A few nuggets to help you get through the day.
"People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare, and their response is 'you are safe with me' - that's intimacy."
― Taylor Jenkins Reid [ref]
“If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.”
― Catherine Aird [ref]
"Cultivate good habits and your bad habits will eventually disappear."
― Paramahansa Yogananda [SRF]
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it, and embrace them."
— Rumi [ref]
“I am selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe [ref]
"Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow people. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone."
― don Juan, "Journey to Ixtlan" ... (Carlos Castaneda)
“One can fight evil, but against stupidity one is helpless.”
― Henry Miller [ref]
“Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.”
― Pete Seeger [ref]
“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.”
― Steven Wright [ref]
"If you loan someone $20 and never see them again, it was probably worth it."
― Author Unknown
"I Love Mankind... It's People I can't stand."
― Linus [Charles Schulz, Peanuts, ref]
“When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”
— James Whitcomb Riley [ref]
“The best index to a person's character is:
[a] How they treat people who can't do them any good, and
[b] How they treat people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail van Buren [ref]
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
― Theodore Roosevelt [ref]
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. it.“It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
― Native American Proverb
A Zen teacher saw five of his students returning from the market, riding their bicycles. When they arrived at the monastery and had dismounted, the teacher asked the students, "Why are you riding your bicycles?"
The first student replied, "The bicycle is carrying the sack of potatoes. I am glad that I do not have to carry them on my back!" The teacher praised the first student, "You are a smart boy! When you grow old, you will not walk hunched over as I do."
The second student replied, "I love to watch the trees and fields pass by as I roll down the path!" The teacher commended the second student, "Your eyes are open, and you see the world."
The third student replied, "When I ride my bicycle, I am content to chant nam myoho renge kyo." The teacher gave praise to the third student, "Your mind will roll with the ease of a newly trued wheel."
The fourth student replied, "Riding my bicycle, I live in harmony with all sentient beings." The teacher was pleased, and said to the fourth student, "You are riding on the golden path of non-harming."
The fifth student replied, "I ride my bicycle to ride my bicycle." The teacher sat at the feet of the fifth student and said, "I am your student!"
“The World is increasingly designed to depress us. Happiness isn’t very good for the economy. If we were happy with what we had, why would we need more? How do you sell an anti-aging moisturizer? You make someone worry about aging. How do you get people to vote for a political party? You make them worry about immigration. How do you get them to buy insurance? By making them worry about everything. How do you get them to have plastic surgery? By highlighting their physical flaws. How do you get them to watch a TV show? By making them worry about missing out. How do you get them to buy a new smartphone? By making them feel like they are being left behind.
To be calm becomes a kind of revolutionary act. To be happy with your own non-upgraded existence. To be comfortable with our messy, human selves, would not be good for business.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive
“If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult since we think them to be happier than they are.”
― Montesquieu - Slate
“Women always worry about the things that men forget; men always worry about the things women remember.”
― Author Unknown
“When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.”
― Chinese Proverb
“Curve: The loveliest distance between two points.”
― Mae West
“If man does find the solution for world peace, it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known.”
― George C. Marshall
“The consciousness of self is the greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action.”
― Bruce Lee
“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.”
From: Extraction (2020)
"It's a Mystery!"
Practice extraordinary acts of kindness.
Education is the key to better understanding.
"Mark Twain" (Samuel L. Clemens) is credited with saying:
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." [ref]
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
― Albert Einstein [ref]
“We rise by lifting others.”
― Robert Ingersoll [ref]
"When I do my job, I am thinking about these things...
Because when I do my job...
THAT... is what I think about."
― Laurie Anderson - "Langue d'Amour" - Mister Heartbreak
:-)