibson

Valmiki the Poet

Valmiki the Poet
looked down into water held cupped in his hand and saw into the past.
Before he looked,
he thought the world was sweet poison. Men seemed to be living in lies,
not knowing where their ways went.
The days seemed
made of ignorance and doubt, and cast from deception and illusion.
But in the water
he saw—a dream, a chance,
and a great adventure.
Valmiki trusted the True
and forgot the rest.
He found the whole universe
like a bright jewel
set firm in forgiving and held fast
by love.

~Ramayana

God did not

God did not make us to be eaten up by anxiety, but to walk erect, free, unafraid in a world where there is work to do, truth to seek, love go give.

~Joseph fort Newton

Rise

Rise, and drink your bliss; for all that lives is holy.

~Blake

Friendship is

Friendship is when people know all about you but like you anyway.

~Annonymous

A misty morning

A misty morning does not signify a cloudy day.

~Ancient Proverb

You got to be careful

You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.

~ Yogi Berra

Living is

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.

~Agnes de Mille

There is no way

There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.

~the Buddha

The deeper the mud

The deeper the mud, the more beautiful the lotus.

~old Buddhist saying

Don't let your throat

Don't let your throat tighten with fear. Take sips of breath all day and night, before death closes your mouth.

~Rumi

Don't worry

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.

~Howard Aiken

I don't want

I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful.

~Marilyn Monroe

A warrior chooses

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

~Carlos Castaneda

People say

People say what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

~Joseph Campbell

There is more

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

~Mohandes Gandhi

From what I can tell

From what I can tell, God is particularly averse to the concept of the free ride, and he goes to great lengths to make sure that people who have settled comfortably into their wonderfully-fulfilling-lives-which-are-ultimately-to-be-rewarded-with-a-trip-to-heaven get their reality check.

~Grace Gibson

People usually consider

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

Maybe you're not

Maybe you're not supposed to believe what people say...
Maybe it's not even fair to them.

~Marilyn Monroe playing Roslyn in the "Misfits"

I just want to be

I just want to be normally insane.

~Marlon Brando

The only people for me

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

~Jack Kerouac

Offer them what

Offer them what they secretly want and they of course immediately become panic stricken.

~Jack Kerouac

Do not be daunted

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

~The Talmud

When I do good

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.

~Abraham Lincoln