Adages & Proverbs

[size=150]The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is Possible. [/size]
Gabriel Marcel

[size=150]Man is not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being. [/size]
Martin Heidegger
Beautiful…

[size=150]And what is mind And how is it recognized? If I clearly draw In sumi ink, the sound Of breezes drifting through pine Is all that is seen.[/size]

  • Ikkyu Sojun

Brevity is often the soul of confusion, not wit.

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? Khalil Gibran

[size=150]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. [/size]
Khalil Gibran

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life–music and cats.” Albert Schwietzer

[size=150]I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.[/size]
Albert Schweitzer

[size=150]In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit[/size].
Albert Schweitzer

By Dogen Zenji…
[size=150]Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.

When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves.

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it. [/size]

“We are part of the Earth and it is part of us. This we know. The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.”–Chief Seattle

“[size=150]A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.”
Zitkala-Sa[/size]

[size=150]“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.”
Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator[/size]

:sad-teareye:

[size=85]I love N.A. spirituality
It is so real and beautiful[/size]

“O Great Spirit, help me never judge another until I have walked two weeks in their moccasins.” Edwin Laughing Fox

[size=150]Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
-Galatians 4:16[/size]

[size=150]“I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon the dewdrop[/size]

[size=150]“Does the song of the sea end at the shore or in the hearts of those who listen to it?” [/size]

[size=150]Keep me from the wisdom that does not weep, and the philosophy that does not laugh, and the pride that does not bow its head before a child[/size]

Compliments of Kahlil Gibran

For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know. - Theodore Roosevelt.

[size=150]Life has a certain flavor for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.[/size]
John Stuart Mill

[size=85]Pandora - An almost identical quote to Roosevelt’s ^ which TR must have borrowed since JSM lived and died before
Roosevelt’s time.

It would seem to me that that flavor must be felt/tasted even before the true fighter has begun.[/size]

[size=150]Mankind is poised midway between the gods and the beasts. [/size]
Plotinus 204 or 205 C.E., Egyptian Philosopher

[size=85]Somehow that strikes me as such a
wonderful place to be. [/size]

[size=150]Situated in some nebulous distance I do what I do so that the universal balance of which I am a part may remain a balance. [/size]
~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

[size=200]The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.[/size]
Tao Te Ching
Lao Tsu
As Translated by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English

[size=150]To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it - this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed. [/size]
~Walter Scott

[size=85]Food for thought.[/size]

I know this has been around but its still one of my favorites…

Carrots, Eggs, or Coffee?

A young woman went to her grandmother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one would pop up.

Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire, and soon the pots came to boil. In the first pot she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil; without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her granddaughter, she asked, “Tell me what you see.”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied. Her grandmother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The grandmother then asked the granddaughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the grandmother asked the granddaughter to sip the coffee. The granddaughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma then asked,

“What does it mean, grandmother?”

Her grandmother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her granddaughter.