Browse by: Quotation Source | Entire Living Book | The Search | The Sacred
Here you will read the innermost thoughts and feelings of inspired seekers who have gone before you. Some names you may know… others you will be glad to meet!
The musicality of being holds both unending joy and infinite sorrow
It is the delicate touch of longing for the infinite
It is the tears of pain in the eyes of the worshiper
It is the sacrifice, at last rewarded
With a crown of roses, or thorns.
It holds the mystery of all beings who strive without knowledge
The infinite cycles of meaningless pain
The cares and woes of a thousand lives
Can one look at them, and listen without pity?
I touch them, I call them unto me
Those of little faith, and of great
Those who cry forever and those that laugh hysterically
The poor, the maimed, the lacking, the unhappy
The many parts each person must play.
I call them unto me, and I say:
Take all, take all, take everything and more
Your unhappiness is unbounded, take from me
And be at peace.
They scream, they cry, their tears are unending
The many forms of misery which all beings are heir to
Haunt me in the night.
There are beings of joy, of wonder, of enjoyment
There are sensual heavens, and pleasure-filled paradises
Yet where may those who suffer and grieve go
Those for whom the illusion of separateness
Is the truest reality?
Ropes and coils of evil deceptions
Locks and bars and endless loneliness
Before joy comes sorrow, before knowledge, pain
Before the thrill of enlightenment
Am I, who aid the wounded.
I share their grief, I hold them in my arms
I shed my tears, that they may realize they are not alone
In the vast depths of the infinite universe
There is one who cares.
You can depend upon no man, upon no friend, but on him who depends upon himself. Only he who acts beneficially towards himself will act so towards others.
Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.
If the world goes against truth, then Athanasius goes against the world.
A man that has no virtue in himself, ever envies virtue in others, for men’s minds will either feed upon their own good or upon others’ evil, and who lacks the one will prey upon the other.
The evil done by man falls upon his own head, without making any change in the system of the world.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.
When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power. We shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.
There is a kind of elevation which does not depend on fortune. It is a certain air which distinguishes us, and seems to destine us for great things; it is a price which we set upon ourselves.
Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?
You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.
Who is more deluded than he who is careless of his own welfare?
The worst kind of shame is being ashamed of frugality or poverty.
Why do the people behave so unreasonably? Because, from long continued deception, they no longer see the connection between their bondage and their own share in the deeds of violence. And why don’t they see this connection? For the same reason which lies at the root of all human misery — because they have no faith, and without faith men can only be guided by their own interests, and a man guided by his own interest, cannot be anything but a deceiver or a dupe.
No man loves the man whom he fears.
Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit and his whole duty to think as he ought.
It is difficult to keep quiet if you have nothing to do.
The proverbial expressions about the grave, woman’s love, dry earth and eternal fire are enigmatic, but they have a deeper meaning: inordinate love is insatiable.
The beginning of philosophy is to know the condition of one’s own mind. If a man recognizes its weaknesses, he will not wish to apply it to important questions.
That nature alone is good that refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself.