Messages from the Journey of Life

Here are quotes from those that have taken the Journey of Life.
May you find in them steps in your own journey as well.

"Free will does not mean that you establish the curriculum; only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time." --A Course in Miracles

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. --Don Marquis

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest. --Mohandas K. Gandhi

"No day in which you learn somthing is a complete loss." --David Eddings "King of the Murgos"

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. --Arthur Koestler

Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world. -RD Laing,psychiatrist and author (1927-1989)

"Cynicisim is an unpleasant way of saying the truth." --Lillian Hellman "The Little Foxes"

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. -Albert Einstein

"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." --Ansel Adams

"Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. the minute it crops up, all our irritation and resntments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place." --Mark Twain

The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness. --Christopher Morley

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.  --Bill Vaughan

"Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sight, before the dark hour of reason grows." --John Betjeman "Summoned by Bells"

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth. --Sophocles

"Management by objectives works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time you haven't." --Peter F. Drucker

"There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one." --Jill Churchill "Grime and Punishment"

"Action is the antidote to Dispair." --Joan Baez

"The softest things in the world over come the hardest things in the world." --Lao-tzu

"The important thing is this: To be ready at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become." --Charles Dubois

"Enlightenment consists not merely in the seeing of luminous shapes and visions, but in making the darkness visible. The latter procedure is more difficult, and therefore, unpopular." --Carl Jung

"A ship is safe in harbor -- but that's not what ships are for." --John A. Shedd

"When one is willing and eager, the gods join in." --Aeschylus

"What is to give light must endure burning." --Victor Frankl

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." --Marcel Proust

"You cannot transcend what you do not know. To go beyond yourself you must know yourself." --Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

"God comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable." --Unknown

"Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness." --George Bernard Shaw

"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts. temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."--Aristotle

"What differentiates human beings from computers, no matter how clever, is that computers can do anything, but enjoy nothing. I can get a computer to play Beethoven, but I can't program it to enjoy it."--George Dennis O'Brien

"The Best way to clean a frying pan that has burned food cemented to the bottom is to let is soak in soapy water for several days and then, when nobody is looking, throw it in the garbage."--Dave Barry

"For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work."--Doug Lawson

"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy."--Henry Kissinger

"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation."--Pearl S. Buck

"When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power."--Alston Chase

"The best way to get your tomatoes to ripen is to go on vacation. The tomatoes will sense your abesnce, ripen, rot and fall to the ground before you get back -- even if you are gone only two days."--Fred H. Keller

"He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet."--Unknown

"A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety."-- Aesop

"Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius. "-- Henri-Frdric Amiel, "Journal", 1883

"Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper."-- Francis Bacon, 1624

"The most important things to do in this world are to get something to eat, somthing to drink, and somebody to love you."-- Brendan Behan, in "Weekend", 1968

"Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive."-- William F. Buckley

"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well."-- Samuel Butler, "Notebooks" 1912

"Hot heads and cold hearts never solved anything." -- Billy Graham

"A great many people mistake opinions for thoughts." -- Herbert V. Prochnow

"Words are plentiful, but deeds are precious." -- Lech Walesa

"Freedom, after all, is simply being able to live with the consequences of your decisions." -- James X. Mullen, in "The Simple Art of Greatness"

"Slow down, simplify, and be kind." -- Naomi Judd

"It is so much easier to extol the virtues of civility that to talk civilly about the vitures we need to uphold." -- Amitai Etzioni

"We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory."-- Bern Williams

"When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves." -- Willian Arthur Ward

"Heros come along when you need them." -- Ronald Steel

"The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enought ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all."--Edward De Bono

"God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December." --James Barrie

"The seed of God is in us: Pear seeds grow into pear trees; hazel seeds grow into hazel trees; and God seeds into God." --Meister Eckehart

"Anything can be achieved in small, deliberate steps. But there are times you need the courage to take a great leap; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps." --David Lloyd George

"True teachers use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having faciliated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own." --Nikos Kazantzakis

"For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution." -- A. Hamilton

" When in doubt, flip a coin. Before it lands you will know what you really want, you don't even have to look at it." --Unknown

"I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward." --John Mortimer

"Before you can be reasonably convinced you are right about an idea, you should be sure that you understand the objections of your most articulate antagonists. The person who can state his antagonist's point of view to the satisfaction of the antagonist is more likely to be correct than the person who cannot." --Paul G. Hewitt

"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." --Isaac Newton

"We must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence to find that enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song. But in that dance, and in that song, the most ancient rites of our conscience fulfill themselves in the awareness of being human." --Pablo Neruda, Toward the Splendid City

"Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves." -- Lydia M. Child

"The golden rule is of no use to you whatsoever unless you realize that it is your move." -- Frank Crane

"Do every act of your life as if were your last." -- Marcus Aurelius

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." -- Henry James

"Goodwill to others...helps build you up. It is good for your body. It makes your blood purer, your muscles stronger, and your whole form more symmetrical in shape. It is the real elixir of life." -- Prentice Mulford

"If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come." --Chinese Proverb

"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." -- The Dalai Lama

"I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder to each other than we are. How much the world needs it! How easily it is done!" -- Henry Drummond

"Contrary to the cliche, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it." --Malcolm Forbes

"Kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, kindness in giving creates love." --Lao-tzu

"A human being is a part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature." --Albert Einstein

"Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than necessary." --Sir James M. Barrie

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy. --George H. Lorimer

There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor. --George Santayana



Since when do we have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? --Lillian Hellman



Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.



Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. --James Russell Lowell



For money you can have everything it is said. No that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money. --Arne Garborg



A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. --Joseph Conrad



Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration. --Sigmund Freud



The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, "Thus far and no farther." --Ludwig van Beethoven



Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. --Robert Benchley



The man who thinks he can do without the world is indeed mistaken; but the man who thinks the world cannot do without him is mistaken even worse. --Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld



The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there. --Yasutani Roshi, Zen master



If you devote your life to seeking revenge, first dig two graves. --Confucius

The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. --Aristotle

Return to the Garden

Return to the Inn


Site designed and maintained by the Owner

With SuSE Linux: 100% Windows Free

The Computer that works for me