Quotes

"It has taken time to misguide you so completely, but it takes no time at all to be what you are." - A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman

"When our universe is in harmony with man, the eternal, we know it as truth, we feel it as beauty." ~ Rabindranath Tagore

"Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative."

- H. G. Wells

"As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." —NELSON MANDELA

"...none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings."

- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari

"I love the stars. Because they can't say anything. I love the stars. Because they do not judge anyone." ~ Natsuki Takaya

"Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein.....dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto the dry land here it is standing:

Atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering. I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe."

- Richard Feynman

"It's a revolutionary transformation to be able to perceive and to relate to the world without the baggage, the accumulated baggage in your mind. You are free of the entire person that you thought of as yourself which is the sum-total of your conditioning...the burden of that person trying to find some fulfillment, or some answer or some release through the future and never getting there. And, in the meantime, acting out in continuous repeat performances, day after day, acting out the conditioning from the past and hoping that the future can get better. How can it? The future is just going to be a continuation of the past because you are acting it out every moment....It's so simple to get out of it. But nobody seems to know it or very few people. Why is that? It is almost like a conspiracy..." - Eckhart Tolle

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.” ― Anaïs Nin

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover the that decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves. Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearranging themselves. So death isn’t to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphosis of life forms. What can you learn from this?

Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.” ~ Eckhart Tolle from “Stillness Speaks”

“I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it

seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life. I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

“A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.” ― Byron Katie, Loving What Is

“We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.” - Alan Watts

"If in your relationship you experience both love and the opposite of love—attack, emotional violence, and so on—then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love. You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next. True love has no opposite. If your love has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego-need for a more complete and deeper sense of your self, a need that the other person cannot meet for you. It is the ego's substitute for salvation or God." - Eckhart Tolle

"When you feel the need arise to be defensive about anything, you have identified yourself with an illusion." ~ A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman

"Treat Nature well, and Nature will treat you well. Hurt or destroy Nature, and Nature will soon destroy you.....We shall be permitted to live on this planet only for as long as we treat all nature with compassion and intelligence." - Aldous Huxley, Island

“When you walk through a forest that has not been tamed and interfered with by man, you will see not only abundant life around you, but you will also encounter fallen trees and decaying trunks, rotting leaves and decomposing matter at every step. Wherever you look, you will find death as well as life. Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover the that decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves. Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearranging themselves. So death isn’t to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphosis of life forms. What can you learn from this? Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.” ~ Eckhart Tolle from “Stillness Speaks”

“Human beings are often at their best when responding to immediate crises — car accidents, house fires, hurricanes. We are less effective in the face of enormous but slow-moving crises such as the loss of biodiversity or climate change....”

― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

"In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb in which it perches.”

― Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

"O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in it!" ~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest

"We are at the moment looking at space as something to be entered by the tremendous thrust of a rocket because that is the attitude of attacking the unknown. And that causes us not to realize that we are already on the most magnificently equipped spaceship, which could hardly be improved upon. It has got a source of temperature and energy just at the right distance from it. It's beautifully equipped with oxygen, with food supplies, with all kinds of delightful things to do while on the journey.... and it's traveling through space at a colossal speed... and it's called the planet Earth." ~ Alan Watts

# The Earth's orbital speed around the Sun: 108,000 km/h or ~70,000 mph (rate: 30 km/s). The Sun's orbital speed around the Galaxy: 720,000 km/h or 450,000 mph (rate: ~200 km/s).

There is a space in between two trees...take a step. A step away from an anxious mind and into the open field of cosmic consciousness. I'll meet you there.... ~ Wendell Fraser

“Experience teaches only the teachable.” ― Aldous Huxley

"There are vast realms of consciousness still undreamed of

vast ranges of experience, like the humming of unseen harps,

we know nothing of, within us.

Oh when man has escaped from the barbed-wire entanglement

of his own ideas and his own mechanical devices

there is a marvelous rich world of contact and sheer fluid beauty

and fearless face-to-face awareness of now-naked life

and me, and you, and other men and women

and grapes, and ghouls, and ghosts and green moonlight

and ruddy-orange limbs stirring the limbo

of the unknown air, and eyes so soft

softer than the space between the stars,

and all things, and nothing, and being and not-being

alternately palpitant, when at last we escape the barbed-wire enclosure

of Know Thyself, knowing we can never know,

we can but touch, and wonder, and ponder, and make our effort

and dangle in a last fastidious fine delight

as the fuchsia does, dangling her reckless drop

of purple after so much putting forth

and slow mounting marvel of a little tree." - Terra Incognita by D.H. Lawrence

"You are the world and the world is you." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

"Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually--if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning-- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as--Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so--I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I'm that, too. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it." ~ Alan Watts

"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." —Carl Jung

"How fragile we are between the few good moments." ~ Jane Hirshfield

"People say to me: Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics? No I’m not, I’m just looking to find out more about the world. If it turns out there’s a simple ultimate law that explains everything - so be it....that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out its like an onion with millions of layers and we just get sick and tired of looking at the layers - then that's the way it is. But whatever way it comes out its nature is there and she is going to come out the way she is. Therefore when we go to investigate it we shouldn’t pre-decide what it is we’re trying to do except try to find out more about it." ― Richard P. Feynman

"Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look out at the stars. This practice should answer the question..... The master settles her mind as the universe settles the stars in the sky. By connecting her mind with the subtle origin, she calms it. Once calmed, it naturally expands, and ultimately her mind becomes as vast and immeasurable as the night sky." ~Lao Tzu

"Where-so-ever beings exist throughout all galaxies, it doesn't make any difference - you are all of them....and when they come into being, that's you coming into being." ~ Alan Watts

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."

~ Maya Angelou

A poem by Shenxiu, the Zen monk:

Body is the bodhi tree

Heart is like clear mirror stand

Strive to clean it constantly

Do not let the dust motes land

"The mirror in the poem can represent egoism— an exaggerated sense of conceit and vanity. Although it does not exist as a physical thing, we treat it as such. Our language is full of references to this assumption. We talk about the “bruised” ego, or how the pride is “hurt,” or how one’s dignity can be “wounded”— as if egoism were part of the body, like a limb or an organ. And yet egoism is nothing more than a construction of the mind. It springs from the false perception that we are separate and different from others. That sense of separation and difference leads us to skewed comparisons, which in turn lead us to a false conviction of superiority. When this elaborate illusion is under attack, the illusory injuries seem quite real. But as soon as we see through the illusion, it fades away, and so do the damages against it."

- The Tao of Daily Life: The Mysteries of the Orient Revealed The Joys of Inner Harmony Found The Path to Enlightenment Illuminated by Derek Lin

"Love is the opposite of judgement and love really does conquer all."

~ A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman

"Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence?" -Sai Baba

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open...."

― Martha Graham

"There are some people who could hear you speak a thousand words, and still not understand you. And there are others who will understand without you even speaking a word." - Yasmin Mogahed

"Joy is not in things; it is in us." ~Richard Wagner

"This human being is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture still treat each guest honorable. He may be clearing out for you some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whomever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond." - Rumi

"Negativity is not intelligent. It is always of the ego. The ego may be clever, but it is not intelligent. Cleverness pursues its own little aims. Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected. Cleverness is motivated by self-interest, and it is extremely short-sighted. Most politicians and businesspeople are clever. Very few are intelligent. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short-lived and always turns out to be eventually self-defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence includes." ~ from the book "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle

"Everything changes, nothing perishes." - Ovid

"Our personal consciousness is also the consciousness of the universe itself, so that we are the universe." - The Fall: The Insanity of the Ego in Human History and the Dawning of A New Era by Steve Taylor

"Love does not claim possession but gives freedom." ~ Rabindranath Tagore

“What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife... Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment...”

