Tag: Present moment

The faces of others

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You must unlearn the habit of being someone else or nothing at all, of imitating the voices of others and mistaking the faces of others for your own.

One thing is given to man which makes him into a god, which reminds him that he is a god: to know destiny.

When destiny comes to a man from outside, it lays him low, just as an arrow lays a deer low. When destiny comes to a man from within, from his innermost being, it makes him strong, it makes him into a god…

Hermann Hesse, If the War Goes on: Reflections on War and Politics

Sunday Quote: Lovelinesss

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For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day

Evelyn Underhill, 1875 – 1941, English writer on mysticism

Going with the current

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How can you follow the course of your life

if you do not let it flow

Lao Tzu quoted in Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Crossroads

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When we find ourselves at a crossroads it is often better to stop, wait a while at the lights and check the map. After all, movement isn’t progress if we are heading in the wrong direction.

Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

Every step today

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If you look for the truth outside yourself

It gets further and further away

Today, walking alone, I meet him everywhere I step

He is the same as me, yet I am not him

Only if you understand it in this way

will you merge with the way things are.

Dongshan, 9th Century China, Chan Buddhist monk (Stephen Mitchell translation)

Regrets

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Most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies show that nine out of ten people are wrong. Indeed, in the long run, people of every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret things they did.

Dan Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness