"What I treasure most in life is being able to dream. During my most
difficult moments and complex situations, I have been able to dream of
a more beautiful future."
-Rigoberta Menchu Tum
"Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking."
H. Jackson Brown, Jr
A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, "To hell, for that's where help is needed most." -Roshi Philip Kapleau
"Preachers err by trying to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery."
If we knew and understood fairytales - and by extension the myth - we would not need the scriptures.
"I looked for my soul but my soul I could not see, I looked for my God but my God eluded me. I looked for a friend and then I found all three.
"Like anyone else, she must have wanted different things at the same time. The human heart is a dark forest."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
"O Master, I do not find that I love God." And he asked, "Is there nothing then that you love?" She answered, "My little nephew." And he said to her, "There is your love and service to God, in your love and service to that child."
THE SPEECH OF THE HIGH ONE
I know I hung on that windswept tree,
Swung there for nine long nights,
Wounde by my own blade,
Bloodied for Odin,
Myself an offering to myself:
Bound to the tree
That no man knows
Whither the roots of it run.
None gave me bread,
None gave me drink.
Down to the deepest depths I peered
Until I spied the Runes.
With a roaring cry I seized them up,
Then dizzy and fainting, I fell.
Well-being I won
And wisdom too.
I grew and took joy in my growth:
From a word to a word
I was led to a word,
From a deed to another deed.
Lift up the self by the Self
And don't let the self droop down,
For the Self is the self's only friend
And the self is the Self's only foe.
-Bhagavad Gita
INVOCATION
God within me, God without,
How shall I ever be in doubt?
There is no place where I may go
And not there see God's face, not know
I am God's vision and God's ears.
So through the harvest of my years
I am the Sower and the Sown,
God's Self unfolding and God's own.
-Rune stone, V'sterby, Uppland, Sweden
work of Asmund Karasun, ca. A.D.1050
A WARRIOR'S CREED
I have no parents - I make the heavens and earth my parents.
I have no home - I make awareness my home.
I have no life or death - I make the tides of breathing my life and death.
I have no divine power - I make honesty my divine power.
I have no means - I make understanding my means.
I have no magic secrets - I make character my magic secret.
I have no body - I make endurance my body.
I have no eyes - I make the flash of lightning my eyes.
I have no ears - I make sensibility my ears.
I have no limbs - I make 'unshadowed by thought' my strategy.
I have no designs - I make 'seizing opportunity by the forelock' my design.
I have no miracles - I make right-action my miracles.
I have no principles - I make adaptability to all circumstances my principles.
I have no tactics - I make emptiness and fullness my tactics.
I have no talents - I make ready wit my talent.
I have no friends - I make my mind my friend.
I have no enemy - I make carelessness my enemy.
I have no armor - I make benevolence and righteousness my armor.
I have no castle - I make immovable-mind my castle.
I have no sword - I make absence of self my sword.
- Anonymous Samurai, fourteenth century
We should understand well that all things are the works of the Great Spirit. We should know that He is within all things: the trees, the grasses, the rivers, the mountains, and the four-legged animals, and the winged peoples; and even more important, we should understand that He is also above all these things and peoples. When we do understand all this deeply in our hearts, then we will fear, and love, and know the Great Spirit, and then we will be and act and live as He intends.
-Black Elk
In revenge and love woman is more barbarous than man.
-Friedrich Wilheim Nietzsche
Life is only error. And death is knowledge.
-Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
"I was out walking with two friends - the sun began to set - suddenly the sky turned blood-red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on a fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and there I still stood, trembling with fear - and I sensed an endless scream passing through Nature."
Edvard Munch, 1892
Whoever wants to know about me as a painter- the only topic of any interest- should study my pictures with care, and try to draw from them what I am and what I am trying to do.
-Gustav Klimt
It is the nature of human desire not to be satisfied, and most human beings live only for the gratification of it.
-Aristotle
Beauty is power; a smile is its sword.
-Charles Reade
�If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.� -- Voltaire
"[The poet's] cheerfulness should be the gift of sunlight; the air should suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water. That spirit which suffices quiet hearts, which seems to come forth to such from every dry knoll or sere grass, from every pine stump and half imbedded stone on which the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and hungry, and such as are of simple taste...
"If we filled the day with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it...
"Wherever snow falls or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love,--there is Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldst walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet"
(On going to war over religion)
"You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend."
�-- Yasir Arrafat (PLO leader)
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew that he would never be found out.
--- Thomas Babington Macaulay,
Historian
"Once giants lived in the earth, Conan. And in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Crom, and they took from him the enigma of steel. Crom was angered, and the earth shook. Fire and Wind struck down these giants ... but in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield. And we who found it are just men - not gods, not giants, just men. The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one, no one in the world can you trust - not men, not women, not beasts ... this you can trust."
- Conan's father, from the film "Conan the Barbarian."
"If you put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyound them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level."
-Bruce LeeIn the absence of collective gods, we've created a poor man's Olympus in our entertainers. We've taken the clowns and elevated them to minor deities. We revere our clowns a little too much. But strip away all the nonsense that surrounds the movie business and, at its core, our kind of storytelling fills a real social, almost metaphysical need. People need and want the experience of getting together to watch stories. Films are our most potent cultural mythology. It's how you feel connected, not alone. --- Edward Norton, 2000
When talking about the high percentage of Indians who volunteered to fight in World War I and II and the Vietnam War. He said 85,000 Indians served during the Vietnam War and 90 percent of them were volunteers.
"We volunteer like crazy," he said. "It's the warrior mentality."
But why?
"I don't know. Maybe we believe our own press clippings."
-interview of Sherman Alexie in the Oregonian
Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do
not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun
by white men. They do not protect my father's grave. They do not pay
for all my horses and cattle. Good words cannot give my back my
children. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them
from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can
live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that
comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good
words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by
men who had no right to talk. It does not require many words to speak
the truth.
Chief Joseph
Dance like it hurts. Love like you need the money. Work when people are watching.
"The whole of existence is imagination with imagination, while true Being is God alone."
-Ibn al-'Arabi
"To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism."
-Shunryu Suzuki
"The servant of the Tao, realizing the perfect beauty of the universe, attains understanding."
- Lao-tzu
"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few."
- Shunryu Suzuki
"Life is but a journey; death is returning home."
- Chinese proverb
"In fact, it is dubious that one can even speak of 'experiencing' reality, since this would imply a seperation between the experiencer and the experience."
-Chögyam Trungpa
"The evil life is really the thoughtless life."
-Dhammapada
"Every moment of life is the last, every poem a death poem."
-Matsuo Basho
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it."
- Rabindranath Tagore
“Johnny Cash is a true American hero, beloved the world over as much for his kindness and compassion and championing of the underdog as for the power of his art. His fierce independence and free spirit, balanced with his love of family, children, and his fellow man, will stand as a shining example of the best of what it means to be human. And he was damned funny, even in the darkest times.
—Kris Kristofferson