Pearls of wisdom

dilemma of dynamics

2011-02-26T20:12:00.000-08:00

How often have I had to lie or keep my mouth shut to protect the people I love most — at the very times I could stand them least — to keep them from plunging headlong into some disaster. Whenever I wanted my hatred to last forever, a feeling of disgust would soften it up. With a hint of love on the one hand, and a heap of self-reproach on the other, I was already surrendering to the next hatred. I’ve always had just enough sense to spare others, but never enough to save myself from misfortune. (Translated by Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm)

Herta Muller

THE APPOINTMENT (1997)

Michel Houellebecq quotes

2011-01-03T04:55:00.000-08:00

"Depressive lucidity, usually described as a radical withdrawal from ordinary human concerns, generally manifests itself by a profound indifference to things which are genuinely of minor interest. Thus it is possible to imagine a depressed lover, while the idea of a depressed patriot seems frankly inconceivable."

Michel Houellebecq, Les particules élémentaires

"Adolescence is not only an important period in life, but that it is the only period where one may speak of life in the full sense of the word."

Michel Houellebecq, 'Extension du domaine de la lutte'

"I don't subscribe to the theory that we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult."

Michel Houellebecq, from Plateforme: Au milieu du monde

"People drag their progeny around with them like a ball and chain, like some terrible deadweight that hinders their every move - and that, as often as not, effectively winds up killing them."
Michel Houellebecq, from Plateforme: Au milieu du monde

"Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world."
Michel Houellebecq, H.P. Lovecraft: Against Nature, Against Life

"Without beauty a girl is unhappy because she has missed her chance to be loved. People do not jeer at her, they are not cruel to her, but it is as if she were invisible, no eyes follow her as she walks. People feel uncomfortable when they are with her. They find it easier to ignore her. A girl who is exceptionally beautiful, on the other hand, who has something which too far surpasses the customary seductive freshness of adolescence, appears somehow unreal. Great beauty seems invariably to portend some tragic fate."

Michel Houellebecq, Les particules elémentaire

Milan Kundra

2010-04-16T04:18:00.000-07:00

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.

Happiness is the longing for repetition.

Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

Rabindranath Tagore's Conversation with Albert Einstein

2009-11-06T03:50:00.001-08:00

Excerpted from: A Tagore Reader, edited by Amiya Chakravarty. (http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/tagore-einstein.html)

Tagore and Einstein met through a common friend, Dr. Mendel. Tagore visited Einstein at his residence at Kaputh in the suburbs of Berlin on July 14, 1930, and Einstein returned the call and visited Tagore at the Mendel home. Both conversations were recorded and the above photograph was taken. The July 14 conversation is reproduced here, and was originally published in The Religion of Man (George, Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London), Appendix II, pp. 222-225.

TAGORE: I was discussing with Dr. Mendel today the new mathematical discoveries which tell us that in the realm of infinitesimal atoms chance has its play; the drama of existence is not absolutely predestined in character.

EINSTEIN: The facts that make science tend toward this view do not say good-bye to causality.

TAGORE: Maybe not, yet it appears that the idea of causality is not in the elements, but that some other force builds up with them an organized universe.

EINSTEIN: One tries to understand in the higher plane how the order is. The order is there, where the big elements combine and guide existence, but in the minute elements this order is not perceptible.

TAGORE: Thus duality is in the depths of existence, the contradiction of free impulse and the directive will which works upon it and evolves an orderly scheme of things.

EINSTEIN: Modern physics would not say they are contradictory. Clouds look as one from a distance, but if you see them nearby, they show themselves as disorderly drops of water.

TAGORE: I find a parallel in human psychology. Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?

EINSTEIN: Even the elements are not without statistical order; elements of radium will always maintain their specific order, now and ever onward, just as they have done all along. There is, then, a statistical order in the elements.

TAGORE: Otherwise, the drama of existence would be too desultory. It is the constant harmony of chance and determination which makes it eternally new and living.

EINSTEIN: I believe that whatever we do or live for has its causality; it is good, however, that we cannot see through to it.

TAGORE: There is in human affairs an element of elasticity also, some freedom within a small range which is for the expression of our personality. It is like the musical system in India, which is not so rigidly fixed as western music. Our composers give a certain definite outline, a system of melody and rhythmic arrangement, and within a certain limit the player can improvise upon it. He must be one with the law of that particular melody, and then he can give spontaneous expression to his musical feeling within the prescribed regulation. We praise the composer for his genius in creating a foundation along with a superstructure of melodies, but we expect from the player his own skill in the creation of variations of melodic flourish and ornamentation. In creation we follow the central law of existence, but if we do not cut ourselves adrift from it, we can have sufficient freedom within the limits of our personality for the fullest self-expression.

