Saturday, January 31, 2015
Friday, January 30, 2015
Every spirit makes his own house by Elbert Hubbard
Every spirit makes his own house, but as afterwards the house confines its spirit, you had better build well.
Elbert Hubbard
The perfect picture on the earth by Robert Ingersoll
There is no more perfect picture on the earth, or within the imagination of man, than a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms a child, the fruit of love.
Robert Ingersoll
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Compassion & Kindness
Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve
Listen with ears of tolerance!
Kindness has converted more sinners,than zeal,
the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food.
JOSEPH BUTLER
See through the eyes of compassion!
Speak with the language of love!
Rumi
eloquence or learning.
Frederick William Faber
The Truths of our life never leave us by William Makepeace Thackeray
Parting and forgetting! What faithful heart can do these? Our great thoughts, our great affections, the Truths of our life, never leave us. Surely, they cannot separate from our consciousness; shall follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of their nature divine and immortal.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Inspirational Quotes on Heart by Jean Paul Richter
Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly falling dew,
Ah! what seeds for a paradise I bore in my heart,
A loving heart encloses within itself an unfading and eternal Eden.
but shut up in the violent downpour of rain.
of which birds of prey have robbed me.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Friday, January 23, 2015
Nothing is attained without effort by Rumi
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The Ocean of Purity said to me:
"Nothing is attained without effort.
To get the precious pearl
you must first smash the shell".
Rumi
The good Book by Jean de La Bruyère
When a book raises your spirit,and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts,seek for no other test of its excellence.It is good,and made by a good workman.
Jean de La Bruyère
Moral Quote by Jean de La Bruyere
How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands! How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions!
Jean de La Bruyere
Thursday, January 22, 2015
La razón y la pasión de Khalil Gibrán
La razón y la pasión
Vuestra alma es, a veces, un campo de batalla sobre
Desearía poder ser el pacificador de vuestra alma y cambiar
la discordia y la rivalidad de vuestros elementos en unidad
y armonía. Pero,¿Cómo hacerlo si vosotros mismos no sois
los pacificadores y los amigos de todos vuestros elementos?
Vuestra razón y vuestra pasión son el timón
Por lo tanto, haced que vuestras alma exalte a vuestra razón
a la altura de la pasión, para que sea capaz de cantar.
Y dirigir vuestra pasión con el razonamiento, para que pueda
vivir a través de su diaria resurrección, y como el ave fénix,
elevarse de sus propias cenizas.
No honraríais, con seguridad, a uno más que al otro, porque
quien es más atento con uno de ellos pierde el amor y la fe de ambos.
Entre las colinas, cuando os sentéis a la sombra fresca
de los álamos, compartiendo la paz y la serenidad de los
campos y praderas distantes, dejad que vuestro corazón
diga en silencio: Dios descansa en la razón.
Y ya que sois un soplo en la esfera de Dios y una hoja
en el bosque de Dios, deberiais descansar en la razón
y moveros en la pasión.
Extracto de "El Profeta"
de Khalil Gibrán
el que vuestra razón y vuestro juicio combaten contra
vuestra pasión y vuestro apetito.
y las velas de
vuestra alma viajera.
Si vuestras velas o vuestro timón se rompieran, no podríais
más que agitaros e ir a la deriva o permanecer inmóviles
en medio del mar. Porque la razón, gobernando sola, es una
fuerza limitadora,y la pasión, desgobernada, es una llama
que se quema hasta su propia destrucción.
Desearía que consideraseis vuestro propio juicio y vuestro
apetito como dos huéspedes queridos.
Y cuando llegue la tormenta y el viento poderoso sacuda
el bosque y los truenos y relámpagos proclamen la majestad
del cielo, dejad a vuestro corazón decir sobrecogido:
Dios se mueve en la pasión.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Humanist Reflections On love,Goodness & Humanity by Fyodor Dostoevsky(Excerpts from The Brothers Karamazov)
Omar Akram - Secret Journey
Excerpts from the novel"The Brothers Karamazov"
Brothers,have no fear of men's sin.Love a man even in his sin,
for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest
love on earth.Love all God's creation,the whole of it and
every grain of sand in it.Love every leaf,every ray of God's light.
Love the animals,love the plants,love everything.
If you love everything,you will perceive the divine
mystery in things.Once you have perceived it,you
will begin to comprehend it better every day,and
you will come at last to love the world with
an all-embracing love.
Love children especially, for like the angels they too are
sinless, and they live to soften and purify our hearts,and,
as it were, to guide us.Woe to him who offends a child.
Everything is like an ocean,I tell you.
Then you would pray to the birds, too, consumed by a universal
love, as though in ecstasy,and ask that they,too,should
forgive your sin.Treasure this ecstasy,however absurd
people may think it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought
and untroubled joy.So do not trouble it,do not harass them,
do not deprive them of their joy,do not go against God's intent.
