Gerstein

"Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom,
And it will be a hundred times better for everyone.

Give up kindness, renounce morality,
And men will rediscover filial piety and love.

Give up ingenuity, renounce profit,
And bandits and thieves will disappear.

These three are outward forms alone; they are not sufficient in themselves.
It is more important
To see the simplicity,
To realize one's true nature
To cast off selfishness
And temper desire."

- Lao Tsu

"One must not hurry."

- Auguste Rodin

"...to grasp everything that we may encounter according to its particular intensity without worrying much about how long it will last. Ultimately, this may be the best and most direct way of expecting the utmost of everything - even its duration. If we allow an encounter with a given thing to be shaped by this expectation that it may last, every such experience will be spoiled and falsified, and ultimately it will be prevented from unfolding its most proper and authentic potential and fertility. All the things that cannot be gained through our pleading can be given to us only as something unexpected, something extra: this is why I am yet again confirmed in my belief that often nothing seems to matter in life but the longest patience."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

"I ask nobody to follow me. Everyone should follow their own inner voice."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"A man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see."

- Black Elk

"There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists."

- E.H. Gombrich

"Ultimately, you must forget about technique. The further you progress, the fewer teachings there are. The Great Path is really No Path."

- Morihei Ueshiba

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer lives are based on the labors of others, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."

- Albert Einstein

"Be loose: remember this word as deeply as possible. Let it penetrate you: Be loose - so that in every situation you can flow, easily, water-like; remain loose like water. So don't create a pattern - but the whole of society tries to create a pattern, and all the religions try to create a pattern. Only a very few persons have been courageous enough to say the truth, and the truth is: Be loose and natural! If you are loose you will be natural, of course."

- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

"Your life has a limit but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger. If you understand this and still strive for knowledge, you will be in danger for certain! If you do good, stay away from fame. If you do evil, stay away from punishments. Follow the middle; go by what is constant, and you can stay in one piece, keep yourself alive, look after your parents, and live out your years."

- Chuang Tzu

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

- Oscar Wilde

"When discipline begins to be natural, a part of you, it is very important to learn to let go. For the warrior, letting go is connected with relaxing within discipline, in order to experience freedom. Freedom here does not mean being wild or sloppy; rather it is letting yourself go so that you fully experience your existence as a human being. Letting go is completely conquering the idea that discipline is a punishment for a mistake or a bad deed that you have committed, or might like to commit. You have to completely conquer the feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with your human nature and that therefore you need discipline to correct your behavior. As long as you feel that discipline comes from outside, there is still a lingering feeling that something is lacking in you. So letting go is connected with letting go of any vestiges of doubt or hesitation or embarrassment about being you as you are. You have to relax with yourself in order to fully realize that discipline is simply the expression of your basic goodness. You have to appreciate yourself, respect yourself, and let go of your doubt and embarrassment so that you can proclaim your goodness and basic sanity for the benefit of others."

- Chogyam Trungpa

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, andbecause there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is; nor how valuable it is; 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 directly open to and aware of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction at any time. There is only a queer, divine satisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than others."

- Martha Graham

"It never happens the same way twice. Generally, it happens when we least expect it. And it’s usually when we’ve surrendered our so-called knowledge, our convictions, and abandoned all hope that we enter a state where we’re able to receive it. Revelation is always present. It’s always here. We’re the ones who don’t let it in. Knowledge is always present. Enlightenment is always present, floating above everything, ready to be received. It’s only because we’re so completely blinded by everything we think we know and want to do that we can’t receive it. But at the moment we surrender, for whatever reason, it makes us a bit passive and open, and that’s when we receive it." [ Listen ]

- Mirra Alfassa, The Mother

"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie."

- Hokusai

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

- Darwin

"In every age there is a turning-point, a new way of seeing and asserting the coherence of the world."

- J. Bronowski

"You always have to get through the first obstacle that says, 'I can't do it,' whether in your mind or for real, and be able to adapt to anything that's put in your path. It's a method for learning how to move in the world. For finding the liberty men used to have."

- David Belle

"One should be prepared to receive ninety-nine percent of an enemy's attack and stare death right in the face in order to illumine the Path."

- Morihei Ueshiba

"Nothing human disgusts me except deliberate cruelty."

- Tennessee Williams

"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. A man must constantly exceed his level."

- Bruce Lee

"To believe your own thought, to believe what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgement."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Look what is happening in the world - we are being conditioned by society, by the culture in which we live, and that culture is the product of man - there is nothing holy, or divine, or eternal about culture. Culture, society, books, radios, all that we listen to and see, the many influences of which we are either conscious or unconscious, all these encourage us to live within a very small fragment of the vast field of the mind. Unless we bring about a radical change in this fragmentation there can be no revolution at all; there will be modifications, economic, social and so-called cultural but man will go on suffering. Then when you see, you must question yourself, and that is why it is very important to understand how you See - how the total mind can act. There is no method. Any method, system, repetition or habit, is essentially only part of the corner of the field. Please do realize this, because when you realize it, you are free of the enormous weight of all authority, and so free of the past."

- J. Krishnamurti