EINSTEIN: That is possible only when there is a strong artistic tradition in music to guide the people's mind. In Europe, music has come too far away from popular art and popular feeling and has become something like a secret art with conventions and traditions of its own.

TAGORE: You have to be absolutely obedient to this too complicated music. In India, the measure of a singer's freedom is in his own creative personality. He can sing the composer's song as his own, if he has the power creatively to assert himself in his interpretation of the general law of the melody which he is given to interpret.

EINSTEIN: It requires a very high standard of art to realize fully the great idea in the original music, so that one can make variations upon it. In our country, the variations are often prescribed.

TAGORE: If in our conduct we can follow the law of goodness, we can have real liberty of self-expression. The principle of conduct is there, but the character which makes it true and individual is our own creation. In our music there is a duality of freedom and prescribed order.

EINSTEIN: Are the words of a song also free? I mean to say, is the singer at liberty to add his own words to the song which he is singing?

TAGORE: Yes. In Bengal we have a kind of song-kirtan, we call it-which gives freedom to the singer to introduce parenthetical comments, phrases not in the original song. This occasions great enthusiasm, since the audience is constantly thrilled by some beautiful, spontaneous sentiment added by the singer.

EINSTEIN: Is the metrical form quite severe?

TAGORE: Yes, quite. You cannot exceed the limits of versification; the singer in all his variations must keep the rhythm and the time, which is fixed. In European music you have a comparative liberty with time, but not with melody.

EINSTEIN: Can the Indian music be sung without words? Can one understand a song without words?

TAGORE: Yes, we have songs with unmeaning words, sounds which just help to act as carriers of the notes. In North India, music is an independent art, not the interpretation of words and thoughts, as in Bengal. The music is very intricate and subtle and is a complete world of melody by itself.

EINSTEIN: Is it not polyphonic?

TAGORE: Instruments are used, not for harmony, but for keeping time and adding to the volume and depth. Has melody suffered in your music by the imposition of harmony?

EINSTEIN: Sometimes it does suffer very much. Sometimes the harmony swallows up the melody altogether.

TAGORE: Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.

EINSTEIN: It is a beautiful comparison; line is also much older than color. It seems that your melody is much richer in structure than ours. Japanese music also seems to be so.

TAGORE: It is difficult to analyze the effect of eastern and western music on our minds. I am deeply moved by the western music; I feel that it is great, that it is vast in its structure and grand in its composition. Our own music touches me more deeply by its fundamental lyrical appeal. European music is epic in character; it has a broad background and is Gothic in its structure.

EINSTEIN: This is a question we Europeans cannot properly answer, we are so used to our own music. We want to know whether our own music is a conventional or a fundamental human feeling, whether to feel consonance and dissonance is natural, or a convention which we accept.

TAGORE: Somehow the piano confounds me. The violin pleases me much more.

EINSTEIN: It would be interesting to study the effects of European music on an Indian who had never heard it when he was young.

TAGORE: Once I asked an English musician to analyze for me some classical music, and explain to me what elements make for the beauty of the piece.

EINSTEIN: The difficulty is that the really good music, whether of the East or of the West, cannot be analyzed.

TAGORE: Yes, and what deeply affects the hearer is beyond himself.

EINSTEIN: The same uncertainty will always be there about everything fundamental in our experience, in our reaction to art, whether in Europe or in Asia. Even the red flower I see before me on your table may not be the same to you and me.

TAGORE: And yet there is always going on the process of reconciliation between them, the individual taste conforming to the universal standard.

Rabindranath Tagore's Conversation with Albert Einstein

2009-11-06T03:50:00.000-08:00

A writer's wisdom-Margaret Atwood

2009-08-18T22:36:00.001-07:00

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.

The story as told in The Odyssey doesn't hold water. There are too many inconsistencies.

Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn't even know you'd done.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

War is what happens when language fails.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.

A word after a word after a word is power.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Because I am a mother, I am capable of being shocked: as I never was when I was not one.

For years I wanted to be older, and now I am.

Gardening is not a rational act.

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it.

I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because they have forgotten their own.

If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

Myths can't be translated as they did in their ancient soil. We can only find our own meaning in our own time.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

Pleasure - Kahlil Gibran

2009-08-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high. It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedomsong.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.

Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.
For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;
Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.
Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.
But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.
They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.
Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.

And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember;
And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.
And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.
But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?
Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?
And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?
Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.
Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.
And your body is the harp of your soul,
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.

And now you ask in your heart, "How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?"
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

Famous Quotes By Kahlil Gibran

2009-05-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

... joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
Kahlil Gibran Birth and Death are the two noblest expressions of bravery

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.
Kahlil Gibran

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness; and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.

There is a desire deep within the soul which drives man from the seen to the unseen, to philosophy and to the divine.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

When you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born. And in keeping yourself with labor you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

Where can I find a man governed by reason instead of habits and urges?

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

Your children are not your children. / They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

The Perfect World

2009-04-28T21:55:00.001-07:00

God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods, hear me:

Gentle Destiny that watchest over us, mad, wandering spirits, hear me:

I dwell in the midst of a perfect race, I the most imperfect.

I, a human chaos, a nebula of confused elements, I move amongst finished worlds—peoples of complete laws and pure order, whose thoughts are assorted, whose dreams are arranged, and whose visions are enrolled and registered.

Their virtues, O God, are measured, their sins are weighed, and even the countless things that pass in the dim twilight of neither sin nor virtue are recorded and catalogued.

Here days and nights are divided into seasons of conduct and governed by rules of blameless accuracy.

To eat, to drink, to sleep, to cover one's nudity, and then to be weary in due time.

To work, to play, to sing, to dance, and then to lie still when the clock strikes the hour.

To think thus, to feel thus much, and then to cease thinking and feeling when a certain star rises above yonder horizon.

To rob a neighbour with a smile, to bestow gifts with a graceful wave of the hand, to praise prudently, to blame cautiously, to destroy a soul with a word, to burn a body with a breath, and then to wash the hands when the day's work is done.

To love according to an established order, to entertain one's best self in a pre-conceived manner, to worship the gods becomingly, to intrigue the devils artfully—and then to forget all as though memory were dead.

To fancy with a motive, to contemplate with consideration, to be happy sweetly, to suffer nobly—and then to empty the cup so that tomorrow may fill it again.

All these things, O God, are conceived with forethought, born with determination, nursed with exactness, governed by rules, directed by reason, and then slain and buried after a prescribed method. And even their silent graves that lie within the human soul are marked and numbered.

It is a perfect world, a world of consummate excellence, a world of supreme wonders, the ripest fruit in God's garden, the master-thought of the universe.

But why should I be here, O God, I a green seed of unfulfilled passion, a mad tempest that seeketh neither east nor west, a bewildered fragment from a burnt planet?

Why am I here, O God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods?

- --oOo-- -
Khalil Gibran

Know what to fight for!!

2009-01-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for.
Paulo Coelho

That's Class!

2009-01-25T20:25:00.000-08:00

Class is the impartial, consistent display of emotional integrity.
LACOWBOY J. Frederick Millea

Integrity

2009-01-25T20:24:00.000-08:00

Integrity can be neither lost nor concealed nor faked nor quenched nor artificially come by nor outlived, nor, I believe, in the long run, denied
Eudora Welty quotes

wrong answer!!

2009-01-06T20:19:00.002-08:00

The strategy of life is so very strange, just when we have all the answers, life changes the question !

truth

2009-01-06T20:19:00.001-08:00

In the time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

where i did not go...

2009-01-04T20:45:00.002-08:00

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

Thomas Stearns Eliot

what love does...

2009-01-04T20:45:00.001-08:00

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

James Baldwin

nobody said so

2009-01-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

No one said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

brave men r tender in love

2009-01-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

In the love of a brave and faithful man there is always a strain of maternal tenderness; he gives out again those beams of protecting fondness which were shed on him as he lay on his mother's knee.