― Nikola Tesla

"Everything is on its way to somewhere...everything." - Phenomenon movie

"I am certain that I am more than the fat of my most recent meals and some of which will become my hair only to be cut off twice a month. I lost 70 pounds of organic chemistry, which obviously wasn't me, nor any of the present associated atoms "me". We have been making a great error in identifying me and you as these truly transient and ergo sensorily detectable chemistries....Whatever life is it doesn't weigh anything. Life is metaphysical, weightless and limitless. Each life is an eternally individual unique pattern of integrity."

- R. Buckminster Fuller

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

"In 'whichever direction' you may turn your gaze you will find One Eternal Indivisible Being manifested. Yet, it is not at all easy to detect this Presence, because He interpenetrates everything...."

~ Anandamayi Ma

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud." ~ Maya Angelou

"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus

lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the ‘merely

personal,’ from an existence dominated by wishes, hopes, and primitive

feelings. Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists

independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great,

eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking.

The contemplation of this world beckoned as a liberation, and I soon

noticed that many a man whom I had learned to esteem and to admire had

found inner freedom and security in its pursuit." - Einstein

"We are made from Mother Earth and we go back to Mother Earth." - American Indian Proverb

"Realize yourself as that which is deeper than any form...stillness, peace, space. Not that which happens, but the space in which it happens - that's who you are. And so, when you look at night into space, the vastness of outer space...vast, infinite, infinite depth - that's the external version of who you are....the incredible space that is within you. So you are the bridge between the object world and the formless, unconditioned, the one. And you move through this world interacting with form still...and you are rooted in the formless. And the world is the play of forms around you...and nothing in the world of form matters that much anymore." - Eckhart Tolle, Through the Open Door

"What fraction of the twinkling lights you see at night have Earths?"

- Geoff Marcy

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

"May the stars carry your sadness away,

May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,

May hope forever wipe away your tears,

And, above all, may silence make you strong.”

- Chief Dan George

“Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.”

― Oliver Sacks

“The reason why the Universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms.” ~ Lao Tzu

“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.” ~ Bill Hicks (comedian)

"Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make." - Eckhart Tolle

"Inquire: 'Who am I?' and you will find the answer. Look at a tree: from one seed arises a huge tree; from it comes numerous seeds, each one of which in its turn grows into a tree. No two fruits are alike. Yet it is one life that throbs in every particle of the tree. So, it is the same Atman everywhere. All creation is that. There is beauty in the birds and in the animals. They too eat and drink like us, mate and multiply; but there is this difference: we can realize our true nature, the Atman. Having been born as human beings, we must not waste this opportunity. At least for a few seconds every day, we must inquire as to who we are. It is no use taking a return ticket over and over again. From birth to death, and death to birth is samsara. But really we have no birth and death. We must realize that."

~ Sri Anandamayi Ma

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

"What If Money Was No Object? What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?

Let’s suppose, I do this often in vocational guidance of students, they come to me and say, well, "we’re getting out of college and we have the faintest idea what we want to do". So I always ask the question, "what would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?"

Well, it’s so amazing as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way. Or another person says well, I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses. I said you want to teach in a riding school? Let’s go through with it. What do you want to do?

When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually turn it – you could eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much."- Alan Watts

"What people love about life is its miraculous beauty; what they hate about death is the loss and decay around it. Yet losing is not losing, and decay turns into beauty, as beauty turns back into decay. We are breathed in, breathed out. Therefore all you need is to understand the one breath that makes up the world."

- Stephen Mitchell, The Second Book of the Tao

"Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit - to the "conquest" of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature." (Alan Watts)

"You the woman, I the man, this the world, and each is the work of all. It is the muffled step in the sand, the stranger, the crippled wren...the nun, the dance of the angels, winging over the walkers in the village. And there are many beautiful arms around us and the things we know..." ~ From the movie "MindWalk"

"Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." - Bill Hicks

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”

- Vincent van Gogh

"Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. - Buddha

"I am Pure Consciousness, Arjuna, the underlying essence of all elements and beings. Nothing whatsoever exists separate from my divinity. There is no power in the cosmos that does not emanate from me and belong to me. The entire universe is suspended from me as if I were the string in a necklace of jewels. The gems may differ vastly, but the force holding them all together, the central thread, is me, divinity.

