Life Celebration Quotes
Wisdom / Genius
Alan Watts
Enlightenment or awakening is not the creation of a new state of affairs but the recognition of what already is.
This is the real secret of life - to be completely engaged with what you are doing… and instead of calling it work,
realize it is play.
Abraham Lincoln
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
Albert Einstein
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.
I didn't arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.
When they call you crazy, remember that great ideas don’t come from average minds.
Albert Camus
The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.
You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters - all that matters, really, is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Bertrand Russell
Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don’t know.
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Buddha
Not thinking about anything is zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is zen.
A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not
meant for you.
Carl Jung
Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.
The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life.
Charles Bukowski
The masses are always wrong - Wisdom is doing everything the crowd does not do. All you do is reverse the totality of their learning and you have the heaven they’re
looking for.
Confucius
The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.
Dalai Lama
Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.
Eckhart Tolle
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is radiant joy of being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth.
The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.
Epictetus
He is a wise man who does not grieve for which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The errors of great men are more fruitful than the truths of little men.
I used logic and reasoning to disprove logic and reasoning.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls
himself a fool at least once a month.
Hermann Hesse
Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
Lao Tzu
The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way, and resides at the center of the circle.
I have just three things to teach.
Simplicity.
Patience.
Compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
The wise man is one who knows what he does not know.
Leo Tolstoy
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of
changing himself.
Leonardo da Vinci
Wisdom is the daughter of experience.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Here is my secret: I don’t mind what happens.
No Master, no teacher, no guru, no system, no self-discipline will ever lift for you the veil which conceals wisdom.
Wisdom is something that has to be discovered by each one, and it is not the result of knowledge. Knowledge and wisdom do not go together. Wisdom comes when there is the maturity of self-knowing. Without knowing oneself, order is not possible, and therefore there is no virtue.
Philosophy means the love of wisdom, the love of truth, the love of truth in daily life, not an abstraction of truth, not
the speculative ideas of philosophers and their theories and their clever spinning out of words. Philosophy means the love of truth in daily life.
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Mahatma Gandhi
Speak only if it improves upon the silence.
Marcus Aurelius
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them.
If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Do not be wise in words. Be wise in deeds.
Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?”
And why should we feel anger at the world? As if it will notice!
Richard Feynman
I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
Rumi
You are searching the world for treasure, but the real treasure is in yourself.
Simone de Beauvoir
One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius.
Sir Isaac Newton
Genius is patience.
Socrates
Understanding a question is half an answer.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.
Wisdom begins in wonder.
Thich Nhat Hanh
In true dialogue, both sides are willing to change.
For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.
Vincent van Gogh
I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.
Voltaire
The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.
Judge a man by his questions more than his answers.
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Other Voices
The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.
Benjamin Franklin
That whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
It is said that wisdom lies not in seeing things, but in seeing through things.
Manly P. Hall
Difficulty is what wakes up the genius.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Intellect takes you to the door, but it doesn’t take you into the house.
Shams Tabrizi
Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
Shinryu Suzuki
The sage battles his own ego. The fool battles everyone else's.
Sufi proverb
The poor long for riches and the rich for heaven, but the wise long for a state of tranquility.
Swami Rama
The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.
Thales
The great end in life is not knowledge but action.
Thomas Henry Huxley
You cannot pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.
Unknown
Inquire often, but judge rarely, and thou wilt not often be mistaken.
William Penn
The central problem is not that you think too highly of yourself nor is it that you think too lowly of yourself. Instead, it is that you think constantly of yourself.
Wu Hsin
Obstacles do not block the path… the obstacles are the path.
Zen Proverb
We cling to our own point of view, as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
Zhuangzi
Wisdom of Nature
Alan Watts
The only zen you’ll find on mountain tops is the zen you bring up there with you.
Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.
Albert Einstein
When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.
One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike. We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us. It is entirely possible that behind the perception of our senses, worlds are hidden of which we are unaware.
Confucius
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Epicurus
The man who follows nature and not vain opinions is independent in all things. For in reference to what is enough for nature every possession is riches, but in reference to unlimited desires even the greatest wealth is not riches but poverty.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
Henry David Thoreau
Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails.
Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry, determined to make a day of it.
If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.
Hermann Hesse
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.
Lao Tzu
Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Marcus Aurelius
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
Maya Angelou
Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
Nikola Tesla
If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.
Paul Gauguin
All the joys—animal and human - of a free life are mine. I have escaped everything that is artificial, conventional, customary. I am entering into the truth, into nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
Sir Isaac Newton
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
Vincent van Gogh
If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
Other Voices
Enjoy the peace of Nature and declutter your inner world.
Amit Ray
Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against Nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear.
Hippocrates
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever
you are doing.
This is the ultimate.
Chuang Tzu
After all the great religions have been preached and expounded, or have been revealed by brilliant scholars, or have been written in fine books and embellished in fine language with finer covers, man - all man - is still confronted with the
great Mystery.
Chief Luther Standing Bear
Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one
day become a reality.
Earl Nightingale
Whatever we plant
in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become
a reality.
Earl Nightingale
The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.
Rabindranath Tagore
To be wild is not to be crazy or psychotic. True wildness is a love of nature, a delight in silence, a voice free to say spontaneous things, and an exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown.
Robert Bly
Nature is alive
and talking to us.
This is not a metaphor.
Terence McKenna
Earth is not a platform for human life. It’s a living being. We’re not on it but a part of it. Its health is our health.
Thomas Moore
We don’t have to heal the Earth; she can heal herself. All we have to do is stop making her sick.
Wallace Black Elk
