It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Having an open mind doesn't mean that one never comes to any convictions in life. It's possible to have an open mind and live a principled life, without holding one's beliefs dogmatically.
Having an open mind means being prepared to question even your most central beliefs if there's occasion to do so. It means being open, when the time comes, to having your mind changed by an argument better than one's own.
It means being able to think both sides of an issue. It means being able to suspend your beliefs, to play devil's advocate, and to detach yourself somewhat from your own beliefs, actions and feelings. Only living with an open mind gives us a chance to grow and change.
Jeff Mason
As I experience it, appreciation of beauty is access to the soul. With beauty in our lives, we walk and carry ourselves more lightly and with a different look in our eyes. To look into the eyes of someone beholding beauty is to look through the windows of the soul. Anytime we catch a glimpse of soul, beauty is there; anytime we catch our breath and feel "How beautiful!," the soul is present.
Jean Shinoda Bolen
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.
George Orwell,Animal Farm
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
The original in Farsi
“Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
(1048-1131)
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!”
O listen, love, how all the builders sing!
O sap! O song! O green world blossoming!
White as the hand of Moses blooms the thorn,
Sweet as the breath of Jesus comes the spring.
I break one law, another law to keep;
The laws of death and hate I scorn to keep,
The law of Love that is the law of Life —
That is the only law I dare to keep.
O Love, I come to worship in your shrine
There is no part of you is not divine,
There is no part of you not human too
There is no part of you that is not mine ;
How sad, a heart that
does not know how to love, that
does not know what it is to be drunk with love.
If you are not in love,how can you enjoy
the blinding light of the sun,
the soft light of the moon?”
When you have planted
the rose of Love into your heart
your life has not been in vain.
I value the lover's sighs of happiness
and I despise the hypocrite mumbling his prayers.
Life is so short, yet sleeps thy lovely head;
Why make so soon a death-bed of thy bed?
love, awake! thy beauty wastes away--
Thou shalt sleep on and on when thou art dead.
Each day a leaf falls withered from the tree
Whose leaves make up the life of thee and me,
The leaves are counted and the last is there--
Ready to fall before thy destiny.
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.
Do you, within your little hour of Grace,
The waving Cypress in your Arms enlace,
Before the Mother back into her arms.
Fold, and dissolve you in a last embrace.
Hear from the spirit-world this mystery:
Creation is summed up, O man, in thee;
Angel and demon, man and beast art thou,
Yea, thou art all thou dost appear to be
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd: 'I Myself am Heav'n and Hell
To all of us the thought of heaven is dear---
Why not be sure of it and make it here?
No doubt there is a heaven yonder too,
But 'tis so far away --- and you are near.
Every particle of dust on a patch of earth
Was a sun-cheek or brow of the morning star;
Shake the dust off your sleeve carefully--
That too was a delicate, fair face.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.
Let not base avarice enslave thy mind,
Nor vain ambition in its trammels bind;
Be sharp as fire, as running water swift,
Not, like earth’s dust, the sport of every wind!
Let him rejoice who has a loaf of bread,
A little nest wherein to lay his head,
Is slave to none, and no man slaves for him—
In truth his lot is wondrous well bested
Dervish, take off that bright nice-coloured garb,
of which you are so proud, and which you didn't possess
at the time of your birth. Dress yourself instead in the
cloth of the poor. Passers-by may not greet you,
but you will hear the angels sing in your heart.
When you are so full of sorrow
that you can't walk, can't cry anymore,
think about the green foliage that sparkles after
the rain. When the daylight exhausts you, when
you hope a final night will cover the world,
think about the awakening of a young child.
Hearts with the light of love illumined well,
Whether in mosque or synagogue they dwell,
Have their names written in the book of love,
Unvexed by hopes of heaven or fears of Hell.
Did no fair rose my paradise adorn,
I would make shift to deck it with a thorn;
And if I lacked my prayer-mats, beads, and Shaikh,
Those Christian bells and stoles I would not scorn.
Diversity of worship has divided the human race
into seventy-two nations.From among all their dogmas,
I have selected one,Divine love.
Our regrets are the least for those past errors
that were made on the side of kindness.
LEWIS F. KORNS
Children are the boldest philosophers. They enter life naked, not covered by the smallest fig leaf of dogma, absolutes, creeds. This is why every question they ask is so absurdly naïve and so frighteningly complex.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
Not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom.
John Milton
There is eloquence in the tongueless
wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the
reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something
within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless
rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like
the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved
singing to you alone.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
O Love, I come to worship in your shrine,
There is no part of you is not divine,
There is no part of you not human too,
There is no part of you that is not mine;
Omar Khayyam
Do you, within your little hour of Grace,
The waving Cypress in your Arms enlace,
Before the Mother back into her arms.
Fold, and dissolve you in a last embrace.
Omar Khayyam
Good-night
Good-night? ah! no;the hour is ill
How can I call the lone night good,
To hearts which near each other move
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood --
Then it will be -- good night.
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night.
My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world.
Ludwig Feuerbach
I should feel the air move against me, and feel the things I touched, instead of having only to look at them. I'm sure life is all wrong because it has become much too visual - we can neither hear nor feel nor understand, we can only see. I'm sure that is entirely wrong.
D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love
You do not read a book for the book's sake, but for your own.
You may read because in your high-pressure life, studded with problems and emergencies, you need periods of relief and yet recognize that peace of mind does not mean numbness of mind.
You may read because you never had an opportunity to go to college, and books give you a chance to get something you missed. You may read because your job is routine, and books give you a feeling of depth in life.
You may read because you did go to college.
You may read because you see social, economic and philosophical problems which need solution, and you believe that the best thinking of all past ages may be useful in your age, too.
You may read because you are tired of the shallowness of contemporary life, bored by the current conversational commonplaces, and wearied of shop talk and gossip about people.
Whatever your dominant personal reason, you will find that reading gives knowledge, creative power, satisfaction and relaxation. It cultivates your mind by calling its faculties into exercise.
Books are a source of pleasure - the purest and the most lasting. They enhance your sensation of the interestingness of life. Reading them is not a violent pleasure like the gross enjoyment of an uncultivated mind, but a subtle delight.
Reading dispels prejudices which hem our minds within narrow spaces. One of the things that will surprise you as you read good books from all over the world and from all times of man is that human nature is much the same today as it has been ever since writing began to tell us about it.
Some people act as if it were demeaning to their manhood to wish to be well-read but you can no more be a healthy person mentally without reading substantial books than you can be a vigorous person physically without eating solid food. Books should be chosen, not for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of good. Dr. Johnson said: "Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son shall read first, another boy has read both".
Earl Nightingale
Life must not cease. That comes before everything. It is silly to say you do not care. You do care. It is that care that will prompt your imagination; inflame your desires; make your will irresistible; and create out of nothing.
George Bernard show
The whole earth is My birthplace
Leave me, my blamer,
Cavil me not by mention of the
Talk not of banishment, for conscience
Relate not the tales of wealth and
Go from me, for you are taking away
( Leave Me, My Blamer)
Excerpt from" A tear & a Smile"
Khalil Gibran
For the sake of the love
Which unites your soul with
That of your beloved one;
For the sake of that which
Joins spirit with mothers
Affection, and ties your
Heart with filial love. Go,
And leave me to my own
Weeping heart.
Let me sail in the ocean of
My dreams; Wait until Tomorrow
Comes, for tomorrow is free to
Do with me as he wishes. Your
Laying is naught but shadow
That walks with the spirit to
The tomb of abashment, and shows
Heard the cold, solid earth.
I have a little heart within me
And I like to bring him out of
His prison and carry him on the
Palm of my hand to examine him
In depth and extract his secret.
Aim not your arrows at him, lest
He takes fright and vanish 'ere he
Pours the secrets blood as a
Sacrifice at the altar of his
Own faith, given him by Deity
When he fashioned him of love and beauty.
The sun is rising and the nightingale
Is singing, and the myrtle is
Breathing its fragrance into space.
I want to free myself from the
Quilted slumber of wrong. Do not
Detain me, my blamer!
Lions of the forest or the
Snakes of the valley, for
Me soul knows no fear of earth and
Accepts no warning of evil before
Evil comes.
Advise me not, my blamer, for
Calamities have opened my heart and
Tears have cleanses my eyes, and
Errors have taught me the language
Of the hearts.
Is my judge and he will justify me
And protect me if I am innocent, and
Will deny me of life if I am a criminal.
Love's procession is moving;
Beauty is waving her banner;
Youth is sounding the trumpet of joy;
Disturb not my contrition, my blamer.
Let me walk, for the path is rich
With roses and mint, and the air
Is scented with cleanliness.
Greatness, for my soul is rich
With bounty and great with God's glory.
Speak not of peoples and laws and
Kingdoms, for the whole earth is
My birthplace and all humans are
My brothers.
Life—giving repentance and bringing
Needless words.
I have immortal longings in me.
There is not a single heart but has its moments of longing.
It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good and we must hunger after them.
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
We never reach our ideals, whether of mental or moral improvement, but the thought of them shows us our deficiencies, and spurs us on to higher and better things.
Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly towards an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them,--that it was a vain endeavor?
William Shakespeare
Henry Ward Beecher
George Eliot
Kahlil Gibran
Tryon Edwards
Henry David Thoreau
Life does not consist mainly,or even largely,of facts and
happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought
that is forever flowing through one's head.
Mark Twain
We are all prisoners but
some of us are in cells with windows and some without.
Khalil Gibran
I value the lover's sighs of happiness and
I despise the hypocrite mumbling his prayers.
Omar Khayyam
Listen.Make a way for yourself inside yourself.
Why are you so enchanted by this world,
Stop looking in the other way of looking.
Rumi
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Rumi