"I am the innate nature of everything. In pure water I am the sweet taste. In the sun and moon I am the radiance. In the very center of human beings I live as virility and courage. I am the sacred word Om, which designates the divine, and I am the sound of it heard throughout the universe.

"I am the slight, delicate scent, the sweet fragrance of the earth.

I am the brilliance in both fire and sun. I am the light of Divinity in all beings. I am the subtle spirit in spiritual practices that gives them their existence — I am the love in the devotee, for example, or the austerity in the ascetic, or the sweet sense of charity in the giver.

"I am the primordial seed of all entities, the power of discrimination (buddhi) in those who are intelligent, the splendor within all resplendent beings and things."

- The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners by Jack Hawley

"When you look out of your eyes at nature happening out there...You're looking at you.." - Alan Watts

“Time is a game played beautifully by children.”

― Heraclitus, Fragments

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves." - Buddha

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."

- Confucius

"Today's physicists are simply proving that what we call an object...an atom, a molecule, a particle is only an approximation, a metaphor. At the subatomic level it dissolves into a series of interconnections like chords of music.....It's beautiful. We are in middle of this cosmic battle of creation and destruction. All of us, all the time." ~ From the movie "MindWalk"

"You are the light of the world." - Jesus

“You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint the paradise, then in you go.”

― Nikos Kazantzakis

"The moon is one, but on agitated water it produces many reflections. Similarly ultimate reality is one, yet it appears to be many in a mind agitated by thoughts." ~Maharamayana

"Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them." - Dalai Lama

"Those who lose dreaming are lost." ~ ABORIGINAL PROVERB

"You are not your thoughts because you think them....and you can't be your feelings because otherwise who is the you that feels them?....There has to be something underneath all that."

-Caroline McHugh

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein

“You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.” - Eckhart Tolle

"The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty." - Albert Einstein from the book, The World As I See It.

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." - Dalai Lama

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." - W.B. Yeats

"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Stephen Wright (comedian)

“Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.” ― H.G. Wells

“When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other

person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change”

― Thich Nhat Hanh

“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”

― H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

"We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home. "

~ ABORIGINAL PROVERB

"There is no death, only a change of worlds." - American Indian Proverb

“Nothing is so dangerous to the progress of the human mind than to assume that our views of science are ultimate, that there are no mysteries in nature, that our triumphs are complete and that there are no new worlds to conquer.”

― Humphry Davy

"There is a powerful recognition that stirs within us when we see our little blue ocean planet in the skies of other worlds. In an instant we can see how small, fragile, and alone we all really are."

- Carolyn Porco

“All our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions”

― Leonardo da Vinci

"...And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am very happy with it.”

― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

- Albert Einstein

"To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." ~Zhuangzi

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Who are the actors? ...It's Hydrogen and Helium. What is the name of the play? ...Falling. Where is the theatre? ...In space. When should you go? ...In time."

~ John Dobson on the nature of the Universe

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." ~ Bertrand Russell

"I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides. I honor the place in you, where lies your love, your light, your truth and your beauty. I honor the place in you, where...if you are in that place in you... and I am in that place in me...then there is only one of us." Leo Buscaglia - from his book "Love," describing 'Namaste'

"We've begun at last to wonder about our origins, star stuff contemplating the stars, organized collections of ten billion billion billion atoms contemplating the evolution of matter, tracing that long path by which it arrived at consciousness here on the planet Earth and perhaps throughout the cosmos. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."

- Carl Sagan

"Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them."

- Jules Verne

“When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe.”

― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

- Elizabeth Kubler Ross

"We see with the eyes. But we see with the brain as well. And seeing with the brain is often called imagination." - Oliver Sacks

"The power of the mind is your power. Use it. Don't let it use you." ~Terri Guillemets

“We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.”

