I think quotes are one of the best sources of wisdom we have available to us, I keep a little notebook with quotes and thoughts on them with me most of the time.
Jack Kornfield:
“Pure awareness becomes colored by our thoughts, emotions and expectations”
Achaan Chah:
“Ultimately things are just as they are-only our comparisons cause us to suffer.”
Adyashanti:
“Put attention on what is alive with freshness and vitality. Do not put attention on what is dead, repetitive or dull.”
Ecclesiastes 1:2-11:
Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Nelson Mandela:
“It never hurts to think too highly of a person; often they become ennobled and act better because of it.”
Seneca:
“Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.”
“True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”
“Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”
“Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.”
“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
Marcus Aurelius:
“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love …”
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
“Nothing that goes on in anyone else’s mind can harm you.” So then, “Where can harm be found? In your tendency to see harm. Stop doing that and everything will be fine.”
“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.”
And, the quote that pretty much guides everything in my world. It’s even on my business cards Unsurprisingly, also from Aurelius:
“You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
I could keep going for quite a while longer.
I really like good quotes.
Share some of your favorites with me.
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