George Eliot

time rhyme

2008-12-30T00:42:00.000-08:00

I am tired of the imposed rhythms of men,
Tethered time, restrained and trained
To a monotonous beat
Digital time blinking exactness
Unliving.
~Phillip Pulfrey

Time

2008-12-30T00:40:00.000-08:00

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

Albert Einstein

Dont say yes to please

2008-11-17T20:40:00.000-08:00

A ‘No’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

Gandhi

stand on the shoulders of yesterday's convictions...to see todays's

2008-11-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

Often the convictions of one generation are the rejects of the next. That does not deny the possibility that, as time goes on, we shall accumulate some body of valid conclusions. But it does mean that we can acheive only by accumulation, that wisdon is to be gained only as we stand upon the shoulders of those who have gone before. Just as in science, we cannot advance except as we take over what we inherit, and in statecraft no generation can safely start at scratch, so personal, basic beliefs must be slowly built from our experience, but also from a study of the experience and conclusions of others.

- Learned Hand

discipline to listen and honour

2008-11-17T20:34:00.001-08:00

It takes a disciplined person to listen to convictions which are different from their own.

Dorothy Fuldman

stand up for what u think is right

2008-11-17T20:32:00.000-08:00

When you have decided what you believe, what you feel must be done, have the courage to stand alone and be counted.

rashaski Eleanor Roosevelt quotes

what brings beauty!!

2008-11-17T20:31:00.000-08:00

Conviction brings a silent, indefinable beauty into faces made of the commonest human clay; the devout worshiper at any shrine reflects something of its golden glow, even as the glory of a noble love shines like a sort of light from a woman's face
Honore de Balzac quotes

walk your road

2008-11-17T20:30:00.000-08:00

People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it- walk.

Ayn Rand

conviction

2008-11-17T20:29:00.000-08:00

Never, "for the sake of peace and quiet," deny your own experience or convictions

Dag Hammarskjold quotes

let go to be....

2008-10-11T22:08:00.001-07:00

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

Lao Tzu

cost of being yourself to the fullest

2008-10-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

IT COSTS SO much to be a full human being that there are very few who have
the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price. One has to abandon
altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with
both arms open. One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept
pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the
cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to
total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.

Morris West

letting go

2008-10-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

"Knowledge is learning something every day.
Wisdom is letting go of something every day."
~Zen Proverb~

To live in this world, you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones
knowing your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Mary Oliver

what makes it golden?

2008-10-11T21:59:00.002-07:00

“You have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.”
James Matthew

It's alright to feel!!

2008-10-11T21:59:00.001-07:00

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
Jim Morrison

uncommon is unique

2008-09-04T11:55:00.001-07:00

“It is my right to be uncommon. For I do not choose to be a common man, If I can, I seek opportunity. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the government look after me. I choose to take the calculated risk, to dream, to build, to fail or succeed. I choose not to barter incentive for a dole, I prefer the challenges of life to a guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the state calm of Utopia. I will not trade my freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout.”

fulfill your promise

2008-09-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

“A promise is a cloud; fulfillment is rain”
Arabian Proverb

wandering and travel

2008-09-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

“I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment”
Hilaire Belloc

ageing

2008-09-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

“Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.”
Douglas MacArthur

dreams and memories

2008-08-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.
Jeremy Irons

to die

2008-06-01T03:22:00.001-07:00

“For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?”

Kahlil Gibran

space it

2008-06-01T03:19:00.001-07:00

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”

Kahlil Gibran

knowledge in use

2008-06-01T03:17:00.000-07:00

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”

Kahlil Gibran

abandon all that makes u miserable

2008-06-01T03:12:00.000-07:00

“Vain are the beliefs and teachings that make man miserable, and false is the goodness that leads him into sorrow and despair, for it is man’s purpose to be happy on this earth and lead the way to felicity and preach its gospel wherever he goes. He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this life will never see it in the coming life. We came not into this life by exile, but we came as innocent creatures of God, to learn how to worship the holy and eternal spirit and seek the hidden secrets within ourselves from the beauty of life.”

Kahlil Gibran

love but don't bind together

2008-06-01T02:58:00.003-07:00

“Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not of one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”

Kahlil Gibran

reveal secrets

2008-06-01T02:58:00.002-07:00

“If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”
Kahlil Gibran

soul

2008-06-01T02:58:00.001-07:00

“The soul is an embryo in the body of Man, and the day of death is the Day of awakening, for it is the Great era of labour and the rich Hour of creation.”

Kahlil Gibran

the one who understands you

2008-06-01T02:55:00.000-07:00

“He who understands you is greater kin to you than your own brother. For even your own kindred neither understand you nor know your true worth.”

