I erect myself

I erect myself at the exact point where knowledge meets madness, and I can erect no safety rail.

—BALZAC

What is needed

"What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it."

-- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Fear is a question

"Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them."

-- Marilyn Ferguson

The most common

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."

~ Alice Walker

Life's challenges

"Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are."

~ Bernice Johnson Reagon

Stop thinking

"Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities"

~ Terry Josephson

Difficulty

"Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted."

~ William Hastie

Birds sing

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?

~Rose Kennedy

Unless your heart

"Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness."

~ Unknown

Integrity is not

"Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will."

~ John McDonald

Find the courage

"Find the courage to hold onto your beliefs, even if the world around you chooses to believe differently. Have the courage to change those beliefs that no longer fit the person you have become. In doing so, you truly become yourself."

~ Daniel Levin

You never find

"You never find yourself until you face the truth."

~ Pearl Bailey

The first rule

"The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging."

~Molly Ivins

Light is the first

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON

For the rest of my life

For the rest of my life I will reflect on what light is.
—~EINSTEIN

I Thy God

I Thy God am the Light and the Mind which were before substance was divided from Spirit and darkness from Light.
—~VOLTAIRE

Before all

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light -- with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day.

~NOVALIS

May your trails

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”

~Edward Abbey

You could not

You could not step into the same rivers twice, for other waters are forever flowing onto you.

~Heraclitus

Victory

“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte

Even enemies

“Even enemies will help each other if they are together on a boat that is in trouble. ”

– Sun Tzu

If an enemy has alliances

“If an enemy has alliances, the problem is grave and the enemy’s position strong; if he has no alliances, the problem is minor and the enemy’s position weak.”

– Sun Tzu

Thus those skilled

“Thus those skilled in war subdue the enemy’s army without battle … . They conquer by strategy.”

– Sun Tzu

To

“To … not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of virtues.”

– Sun Tzu

In war

“In war, numbers alone confer no advantage.”

- Sun Tzu

Know the enemy

“Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.”

– Sun Tzu

It is

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.

~Whitehead

If

If your life bores you, risk it.

~Harvey Lloyd

Fly away

Fly away, fly away bird to your native home,
You have leapt free of the cage
Your wings are flung back in the wind of God.
Leave behind the stagnant and marshy waters,
Hurry, hurry, hurry, O bird, to the source of life

—RUMI

Empty

Empty the haunted air...
Unweave a rainbow.

—JOHN KEATS

all I produced

...all I produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I learned a little about the real structure of nature...at ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things...and when I am a hundred and ten everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I keep my word.

—HOKUSAI

I remember my youth

I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, to soon—before life itself.

— JOSEPH CONRAD

The most beautiful experience

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious; it is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

— ALBERT EINSTEIN

One day I was walking

One day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreaming. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance...I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck

—ANNIE DILLARD

I never saw

"I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

— JOHN MUIR

We dream

"...We dream of traveling through the universe - but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us - the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds - the past and future - is in ourselves or nowhere. The external world is the world of shadows - it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely. shapeless. But how entirely different it will seem to us - when this gloom is past, and the body of shadows has moved away. We will experience greater enjoyment than ever, for our spirit has been deprived."

~Novalis

Chaos

“Chaos in a work of art should shimmer through the veil of order.”

~Novalis

Cherish your visions

Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.”

—JAMES ALLEN

The ideals

The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

Nature

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in the night,
God said, “Let Newton be" and all was light.

— ALEXANDER POPE

Painting is

Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

— PABLO PICASSO

We may pretend

We may pretend that beauty is only skin deep, but Aristotle was right when he observed the ‘beauty is a far greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.'...After all, in fairy tales, the first stories most of us hear, the heroes are handsome, the heroines are beautiful, and the wicked sots are ugly. Children learn implicitly that good people are beautiful and bad people are ugly, and society restates that message in many subtle ways as they grow older.

~Diane Ackerman