― H.G. Wells

“‎Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever increasing population. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.”

- David Attenborough

“Nothing is evil which is according to nature.”

― Marcus Aurelius

"Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil."

― Marcus Aurelius

“Our life is made by the death of others.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

"Habitats are temporary, there are no permanent habitats in this Universe." - John Dobson

"A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only

that degree of certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became

general, cure most of the ills from which this world is suffering."

- Bertrand Russell

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

― Rachel Carson

“My days I devote to reading and experiments in chemistry, and I spend many of the clear nights in the study of astronomy. There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope.” ― H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean

But I shall be good health to you nonetheless

And filter and fibre your blood.”

― Walt Whitman

“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of

art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to

see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

"Beauty is in the heart of the beholder."

― H.G. Wells

"The universe is like a television show...we all came in the middle (of it)

and no one is staying for the end." - John Dobson

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul”

― Martha Graham

"Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed." - Indra Devi

"One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike—and yet it is the most precious thing we have."

- Albert Einstein

"We live in an in-between universe where things change all right...but according to patterns, rules, or as we call them, laws of nature."

- Carl Sagan

"He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe."

― Marcus Aurelius

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough;

we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

"Human history in essence is the history of ideas."

― H.G. Wells

"The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it ...but the way those atoms are put together. The cosmos is also within us, we're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

- Carl Sagan

"In an apparitional Universe, seen in time and space, there are only three drives to catch hold of -- the drive for the changeless which we see in matter as inertia, and in ourselves as our yearning for peace and security; the drive for the infinite which we see in matter as electricity, and in ourselves as our yearning for freedom; and the drive for the undivided which we see in matter as gravity, and in ourselves as our yearning for love and bliss. There are no other drives for the genes to catch hold of; so they have caught hold of these three and persuade us to run after them in ways that get their genetic necessities fulfilled, in ways that fulfill their prime directives. But the fulfillment of a genetic necessity does not confer on the organism the fulfillment of the yearning that drives it."

- John Dobson, more on this in his book - "Beyond space and time"

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

"The universe is a lot bigger than the Earth, it is a lot bigger than the

Solar System, and is a lot bigger than our Galaxy and we owe it to

ourselves to notice it." - John Dobson

"We are all connected...to each other, biologically...to the earth, chemically

..to the rest of the universe atomically."

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when

they are shown. Those who do not see.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

"Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts."

― Marcus Aurelius

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from

distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to

shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their

conduct, will pursue their principles unto death”

― Leonardo da Vinci

“Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”

― Albert Einstein (about the science behind the Universe)

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment

rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

"It is a great tragedy that science, this wonderful process for finding out

what is true, has ceded the spiritual uplift of its central revelations: the

vastness of the universe, the immensity of time, the relatedness of all life,

and life’s preciousness on our tiny planet."

—Ann Druyan

"It's alive, the whole universe is alive." - John Dobson

“Long ago, when an early galaxy began to pour light out into the surrounding darkness, no witness could have known that billions of years later some remote clumps of rock and metal, ice and organic molecules would fall together to make a place called Earth; or that life would arise and thinking beings evolve who would one day capture a little of that galactic light, and try to puzzle out what had sent it on its way. And after the earth dies, some 5 billion years from now, after it's burned to a crisp, or even swallowed by the Sun, there will be other worlds and stars and galaxies coming into being -- and they will know nothing of a place once called Earth.”

― Carl Sagan

“My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.”

― Oliver Sacks

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."

― Marcus Aurelius

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"There are as many atoms in one molecule of DNA as there are stars in a typical galaxy.”

― Carl Sagan

“Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle,

should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind,

to see with another person’s eyes.”

― Oliver Sacks

"There has never been a time when I, or you, or any of these kings and soldiers here did not exist - and there will never be a time when we cease to exist. Physical bodies appear and disappear, but not the Atma (the soul, the life force) that lives within them.