Kahlil Gibran

YOUR THOUGHT AND MINE

2008-06-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

Your thought is a tree rooted deep in the soil of tradition and whose branches grow in the power of continuity. My thought is a cloud moving in the space. It turns into drops which, as they fall, form a brook that sings its way into the sea. Then it rises as vapour into the sky. Your thought is a fortress that neither gale nor the lightning can shake. My thought is a tender leaf that sways in every direction and finds pleasure in its swaying. Your thought is an ancient dogma that cannot change you nor can you change it. My thought is new, and it tests me and I test it morn and eve.

You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought allows you to believe in the unequal contest of the strong against the weak, and in the tricking of the simple by the subtle ones. My thought creates in me the desire to till the earth with my hoe, and harvest the crops with my sickle, and build my home with stones and mortar, and weave my raiment with woollen and linen threads. Your thought urges you to marry wealth and notability. Mine commends self-reliance. Your thought advocates fame and show. Mine counsels me and implores me to cast aside notoriety and treat it like a grain of sand cast upon the shore of eternity. Your thought instils in your heart arrogance and superiority. Mine plants within me love for peace and the desire for independence. Your thought begets dreams of palaces with furniture of sandalwood studded with jewels, and beds made of twisted silk threads. My thought speaks softly in my ears, "Be clean in body and spirit even if you have nowhere to lay your head." Your thought makes you aspire to titles and offices. Mine exhorts me to humble service.

You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought is social science, a religious and political dictionary. Mine is simple axiom. Your thought speaks of the beautiful woman, the ugly, the virtuous, the prostitute, the intelligent, and the stupid. Mine sees in every woman a mother, a sister, or a daughter of every man. The subjects of your thought are thieves, criminals, and assassins. Mine declares that thieves are the creatures of monopoly, criminals are the offspring of tyrants, and assassins are akin to the slain. Your thought describes laws, courts, judges, punishments. Mine explains that when man makes a law, he either violates it or obeys it. If there is a basic law, we are all one before it. He who disdains the mean is himself mean. He who vaunts his scorn of the sinful vaunts his disdain of all humanity. Your thought concerns the skilled, the artist, the intellectual, the philosopher, the priest. Mine speaks of the loving and the affectionate, the sincere, the honest, the forthright, the kindly, and the martyr. Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being. In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared. My thought holds that there are no riches but life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself.

You have your thought and I have mine.

According to your thought, the greatness of nations lies in their politics, their parties, their conferences, their alliances and treaties. But mine proclaims that the importance of nations lies in work - work in the field, work in the vineyards, work with the loom, work in the tannery, work in the quarry, work in the timberyard, work in the office and in the press. Your thought holds that the glory of the nations is in their heroes. It sings the praises of Rameses, Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, and Napoleon. But mine claims that the real heroes are Confucius, Lao-Tse, Socrates, Plato, Abi Taleb, El Gazali, Jalal Ed-din-el Roumy, Copernicus, and Pasteur. Your thought sees power in armies, cannons, battleships, submarines,
aeroplanes, and poison gas. But mine asserts that power lies in reason, resolution, and truth. No matter how long the tyrant endures, he will be the loser at the end. Your thought differentiates between pragmatist and idealist, between the part and the whole, between the mystic and materialist. Mine realizes that life is one and its weights, measures and tables do not coincide with your weights, measures and tables. He whom you suppose an idealist may be a practical man.

You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought is interested in ruins and museums, mummies and petrified objects. But mine hovers in the ever-renewed haze and clouds. Your thought is enthroned on skulls. Since you take pride in it, you glorify it too. My thought wanders in the obscure and distant valleys. Your thought trumpets while you dance. Mine prefers the anguish of death to your music and dancing. Your thought is the thought of gossip and false pleasure. Mine is the thought of him who is lost in his own country, of the alien in his own nation, of the solitary among his kinfolk and friends.

You have your thought and I have mine.

BY KAHLIL GIBRAN
Courtesy of Kahlil Gibran Online – www.kahlil.org

Love and marriage

2008-06-01T02:38:00.000-07:00

Then said Almitra Speak to us of Love.
And he raised his head and looked upon the people,and there fell a stillness upon them
And with a great voice he said:
When Love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the North wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so he is for your pruning
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns to you his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
And these things shall love do unto you that you know the secrets of your heart,
And in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's Heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of Love's threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

For Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For Love is sufficient unto Love.

