Coincidences

Coincidences have never been idle for me, instinctively, but as meaningful as I was to find they were to Jung. I have always had a hunch that they are a manifestation of a law of life of which we are inadequately aware and which in terms of our short life are unfortunately incapable of total definition, and yet however partial the meaning we can extract from them, we ignore it, I believe, at our peril. For as well as promoting some cosmic law, coincidences, I suspect, are some sort of indication to what extent the evolution of our lives is obedient or not obedient to the symmetry of the universe.

~Laurens van der Post

Human beings

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.

~Laurens Van der Post

Happy Halloween!

"What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks necks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins Gyre-carling, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost.

Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!"

~Michael Aislabie Denham

The struggle of the mind

The struggle of the mind to keep itself free from every sort of bondage -- to remain curious, open, unsatiated in all its relations with nature -- is tenfold more difficult than the cultivation of a stable, satisfying point of view, but a thousandfold more precious.

~Gardner Murphy

Often we do not

Often we do not know what is really going on. Our perspective can barely accommodate another person’s point of view, no less the forward march of evolution or the eternal mind of God. Better to admit not knowing and to relax in the mystery of life than to try to force our minds where they can’t go.

~Elizabeth Lesser

What we have

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

~Helen Keller

I believe

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness.

~Dalai Lama

Develop interest

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people. Forget yourself.

~Henry Miller

Often we do not know

Often we do not know what is really going on. Our perspective can barely accommodate another person’s point of view, no less the forward march of evolution or the eternal mind of God. Better to admit not knowing and to relax in the mystery of life than to try to force our minds where they can’t go.

~Elizabeth Lesser

Nothing in the world

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common that unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

~Calvin Coolidge

Congratulations

Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken.

~Yogi Berra

You should

You should always go to other people's funerals, otherwise, they won't come to yours.

~Yogi Berra

In theory

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

~Yogi Berra

Baseball

Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.

~Yogi Berra

If you ask

If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer.

~Yogi Berra

All pitchers

All pitchers are liars or crybabies.

~Yogi Berra

How

How can you think and hit at the same time?

~Yogi Berra

So I'm ugly

So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face.

~Yogi Berra

If the world

If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.

~Yogi Berra

If the people

If the people don't want to come out to the ballpark, nobody's going to stop them.

~Yogi Berra

The future

The future ain't what it used to be.

~Yogi Berra

If there is

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

~Henry Ford

Don't just listen

Don't just listen to what someone is saying, listen to why they are saying it.

~Anonymous

If you look

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

~C.S. Lewis

Please

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

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, the comfort

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

~George Eliot

When we honestly

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

~Henri Nouwen

Advice

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

~Erica Jong

No one wants

No one wants advice — only corroboration.

~John Steinbeck

Computers

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.

~Albert Einstein

Computers

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

~Pablo Picasso

I have not failed

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

~Thomas Alva Edison

A positive attitude

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

~Herm Albright

By trying

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity - another man's I mean.

~Mark Twain

Every man

Well, every man has a religion; has something in heaven or earth which he will give up everything else for - something which absorbs him - which may be regarded by others as being useless - yet it is his dream, it is his lodestar, it is his master. That, whatever it is seized upon me, made me its servant, slave - induced me to set aside the other ambitions - a trail of glory in the heavens, which I followed, followed with a full heart... When once I am convinced, I never let go...

~Walt Whitman

I believe

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

~Frank Lloyd Wright

If you want

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

~Carl Sagan

When you have

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.

~Chinese Proverb

You think Nature is some Disney movie?

You think Nature is some Disney movie? Nature is a killer. Nature is a bitch. It's feeding time out there 24 hours a day, every step that you take is a gamble with death. If it isn't getting hit with lightning today, it's an earthquake tomorrow or some deer tick carrying Lime disease. Either way, you're ending up on the wrong end of the food chain.

~Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure

Honesty may be

Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

~George Carlin

Scientists announced

Scientists announced today that they have discovered a cure for apathy. However, they claim no one has shown the slightest interest in it.

~George Carlin

Only put of

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

~Pablo Picasso

The artist is

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web.

~Pablo Picasso

Only those

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

~T S Elliot

No matter how hard

No matter how hard you work for success, if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible.

~Baudjuin

Every Warrior

Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties. Every Warrior of the Light has said 'yes' when he wanted to say "no". Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved. That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.

~Paulo Coelho

Always you have been told

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

~Kahlil Gibran

Increasingly

Increasingly, we need to make our decisions from the larger perspective provided by serving the One Life.

~William Metzger

I teach you

I teach you the Overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? … The time has come for man to set himself a goal. The time has come to plant the seed to his highest hope.

~Friedrich Nietzsche

If you don't

If you don't make mistakes you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's the biggest mistake.

~F. Wizelek

When you come

When you come to the end of everything you know, and the next step is into the depths of darkness of the great unknown, you must believe one of two things: Either you will step out onto firm ground or you will be taught to fly.

~Patrick Overton

It's a dangerous business

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

~Bilbo Baggins, from Lord of the Rings

I wish

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.

~from Lord of the Rings

I know

I know what I must do. It's just... I'm afraid to do it.

~Frodo, from The Lord of the Rings

Even the smallest

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

~Galadriel, from The Lord of the Rings

We are built

We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.

~Maxwell Maltz

Obstacles will look

Obstacles will look large or small to you according to whether you are large or small.

~Orison Swett Marden

Stand up

Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have.

~Norman Vincent Peale

For every mountain

For every mountain there is a miracle.

~Robert H. Schuller

Patience and preserverance

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

~John Quincy Adams

History has demonstrated

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

~B. C. Forbes

It's the constant

It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles.

~Claude M. Bristol

You are

You are the only real obstacle in your path to a fulfilling life.

~Les Brown

An optimist

An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.

-Winston Churchill

The thirst after happiness

The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.

~Jean-Jacques Rousseau

People who say

People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think.

~George Carlin

As long as

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is not the mountain

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

~Sir Edmund Hillary

When man meets

When man meets an obstacle he can't destroy, he destroys himself.

~Ryszard Kapuscinski

It still holds

It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.

~Eric Hoffer

If you can find

If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.

~Frank A. Clark

Life's ups and downs

Life's ups and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals. Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want.

~Marsha Sinetar

Most of our obstacles

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.

~Orison Swett Marden

Press on

Press on. Obstacles are seldom the same size tomorrow as they are today.

~Robert H. Schuller