"This life force comes and dwells in a body for a while. While therein, it experiences infancy, childhood, youth, and old age, and then, upon death, passes eventually to a new body. Changes such as death pertain to the body, not the Atma. The wise person does not get caught up in the delusion that he or she is this body, Arjuna. This delusion is the very definition of ego.

"Arjuna, the contact of bodily senses with objects and attractions in the world creates feelings like sorrow or happiness, and sensations like heat or cold. But these are impermanent, transitory, coming and going like passing clouds. Just endure them patiently and bravely; learn to be unaffected by them.

"The serene person, unaffected by these worldly feelings and sensations, is the same in pain and pleasure, and does not allow him - or herself to get disturbed or sidetracked. This is the person fit for immortality. Realize this and assert your strength, Arjuna. Do not identify your True Self merely with your mortal body.

"Real, as used in spirituality, means that which is eternal, never changing, indestructible. This is the very definition of 'Reality'. That which is Real never ceases to be. Anything that is impermanent, even if it lasts a very long time and seems durable, eventually changes and thus does not have true Reality. The wise ones understand the difference between the Real and the not-Real. When you fully understand this profound fact, you will have attained the zenith of all knowledge.

"One's body, according to this logic, is not Real. And yet, there is something that dwells within the body that is Real : the Atma - which is existence itself; awareness, pure consciousness. "Get to know this Reality. It pervades the entire cosmos and is unchanging and indestructible. No power can affect it. No one can change the changeless.

"This Atma, Arjuna, is like space or sky. Clouds appear in the sky but their presence does not cause the sky to grow apart to make room for them. In the same manner, the Atma (the True Self Within) remains ever itself. Things of the material universe come and go, appear and disappear, but the Atma never changes.

"Only the body is mortal. Only the body will come to an end. But, the Atma, which is the True Self Within, is immortal, and will never come to an end."

~ the Bhagavad Gita (A Walkthrough for Westerners) by Jack Hawley

"The moment is timeless."

— Leonardo da Vinci

"Once you have come to the conclusion that what you know already is

all you need to know, then you have a degree in disinterest." - John Dobson

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the

first of that which comes; so with present time.”

― Leonardo da Vinci

“The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the

fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true

science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel

amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle." - Einstein

"Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas." - Susan Sontag

"Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached the

conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The

consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of freethinking coupled with the

impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through

lies; it was a crushing impression. Mistrust of every kind of authority

grew out of this experience, a skeptical attitude toward the convictions

that were alive in any specific social environment-an attitude that has

never again left me, even though, later on, it has been tempered by a

better insight into the causal connections." - Einstein

"There is no way back into the past; the choice, as Wells once said, is the universe—or nothing...The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close."

— Arthur C. Clarke, Interplanetary Flight

"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself." - Einstein

“I never yet heard of a useless thing that was not ground out of

existence by evolution sooner or later. Did you?"

- H.G Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and

then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst

the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

- Isaac Newton

"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."

- Albert Einstein

"Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy

at some period when they have time. But the present time has one

advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone,

future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay

in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall

find that both are soured by age."

- Charles Caleb Colton

"The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life."

- Euripides

"My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were

my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free."

- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose--

a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye."

- Mary Shelley

“Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.”

― Carl Sagan

“The Cosmos extends, for all practical purposes, forever. After a brief sedentary hiatus, we are resuming our ancient nomadic way of life. Our remote descendants, safely arrayed on many worlds throughout the Solar System and beyond, will be unified by their common heritage, by their regard for their home planet, and by the knowledge that, whatever other life may be, the only humans in all the Universe come from Earth. They will gaze up and strain to find the blue dot in their skies. They will love it no less for its obscurity and fragility. They will marvel at how vulnerable the repository of all our potential once was, how perilous our infancy, how humble our beginnings, how many rivers we had to cross before we found our way.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric pollution and modern forms of nocturnal entertainment we watched the stars. There were practical calendar reasons of course but there was more to it than that. Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

*** Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot ***

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot."

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves."

"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."

"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

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