When you love you should not say " God is in my heart", but rather " I am in the heart of God."
And think not that you can direct the course of Love, for Love if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire than to fulfill itself,<
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody into the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;<
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together and together you shall be for evermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love;
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same mmusic.
Give your hearts but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Excerpts from The Prophet

Kahlil Gibran

Live for yourself

2008-06-01T02:31:00.001-07:00

If I can open a new corner in a man’s own heart to him I have not lived in vain. Life itself is the thing, not joy or pain or happiness or unhappiness. To hate is as good as to love - an enemy may be as good as a friend. Live for yourself - live your life. Then you are most truly the friend of man. - I am different every day - and when I am eighty, I shall still be experimenting and changing. Work that I have done no longer concerns me - it is past. I have too much on hand in life itself.

–Kahlil Gibran

Sand and foam

2008-06-01T02:24:00.000-07:00

I am forever walking upon these shores,

Betwixt the sand and the foam,

The high tide will erase my foot-prints,

And the wind will blow away the foam.

But the sea and the shore will remain

Forever.

Once I filled my hand with mist.

Then I opened it and lo, the mist was a worm.

And I closed and opened my hand again, and behold there was a bird.

And again I closed and opened my hand, and in its hollow stood a man with a sad face, turned upward.

And again I closed my hand, and when I opened it there was naught but mist.

But I heard a song of exceeding sweetness.

It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.

Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me.

They say to me in their awakening, “You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea.”

And in my dream I say to them, “I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore.”

Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, “Who are you?”

–Kahlil Gibran

the free me

2008-06-01T02:15:00.001-07:00

"Too young am I and too outraged to be my freer self."
Kahlil Gibran

R morals right?

2008-05-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov

Ethics

2008-05-06T04:43:00.000-07:00

Ethics is not definable, is not implementable, because it is not conscious; it involves not only our thinking, but also our feeling.
Valdemar W. Setzer

for nobody's sake

2008-04-27T03:32:00.000-07:00

I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982)
Atlas Shrugged

The dead dreams stink!

2008-04-27T03:16:00.002-07:00

When we renounce our dreams, we find peace and enjoy a brief period of tranquillity, but the dead dreams begin to rot inside us and to infect the whole atmosphere in which we live. What we hoped to avoid in the Fight -disappointment and defeat- become the sole legacy of our cowardice.

Paulo Coelho
The Pilgrimage

To build or to plant?

2008-04-27T03:16:00.001-07:00

In his or her life, each person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant. Builders may take years over their tasks, but one day they will finish what they are doing. Then they will stop, hemmed in by their own walls. Life becomes meaningless once the building is finished. Those who plant suffer the storms and the seasons and rarely rest. Unlike a building, a garden never stops growing. And by its constant demands on the gardner's attentions, it makes of the gardener's life a great adventure.

Paulo Coelho
Source: Brida

How perverse is that?

2008-04-27T03:13:00.000-07:00

Love is only a small thing, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this is considered perverse.

Paulo Coelho
The Zahir

Are we?

2008-04-27T02:41:00.000-07:00

When we marry, we are authorized to take possession of the other person, body and soul.

Paulo Coelho
Source: The Zahir

perception

2008-04-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

What other people think is more important than what we feel.

Paulo Coelho
The Zahir

stubborn-a virtue?

2008-04-27T02:34:00.000-07:00

The brave are always stubborn

Paulo Coelho
The Fifth Mountain

Learn from the child

2008-04-27T02:31:00.000-07:00

A child can always teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.

Paulo Coelho
The Fifth Mountain

Words or weapons

2008-04-27T02:27:00.000-07:00

… of all the weapons of destruction that man could invent, the most terrible –and the most powerful –was the word. Daggers and spears left traces of blood; arrows could be seen at a distance. Poisons were detected in the end and avoided… but the word managed to destroy without leaving clues.

Paulo Coelho
The Fifth Mountain

Mad but normal

2008-04-27T02:24:00.002-07:00

Every human being should keep alive within them the sacred flame of madness, but should behave as a normal person.

Paulo Coelho
Like the Flowing River

Did u own what u lost?

2008-04-27T02:24:00.001-07:00

It hurt when I lost each of the various men I fell in love with. Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone, because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.

Paulo Coelho

Why I want IT NOW?

2008-04-27T02:03:00.000-07:00

There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth.

Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist

love begets love

2008-04-27T02:02:00.002-07:00

I think that when we look for love courageously, it reveals itself, and we wind up attracting even more love. If one person really wants us, everyone does. But if we're alone, we become even more alone. Life is strange.
Paulo Coelho quote

Mystery IS

2008-04-27T02:02:00.001-07:00

We have to stop and be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery.
Paulo Coelho

To wait or forget?!

2008-04-27T01:59:00.000-07:00

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.
Paulo Coelho

life challenges

2008-04-27T01:57:00.000-07:00

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.

What's the Difference?

2008-04-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

Two roads diverged in the wood,and I-
I took the road less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Mission accomplished?

2008-04-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive it isn't.
~ Richard Bach (Illusions)

Did God hv a choice?!

2008-04-06T04:20:00.000-07:00

What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.

Albert Einstein

My choice is my power

2008-04-06T04:17:00.000-07:00

I am learning that if I just go on accepting the framework for life that others have given me, if I fail to make my own choices, the reason for my life will be missing. I will be unable to recognize that which I have the power to change.

Liv Ullmann

Solitude is bliss

2008-04-06T03:14:00.000-07:00

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.

Alice Koller

Was life a choice?

2008-04-06T03:11:00.000-07:00

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

Henry Ward Beecher quotes

Attitude

2008-04-06T03:10:00.000-07:00

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.
Charles R. Swindoll quotes

Its ur Choice!

2008-04-06T03:07:00.000-07:00

Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.

Richard Bach

The life of a choice

2008-04-06T03:03:00.002-07:00

Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives.

Richard Bach

Choice

2008-04-06T03:03:00.001-07:00

“When it snows, you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels”

Choice

2008-04-06T03:01:00.000-07:00

It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

Joanne Kathleen

Does God exist?

2008-03-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

who is truth's enemy?

2008-03-29T00:00:00.001-07:00

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

William James

why poets shudn't lie!

2008-03-28T23:59:00.001-07:00

All the poet can do today is warn.
That is why true Poets must be truthful.

Wilfred Owen

do not interpret the WORLD

2008-03-28T23:57:00.000-07:00

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

Umberto Eco

Fiction

2008-03-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

Stephen King

why say truth!!

2008-03-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

Always tell the truth. That way, you don't have to remember what you said.

Mark Twain

schools-what they confer and conceal

2008-03-28T23:53:00.000-07:00

All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten.

1908, notebook
Mark Twain

Truth vs Myth

2008-03-28T23:50:00.000-07:00

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic

John F Kennedy

opinion to truth

2008-03-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

New opinions often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths.

George Bernard Shaw

Truth a myth?

2008-03-28T23:44:00.000-07:00

Postmodernists believe that truth is myth, and myth, truth. This equation has its roots in pop psychology. The same people also believe that emotions are a form of reality. There used to be another name for this state of mind. It used to be called psychosis.

Brad Holland

Options

2008-03-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional
Unknown

Violent World

2008-03-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently those people deserve to be punished.

Marshall Rosenberg

Handle with Care!

2008-03-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.

James Russell Lowell

Suffering

2008-03-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. ln those transparent moments we know other people's joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own.

Fritz Williams

How seriously should we take LIFE?

2008-03-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it is false. Whatever is achieved must be achieved with the full exercise of passion, of vision, of pain, of fear, and of sorrow. How do we know ... that our part of the meaning of the universe might not be a rhythm in sorrow?

Ernest Becker

warm inside

2008-03-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

IF

2008-03-16T07:55:00.001-07:00

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 wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

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

supervise kids

2008-02-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

"Leave your kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing*!"

Warren Buffett

Image of Present

2008-01-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

"Those who build the present in the image of the past will miss out entirely on the challenges of the future."
Winston Churchill

soulmate

2007-12-11T03:26:00.000-08:00

“A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”
About courtship with Leslie Parrish
Richard Bach quotes (American Writer, author of 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull', b.1936)

Ask to seek

2007-12-11T03:19:00.000-08:00

“A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt. If it cannot discover the claims to existence of the objects of its questioning -- and it would be miraculous if it so soon succeeded in solving so many mysteries -- it will deny them all reality, the mere formulation of the problem already implying an inclination to negative solutions. But in so doing it will become void of all positive content and, finding nothing which offers it resistance, will launch itself perforce into the emptiness of inner revere.”
Emile Durkheim quotes (French Sociologist; tudied anomie & social cohesion; wrote "The Division of Labor in Society" 1893, "Suicide" 1897 (also "Le Suicide"), 1858-1917)