Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims(3) by François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Interest blinds some and makes some see.

We have not enough strength to follow all our reason.

When our hatred is too bitter it places
us below those whom we hate.

We promise according to our hopes;
we perform according to our fears.

He is a truly good man who desires always
to bear the inspection of good men.

Hypocrisy is an homage that vice pays to virtue.

We believe, sometimes, that we hate flattery —
we only dislike the method.

There are foolish people who recognize their foolishness
and use it skillfully.

Nothing prevents us being natural so
much as the desire to appear so.

Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side.

The praise we give to new comers into the world arises
from the envy we bear to those who are established.

We should not judge of a man's merit by his great abilities,
but by the use he makes of them.

However brilliant an action it should not be esteemed
great unless the result of a great motive.

There is often more pride than goodness in our grief for our enemies' miseries; it is to show how superior we are to them,
that we bestow on them the sign of our compassion.

In the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions; so that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another.

People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one
ever dare avow her.

Pride is much the same in all men, the only difference
is the method and manner of showing it.

Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.

Love in This World by HENRY WARD BEECHER

Love, in this world, is like a seed taken from the tropics, and planted where the winter comes too soon; and it cannot spread itself in flower-clusters and wide-twining vines, so that the whole air is filled with the perfume thereof. But there is to be another summer for it yet. Care for the root now, and God will care for the top by and by.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Life Thoughts

Why We Need To Understand Science by carl sagan

Science is much more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom. We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking. It works. It’s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change. Our task is not just to train more scientists but also to deepen public understanding of science.
Carl Sagan

Science...It is a way of thinking; a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.
Carl Sagan

Our own opinions by Friedrich Nietzsche

The first opinion that occurs to us when we are suddenly asked about a matter is usually not our own, but only the customary one, appropriate to our caste, position, or parentage; our own opinions seldom swim near the surface.

It is not the struggle of opinions that has made history so violent, but rather the struggle of belief in opinions, that is, the struggle of convictions.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Eigene Meinungen. - Die erste Meinung, welche uns einfällt, wenn wir plötzlich über eine Sache befragt werden, ist gewöhnlich nicht unsere eigene, sondern nur die landläufige, unserer Kaste, Stellung, Abkunft zugehörige; die eigenen Meinungen schwimmen selten oben auf.

Es ist nicht der Kampf der Meinungen, welcher die Geschichte so gewaltthätig gemacht hat, sondern der Kampf des Glaubens an die Meinungen, das heisst der Ueberzeugungen.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Destiny by William Jennings Bryan

Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice.
It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan

On the path of love:City of love by Rumi*Pull the thorns from your heart*Those Who Don't Feel This Love

Music:
Yedi Karanfil- Saki Seven Cloves-Saki )

Leonid Afremov Art

City of Love
Rumi

I've travelled around
raced through every city
while i knew all along
no place could be found
like the city of love

If i could have known
to value what i owned
i would not have suffered
like a fool
the life of a vagabond

I've heard many tunes
all over the globe
all empty
as a kettledrum
except the music of love

It was the sound of
that hollow drum
that made me fall
from the heavens
to this mortal life

I used to soar
among souls
like a heart's flight
winglessly roaming and
celestially happy

I used to drink
like a flower that drinks
without lips or throat
of the wine that overflows
with laughter and joy

Suddenly
i was summoned by love
to prepare for a journey
to the temple of
suffering

I cried desperately
i begged and pleaded
and shredded my clothes
not to be sent
to this world

Just the way i fear now
going away
to the other world
i was frightened then
to make my descent

Love asked me to go
with no fear to be alone
promising to be close
everywhere i go
closer than my veins

Love threw its spell
its magic and allure
using coyness and charm
i was totally sold and
bought everything with joy

Who am i to resist
love's many tricks
and not to fall
while the whole world
takes love's bait

Love showed me
a path but then
lost me on the way
if i could have resisted
i would have found my way

I can show you my friend
surely how you can get there
but here and now
my pen has broken down
before telling you how...

Pull the thorns from your heart
Rumi

Behind the blood-stained curtains of Love
there are fields of flowers
where the lovers wander.

While the mind sees only boundaries
Love knows the secret way there.

While the mind smells profit and quickly sets up shop
Love sees untold of treasures far beyond.

Lovers trust in the wealth of their hearts
while the all-knowing mind sees only thorns ahead.

To wander in the fields of flowers
pull the thorns from your heart.

Those Who Don't Feel This Love
Rumi

Those who don`t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don`t drink dawn
like a cup of springwater
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don`t want to change,

let them sleep

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on

I`ve given up on my brain.
I`ve torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.

If you`re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep.

