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Share in the accounts and discoveries of the many individuals who, just like you, set out to find new, true answers that could stand up to the test of passing time with its ever-changing conditions. Welcome these inward and uplifting thoughts as if they were your own, for in one sense… they are.
Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;
Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;
The oaks bear mast, the biers scarlet hips:
The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush
Lays her full mess before you. Want! why want?
Progress is the law of life; man is not man as yet.
On a Drop of Dew
See how the orient dew,
Shed from the bosom of the morn
Into the blowing roses,
Yet careless of its mansion new,
For the clear region where ’twas born
Round in itself incloses:
And in its little globe’s extent,
Frames as it can its native element.
How it the purple flow’r does slight,
Scarce touching where it lies,
But gazing back upon the skies,
Shines with a mournful light,
Like its own tear,
Because so long divided from the sphere.
Restless it rolls and unsecure,
Trembling lest it grow impure,
Till the warm sun pity its pain,
And to the skies exhale it back again.
So the soul, that drop, that ray
Of the clear fountain of eternal day,
Could it within the human flow’r be seen,
Remembering still its former height,
Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green,
And recollecting its own light,
Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express
The greater heaven in an heaven less.
In how coy a figure wound,
Every way it turns away:
So the world excluding round,
Yet receiving in the day,
Dark beneath, but bright above,
Here disdaining, there in love.
How loose and easy hence to go,
How girt and ready to ascend,
Moving but on a point below,
It all about does upwards bend.
Such did the manna’s sacred dew distill,
White and entire, though congealed and chill,
Congealed on earth : but does, dissolving, run
Into the glories of th’ almighty sun.
Not to understand a treasure’s worth… is cause of half the poverty we feel, and makes the world the wilderness it is.
The realization of Truth is brought about by perception, and not in the least by ten millions of acts.
The humble knowledge of thyself is a surer way to God than the deepest search after science.
The first step to self-knowledge is self-distrust. Nor can we attain to any kind of knowledge, except by a like process.
Does a philosopher seek people to come and hear him? Does he not, rather, by his own nature, attract those who will be enriched by him? He is like the warming sun. What physician seeks for men to come and be healed?
We must follow, not force Providence.
We are taking that which is bad for that which is good, and that which is a dream for that which is real. Soul is the only reality, and we have forgotten it.
One by one (bright gifts from Heaven)
Joys are sent thee here below;
Take them readily when given,
Ready too to let them go…
One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,
Do not fear an armed band;
One will fade as others greet thee;
Shadows passing through the land.
We do not enter into the truth without having passed through our own nothingness; without having sojourned for a long time in a state of extreme and total humiliation.
We are often wiser than we fancy ourselves to be… In the great moments of life, when a man decides upon an important step, his action is directed not so much by any clear knowledge of the right thing to do, as by an inner impulse — you may almost call it intuition — proceeding from the deepest foundations of his being.
You possess a real and permanent nature. It is within you, awaiting your development of it. This authentic nature has total power to banish worry, loneliness, confusion and all other pains. It is the right door to pleasant human relations at home and in your love life. It always knows what to do for you. So seek this true self — it also seeks you. It is like discovering a secret map to a lost treasure. New inner riches will be yours to keep and enjoy. Just find out who you really are. The rest is done for you.
The best way to come to truth being to examine things as really they are, and not to conclude they are, as we fancy of ourselves, or have been taught by others to imagine.
Ignorance is the parent of fear.
There is no greater mystery than this, that we keep seeking reality though in fact we are reality. We think that there is something hiding reality and that this must be destroyed before reality is gained. How ridiculous! A day will dawn when you will laugh at all your past efforts. That which will be the day you laugh is also here and now.
The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Philosophy is, to tell the truth, a homesickness, an effort to return to home.
That life is better life, past fearing death,
Than that which lives to fear.
When I see an anxious man, I say, “What does this man want?” If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he be anxious? For this reason, a lute player when he is singing by himself has no anxiety, but when he goes to the theatre, he is anxious, even if he has a good voice and plays well on the lute, for he not only wishes to sing well, but also to obtain applause, which is not in his power.
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
Oh, the difficulty of fixing the attention of men on the world within them!
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members… Self-reliance is its aversion.
Confine yourself to the present.
