Browse The Living Book

All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. Blaise Pascal (1623)

I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. Henry David Thoreau (1817)

To be united with the Beloved is to love all, for in all dwelleth the Beloved. J. Krishnamurti (1895)

The spiritual path wrecks the body and afterwards restores it to health.

It destroys the house to unearth the treasure, and with that treasure builds it better than before.
Jalal Al Din Rumi (1207)

Who keeps one thing in view makes all things serve. Robert Browning (1812)

More radiant than the sun, purer than the snow, subtler than the ether, is the Self, the spirit within my heart. I am that Self, that Self am I. Ancient Prayer

Because every thought enters the heart in the form of a mental image of some sensible object, the blessed light of the Divinity will illumine the heart only when it is completely empty of everything, and so free from all form. Indeed, this light reveals itself to the pure intellect in the measure to which the intellect is purged of all concepts. Philokalia (300)

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends? Abraham Lincoln (1809)

Ring the bell that still can ring.
Forget the perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen (1934)

I'm done with great things and big things, great intentions and big success, and I am all for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water. Yet which, if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of our pride. William James (1842)

Only the descent into hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness. Immanuel Kant (1724)

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it's because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the illusion of pleasure. Aldous Huxley (1894)

If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world. C. S. Lewis (1898)

I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875)

He who does not have attention in himself and does not regard his mind, cannot become pure in heart, and so cannot see God. He who does not have attention in himself cannot be poor in spirit, cannot be contrite, nor be gentle and meek, nor hunger and thirst after righteousness, nor be merciful, nor a peacemaker, nor suffer persecution for the righteousness sake. St. Simeon, The New Theologian (949)

Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; he is cured of the insanity of conceit; he's got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest that it is theirs to find his weak point. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803)

One of the marvels of the world
is the sight of a soul sitting in prison
with the key in his hand.
Jalal Al Din Rumi (1207)

I stood in the midst of the world and revealed myself to them in the flesh. I have found them all intoxicated, not one of them was thirsty and my soul grieved for the children of humanity. Gospel Of Thomas (110)

O Foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you . . . having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? New Testament

There is a force within that gives you life -- seek that. In your body there lies a precious jewel -- seek that. Oh, wandering Sufi, if you are in search of the greatest treasure, don't look outside, look within, and Seek That. Jalal Al Din Rumi (1207)

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes. Goethe (1749)

To change what you get you must change who you are. Vernon Howard (1918)

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight. Marcus Aurelius (121)

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. Lao Tse (604 B.C.E.)

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Edmund Burke (1729)