Yanni - Prelude & Nostalgia

On Apathy:The opposite of love by Elie Wiesel & Leo Buscaglia

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
Elie Wiesel

The opposite of love is not hate--it's apathy. It's not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must "feel" something. . . or they couldn't possibly hate. Therefore, there's some way in which I can get to them.
Leo Buscaglia

Daring Question by Carl Sagan

We make our world significant by the courage
of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
Carl Sagan

Inspiring Exploration Quote:Explore by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Explore, and explore, and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry. Neither dogmatise yourself, nor accept another's dogmatism. Why should you renounce your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth, for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board. Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread, and if not store of it, yet such as shall not take away your property in all men's possessions, in all men's affections, in art, in nature, and in hope.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The heart of a flower by Thich Nhat Hanh

When we look deeply into
the heart of a flower, we
see clouds, sunshine,
minerals, time, the earth,
and everything else
in the cosmos in it.
Without clouds there
could be no rain,
and without rain
there would be no flower.
Thich Nhat Hanh

A few Flowers & the stars by Victor Hugo

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Bring me all of your dreams by Langston Hughes

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
Langston Hughes

Wonder by Edward Hays

True and lasting wonder needs to be renewed regularly, even daily. Otherwise, life's inevitable formula will be: Wonderful is followed by wonder-half-full, which is followed by wonder-quarter-full, which quickly becomes wonder-less. If you want to make your capacity for awe as wide as the sky, you must take preventative action. Otherwise, you'll end up as a wonderless wanderer and life will cease to be a joyful adventure.
Edward Hays

Beauty & Love by William Wordsworth

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.
William Wordsworth

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims(2) by François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

If we had no faults, we should not take so much
pleasure in noting those of others.

To succeed in the world we do everything we can to
appear successful already.

Those who apply themselves too much to little things
often become incapable of great ones.

The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.

We should often be ashamed of our very best actions
if the world only saw the motives which caused them.

Self-interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays
all sorts of characters, even that of disinterestedness.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils;
but present evils triumph over it.

We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us,
when we hide it so often from ourselves.

Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.

In all professions we affect a part and an appearance to
seem what we wish to be. Thus the world is merely composed of actors.

Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation
for the fact that they can no longer provide bad examples.

Our repentance is not so much sorrow for the ill we have
done as a fear of the ill that may befall us.

Fortunate people seldom mend their ways, for when good luck crowns their misdeeds with success they think it is because they are right.

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims(1) by François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims(1)
François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Everyone complains of his memory,
and no one complains of his judgment.

One cannot answer for his courage when
he has never been in danger.

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.

We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune.

The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.

Some condemnations praise; some praise damns.

It is easier to be wise for others than for oneself.

Everyone speaks well of his heart;
no one dares speak well of his mind.

The truest way to be deceived is to think
oneself more knowing than others.

It is easier to know man in general than to know one man.

We try to make virtues out of the faults we have no wish to correct.

Most people judge men only by success or by fortune.

Only firm people can be truly soft.

We often forgive those who bore us,
but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

We confess to little faults only to persuade
ourselves we have no great ones.

We hardly find any persons of good sense save
those who agree with us.

Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which
reaches beyond their own understanding.

Coincidences by Josh Tenenbaum

Coincidences are a true
paradox. . . on the one
hand they seem to be the
source of our greatest
irrationalities--seeing
causal connections when
science tells us they
aren't there. On the other
hand, some of our greatest
feats of scientific discovery
depend on coincidences.
Josh Tenenbaum

Inspirational child quote:How to Talk with Children by Leo Buscaglia

Before we can teach children life, we've got to learn again how to simply talk with them. I would like to write a book called "How to Talk with Children," because all I can see that goes on among adults and children is we're always talking at them, we're always talking through them or beyond them.We're never communicating with them.

In order to really communicate with the kids, we've got to practice deep knee bends. We've got to get down there so we're face-to-face with them. We've got to try to get into their world and stop telling them about ours. Listen to them. Ask them to tell us what they see and feel and hear, because, you may be surprised, they may teach you something.It may get you back in touch with some of the wonder that was you and which you've forgotten.
Leo Buscaglia

Embracing Beauty With John O'Donohue *From "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace" by John O'Donohue

Music:
Secret Garden - Once in a red moon

Excerpt From "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace"
John O'Donohue

EVERY LIFE IS BRAIDED WITH LUMINOUS MOMENTS.

... It was a beautiful summer's day. Time had come to rest in the silence and stillness that presided there. The lake slept without a ripple. A grey-blue haze enfolded everything. There was no division any more between earth and sky. Reaching far into the distance, everything was suffused in a majestic blue light. The mountains of Conamara seemed like pile upon pile of delicate blue; you felt you could almost reach out your hand and pull them towards you.

