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
the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food.
JOSEPH BUTLER

Listen with ears of tolerance!
See through the eyes of compassion!
Speak with the language of love!
Rumi

Kindness has converted more sinners,than zeal,
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

Friday, January 23, 2015

Nothing is attained without effort by Rumi


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
Extracto de "El Profeta"
de Khalil Gibrán

Vuestra alma es, a veces, un campo de batalla sobre
el que vuestra razón y vuestro juicio combaten contra
vuestra pasión y vuestro apetito.

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
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.

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.


Desearía que consideraseis vuestro propio juicio y vuestro apetito como dos huéspedes queridos.

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 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.

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.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Humanist Reflections On love,Goodness & Humanity by Fyodor Dostoevsky(Excerpts from The Brothers Karamazov)

Music:
Omar Akram - Secret Journey



Excerpts from the novel"The Brothers Karamazov"
Fyodor Dostoevsky

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 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!

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.


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.

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.



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.
Fyodor Dostoevsky,The Brothers Karamazov

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 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Hohe Lieder(Gitanjali) Von Rabindranath Tagore


Ein Auszug aus dem Werk Gitanjali.
(Hohe Lieder)
Rabindranath Tagore
Deutsche Nachdichtung von Marie Luise Gothein

Laß dies Stimmen und Singen
und Sagen des Rosenkranzes!
Wen betest du an
in diesem einsamen,
dunklen Winkel des Tempels,
in dem verschlossenen Tor?

Öffne die Augen und sieh,
dein Gott ist nicht vor dir.

Er ist dort, wo der Pflüger
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.

Befreiung? Wo ist die Befreiung zu finden?
Unser Meister hat freudig
die Bande der Schöpfung auf sich genommen;
er ist mit uns für immer gebunden.

Komm heraus aus deiner Betrachtung,
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.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Reflections on Love


For small creatures such as we,
the vastness is bearable only through love.
Carl Sagan

A part of kindness consists in loving people
more than they deserve.
Joseph Joubert

The giving of love is an education in itself.
Eleanor Roosevelt

When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different
from what we were before.
Blaise Pascal

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones,
as the wind blows out the candle and fans the bonfire.
François de La Rochefoucauld

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.'
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.
Thomas Carlyle

The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.
Richard Feynman

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
William Arthur Ward

Humour brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.
Agnes Repplier

Someone who makes you laugh is a comedian. Someone who makes you think and then laugh is a humorist.
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

Music:
Tom Barabas - After the Rain


Every man should be Mentally honest.
He should preserve as his most precious jewel the perfect
veracity of his soul.

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.


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.

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.


Nothing but falsehood needs the assistance of fame and place, of robes and maitres, of tiaras and crowns.

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.


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.

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.


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.

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.


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.

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.


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.

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.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Quotes from John Milton's Paradise Lost


The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.

…who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.


Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds
of deadly hate have pierced so deep.

Do they only stand
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?”

All who have their reward on Earth,the fruits
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!

What in me is dark
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.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Nothing in this world is hidden forever by Wilkie Collins


Fahad Ebn Saud Photography

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?
Maxim Gorky

The best men are not consistent in good-- why should the worst men be consistent in evil.
Wilkie Collins

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps. Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
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.
Duc de La Rochefoucauld

The myriad things are complete in us.There is no greater joy than to reflect on ourselves and become sincere.
Mencius

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.
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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