Man, do not exhale yourself above the animals: they are without
sin, while you in your majesty defile the earth by your
appearance on it, and you leave the traces of your defilement
behind you — alas, this is true of almost every one of us!
My young brother asked even the birds to forgive him.
It may sound absurd, but it is right none the less, for
everything, like the ocean, flows and enters into contact
with everything else: touch one place, and you set up
a movement at the other end of the world. It may be
senseless to beg forgiveness of the birds, but, then,
it would be easier for the birds, and for the child,
and for every animal if you were yourself more pleasant
than you are now.
I know that heart, it is a wild but noble heart . . .
It will bow down before your deed, it thirsts for a great
act of love, it will catch fire and resurrect forever.
There are souls that in their narrowness blame the whole world.
But overwhelm such a soul with mercy, give it love,and
it will curse what it has done,for there are so many germs
of good in it.
The soul will expand and behold how merciful
God is, and how beautiful and just people are.
He will be horrified, he will be overwhelmed with repentance
and the countless debt he must henceforth repay.
And then he will not say,'I am quits' but will say,
'I am guilty before all people and am the least worthy of all people.
Fyodor Dostoevsky,The Brothers Karamazov
My friends,ask gladness from God.Be glad as children,
as birds in the sky. And let man's sin not disturb you
in your efforts,do not fear that it will dampen your
endeavor and keep it from being fulfilled, do not say,
'Sin is strong, impiety is strong, the bad environment
is strong, and we are lonely and powerless,the bad
environment will dampen us and keep our good endeavor
from being fulfilled.Flee from such despondency.
We don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep.
Fyodor Dostoevsky,The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Hohe Lieder(Gitanjali) Von Rabindranath Tagore
Ein Auszug aus dem Werk Gitanjali.
Laß dies Stimmen und Singen
Öffne die Augen und sieh,
Er ist dort, wo der Pflüger
Befreiung? Wo ist die Befreiung zu finden?
Komm heraus aus deiner Betrachtung,
(Hohe Lieder)
Rabindranath Tagore
Deutsche Nachdichtung von Marie Luise Gothein
und Sagen des Rosenkranzes!
Wen betest du an
in diesem einsamen,
dunklen Winkel des Tempels,
in dem verschlossenen Tor?
dein Gott ist nicht vor dir.
den harten Grund pflügt,
wo der Steinklopfer Steine bricht.
Er ist mit ihnen
in Sonne und Regen
und wo sein Kleid bedeckt ist mit Staub.
Leg ab deinen heiligen Mantel
und komme herab mit ihm
auf den staubigen Boden.
Unser Meister hat freudig
die Bande der Schöpfung auf sich genommen;
er ist mit uns für immer gebunden.
laß Blumen und Weihrauch beiseite!
Was schadet es, wenn deine Kleider zerreißen
und fleckig werden.
Geh ihm entgegen,
stehe bei ihm in der Arbeit,
dem Schweiß deiner Stirne.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Little-minded people's thoughts by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
Reflections on Love
For small creatures such as we,
The giving of love is an education in itself.
When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different
Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones,
The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: 1) To return love for hate; 2) To include the excluded; and 3) To say 'I was wrong.'
the vastness is bearable only through love.
Carl Sagan
more than they deserve.
Joseph Joubert
Eleanor Roosevelt
from what we
were before.
Blaise Pascal
as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.
François de La Rochefoucauld
Ernst Heinrich Haeckel
Tears by Wilkie Collins
Your tears come easy, when you're young, and beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you're old, and leaving it. I burst out crying.
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Moral Certainty by Felix Adler
We seek to become morally certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend them.
Felix Adler
Compassion by Simone Weil
Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.
Simone Weil
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Quotes On Humor
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.
A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance
to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
Humour brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.
Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh is a humorist.
Thomas Carlyle
Richard Feynman
William Arthur Ward
Agnes Repplier
George Burns
On life by Fernando Pessoa
There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.
Fernando Pessoa
Monday, January 12, 2015
Intellectual hospitality & Freedom of thought by Robert Ingersoll
Tom Barabas - After the Rain
Every man should be Mentally honest.
He should examine all questions presented to his mind, without prejudice, -- unbiased by hatred or love -- by desire or fear. His object and his only object should be to find the truth. He knows, if he listens to reason, that truth is not dangerous and that error is. He should weigh the evidence, the arguments, in honest scales -- scales that passion or interest cannot change. He should care nothing for authority -- nothing for names, customs or creeds -- nothing for anything that his reason does not say is true.
He should be Intellectually Hospitable.
The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf -- a philosopher or servant, -- but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.
The wise, the really honest and intelligent, are not swayed or governed by numbers -- by majorities.
They accept what they really believe to be true. They care nothing for the opinions of ancestors, nothing for creeds, assertions and theories, unless they satisfy the reason.
In all directions they seek for truth, and when found, accept it with joy -- accept it in spite of preconceived opinions -- in spite of prejudice and hatred.
This is the course pursued by wise and honest men, and no other course is possible for them.
The chemist, with crucible and retort, with countless experiments, is trying to find the qualities of substances -- to ravel what nature has woven.
The great mechanics dwell in the realm of the real. They seek by natural means to conquer and use the forces of nature. They want the truth -- the actual facts.
The physicians, the surgeons, rely on observation, experiment and reason. They become acquainted with the human body -- with muscle, blood and nerve -- with the wonders of the brain. They want nothing but the truth.
Their courage should equal their intelligence. No matter what the dead have said, or the living believe, they should tell what they know. They should have intellectual courage.
If it be good for man to find the truth -- good for him to be intellectually honest and hospitable, then it is good for others to know the truths thus found.
Every man should have the courage to give his honest thought. This makes the finder and publisher of truth a public benefactor.
Those who prevent, or try to prevent, the expression of honest thought, are the foes of civilization -- the enemies of truth. Nothing can exceed the egotism and impudence of the man who claims the right to express his thought and denies the same right to others.
Who knows that they are sacred? Can anything be sacred to us that we do not know to be true?
For many centuries free speech has been an insult to God. Nothing has been more blasphemous than the expression of honest thought. For many ages the lips of the wise were sealed. The torches that truth had lighted, that courage carried and held aloft, were extinguished with blood.
It does not ask man to cringe or crawl. It does not desire the worship of the ignorant or the prayers and praises of the frightened. It says to every human being, "Think for yourself. Enjoy the freedom of a god, and have the goodness and the courage to express your honest thought.
He should preserve as his most precious jewel the perfect
veracity of his soul.
Of his world he should be the sovereign, and his soul should wear the purple. From his dominions should be banished the hosts of force and fear.
Nothing but falsehood needs the assistance of fame and place, of robes and maitres, of tiaras and crowns.
In every department of human endeavor men are seeking for the truth -- for the facts. The statesman reads the history of the world, gathers the statistics of all nations to the end that his country may avoid the mistakes of the past. The geologist penetrates the rocks in search of facts -- climbs mountains, visits the extinct craters, traverses islands and continents that he may know something of the history of the world. He wants the truth.
And so it is with the students of every science. On every hand they look for facts, and it is of the utmost importance that they give to the world the facts they find.
It will not do to say that certain ideas are sacred, and that man has not the right to investigate and test these ideas for himself.
Truth has always been in favor of free speech -- has always asked to be investigated -- has always longed to be known and understood. Freedom, discussion, honesty, investigation and courage are the friends and allies of truth. Truth loves the light and the open field. It appeals to the senses -- to the judgment, the reason, to all the higher and nobler faculties and powers of the mind. It seeks to calm the passions, to destroy prejudice and to increase the volume and intensity of reason's flame.
Friday, January 9, 2015
Quotes from John Milton's Paradise Lost
The mind is its own place, and in itself
…who overcomes
Do they only stand
All who have their reward on Earth,the fruits
What in me is dark
Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds
of deadly hate have pierced so deep.
By ignorance, is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?
O fair foundation laid whereon to build
Their ruin!
Knowledge forbidden?
Suspicious,reasonless.Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know?
Can it be death?”
Of painful superstition and blind zeal,
Naught seeking but the praise of men, here find
Fit retribution,empty as their deeds.
Be strong,live happy and love,but first of all
Him whom to love is to obey,and keep
His great command!
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Nothing in this world is hidden forever by Wilkie Collins
Nothing in this world is hidden forever.The gold which has lain for centuries unsuspected in the ground, reveals itself one day on the surface. Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.
Wilkie Collins,No Nam
Sensibility by Thomas Moore
Lisa Holloway Photography
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
Thomas moore
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Quotes on Good and Evil in Man
Max rive Photography
Everybody,my friend, everybody lives for something better to come.That's why we want to be considerate of every man-Who knows what's in him,why he was born and what he can do?
The best men are not consistent in good-- why should the worst men be consistent in evil.
You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Maxim Gorky
Wilkie Collins
For those who limp go not backwards.
But you who are strong and swift,see that you do not limp before the lame,deeming it kindness.
Khalil Gibran
Insightful Happiness Quotes
Svetlana Kvashina photography
Before we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine how happy are those who already possess it.
The myriad things are complete in us.There is no greater joy than to reflect on ourselves and become sincere.
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Mencius
WASHINGTON IRVING
Monday, January 5, 2015
Humanism Quote by Arthur Conan Doyle
I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence.Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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