No object protruded anywhere. Trees, stones, fields and islands had forgotten themselves in the daze of blue. Then, suddenly, a harsh flutter as near us the lake surface split and a huge cormorant flew from inside the water and struck up into the air. Its ragged black wings and large awkward shape were like an eruption from the underworld.
Against the finely woven blue everywhere its strange form fluttered and gleamed in absolute black.

This was an event of pure disclosure: a sudden epiphany from between the worlds. The strange beauty of the cormorant was a counterpoint to the dreamlike delicacy of the lake and the landscape.

Sometimes beauty is that unpredictable; a threshold we had never noticed opens, mystery comes alive around us and we realize how the earth is full of concealed beauty. St Augustine expressed this memorably: 'I asked the earth, I asked the sea and the deeps, among the living animals, the things that creep. I asked the winds that blow, I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, and to all things that stand at the doors of my flesh ... My question was the gaze I turned to them. Their answer was their beauty.'

Beauty Is Quietly Woven through Our Days

When we hear the word 'beauty', we inevitably think that beauty belongs in a special elite realm where only the extraordinary dwells. Yet without realizing it, each day each one of us is visited by beauty. A world without beauty would be unbearable. Indeed the subtle touches of beauty are what enable most people to survive. Yet beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it. Everywhere there is tenderness, care and kindness, there is beauty.

Despite our natural difficulties with our parents, each of us has in our memory moments of deep love we shared with them. Perhaps it was a moment in which you became aware of some infinite tenderness in the way your mother gazed upon you, and you knew that her heart would always carry you as tenderly as it carried herself. Or it might have been a phrase of affection that has continued to sound around your life like a bright circle of blessing.

In Greek the word for 'the beautiful' is to kalon. It is related to the word kalein which includes the notion of 'call'. When we experience beauty, we feel called. The Beautiful stirs passion and urgency in us and calls us forth from aloneness into the warmth and wonder of an eternal embrace. It unites us again with the neglected and forgotten grandeur of life. The call of beauty is not a cold call into the dark or the unknown; in some instinctive way we know that beauty is no stranger. We respond with joy to the call of beauty because in an instant it can awaken under the layers of the heart a forgotten brightness. Plato said: 'Beauty was ours in all its brightness ... Whole were we who celebrated that festival' (Phaedrus).

Beauty does not linger, it only visits. Yet beauty's visitation affects us and invites us into its rhythm, it calls us to feel, think and act beautifully in the world: to create and live a life that awakens the Beautiful. A life without delight is only half a life. Lest this be construed as a plea for decadence or a self-indulgence that is blind to the horrors of the world, we should remember that beauty does not restrict its visitations only to those whom fortune or circumstances favour. Indeed, it is often the whispers and glimpses of beauty which enable people to endure on desperate frontiers.

Even, and perhaps especially, in the bleakest times, we can still discover and awaken beauty; these are precisely the times when we need it most. Nowhere else can we find the joy that beauty brings. Joy is not simply the fruit of circumstance; we can choose to be joyous independent of what is happening around us. The joyful heart sees and reads the world with a sense of freedom and graciousness. Despite all the difficult turns on the road, it never loses sight of the world as a gift. St Augustine said: 'The soul is weighed in the balance by what delights her. Delight or enjoyment sets the soul in her ordered place. Where the delight is, there is the treasure.' Perhaps this is why there is such delight in beauty. In the midst of fragmentation and distress beauty draws the soul into an experience where an elegant order prevails. This brings a lovely tranquillity and satisfies the desire of the soul. When the Beautiful continues on its way, the soul has been strengthened by a delight that will further assist her in transfiguring struggle.

When you beautify your mind, you beautify your world. You learn to see differently. In what seemed like dead situations, secret possibilities and invitations begin to open before you. In old suffering that held you long paralysed, you find new keys. When your mind awakens, your life comes alive and the creative adventure of your soul takes off. Passion and compassion become your new companions.

Sleepsong ~ Secret Garden

love isn’t there to make us happy by Hermann Hesse

Oh, love isn’t there to make us happy.
I believe it exists to show us how much
we can endure.
Hermanne Hesse

Spiritual Freedom:I call that mind free by William Ellery Channing

I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come, which receives new truth as an angel from heaven.

I call that mind free, which sets no bounds to its love, which is not imprisoned in itself or in a sect, which recognises in all human beings the image of God and the rights of his children, which delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering wherever they are seen, which conquers pride, anger, and sloth, and offers itself up a willing victim to the cause of mankind.
William Ellery Channing,Spiritual Freedom

I am the sphere by Khalil Gibran

It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment
quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life.
Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in
rhythmic fragments moves within me.
Khalil Gibran

The world is a mountain by Rumi

The world is a mountain. Whatever you say, it will echo it back to you. Don't say, "I sang nicely and the mountain echoed an ugly voice!" That is not possible. The human intellect is a place where hesitation and uncertainty take root. There is no way to overcome this hesitation except by falling in love.
Rumi