Thich Nhat Hanh (1926- )

"If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body."

"Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form."

"We have the habit of always looking outside ourselves, thinking we can get wisdom and compassion from another person or the Buddha or his teachings (Dharma) or our community (Sangha). But you are the Buddha, you are the Dharma, you are the Sangha."

Hsuan Hua (1918-1995)

"Fear arises from worry. If you have no worries, you won't be afraid of anything. If you aren't selfish, you won't be afraid either. If you don't fight, aren't greedy, don't seek, aren't selfish, don't pursue personal advantage, and don't lie, you have nothing to fear."

"If you have no obstacles in your own mind, then outer obstacles will not hinder you or cause you worry."

"No matter how flourishing the world becomes, when it reaches the height of its glory, it will become dark again. All things in the world, great and small, are pretty much the same; they all go through cycles."

"Praise and blame are a kind of worldly wind... [The eight winds] are praise, blame, suffering, bliss, gain, loss, slander, and good reputation. If it happens that when one is blown by the eight winds one's mind is shaken, then that's a case of your foundation not having been well laid."

"There are no doors to the hells; you yourself make the doors."

"True happiness comes when you seek nothing. When you seek nothing, you have no worries."

"When you are no longer greedy, you will be able to let go. When you can let go, you will be at peace. When you are at peace, you will realize great wisdom and enlightenment."

Oscar Wilde  (1854-1900)

"Be yourself, everyone else is taken."

"Hear no evil, speak no evil - and you'll never be invited to a party."

"The only thing worse than people talking about you is people not talking about you."

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players." ―As You Like It

"This above all -- to thine own self be true." ―Hamlet

Others

"Other religions suggest there may be a miracle, or you may go to heaven. But it is strangely comforting to hear from Buddha's teaching that there is no such thing. This is what it is. This is reality. The Buddha's teaching says that hope is just the flip side of fear, and fear the flip side of hope. The best thing is just to stay awake and watch it, watch yourself, and feel everything as it is right now." ―Kaz Suzuki, "A Caregiver's Story", tricycle

"Whatever your difficulties -- a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness -- you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do -- despite your circumstances -- are to be present and to be willing to love." ―Jack Kornfield, "Set the Compass of Your Heart", tricycle

"Inhale Einstein, exhale Hitler!" ―The Acoustinauts (1987)

"Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around to resume living our life... Adversity is just change that we haven't adapted to yet." ―Aimee Mullins (1976- )

"Trust no one and expect sabotage." ―Peter Argenta, MD (1968- )

"By facing your haters, you educate yourself about what people are saying. You take what you can learn from it, and fuck the rest of it." ―Billy Brasfield (aka Billy B) (1963- )

"That which is threatening to the ego is liberating for the heart." ―Amaro Bhikkhu (1956- )

"Letting go of fixation is effectively a process of learning to be free, because every time we let go of something, we become free of it. Whatever we fixate upon limits us because fixation makes us dependent upon something other than ourselves. Each time we let go of something, we experience another level of freedom." ―Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche (1955- )

"Our difficulties are not obstacles to the path; they are the path itself." ―Ezra Bayda (1944- )

"I don't claim that God doesn't exist. God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God." ― Stephen Hawking (1942 - )

"Well-behaved women seldom make history." ―Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1938- )

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." ―Franklin D Roosevelt (1933-1945)

"If a man has not found something worth dying for, he is not fit to live." ―Martin Luther King (1929-1968)

"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding!" ―Betty White (1922- )

"Whatsoever is originated will be dissolved again. All worry about the self is vain; the self is like a mirage, and all the tribulations that touch it will pass away. They will vanish like a nightmare when the sleeper awakes. He who has Awakened is freed from fear; he has become a Buddha; he knows the vanity of all his cares, his ambitions, and also of his pains." ―Walpola Rahula (1907-1997)

"A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!" ―Classic Zen story as told by Paul Reps (1895-1990)

"The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success" ―Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952)

"In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
     And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists,
     And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
     And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew;
And then they came for me
     And by that time there was no one left to speak up." ―Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." ― Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." ― Helen Keller (1880-1968)

"Only a life lived for others is worth living." ―Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I?
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." ―Robert Frost (1874-1963), The Road Not Taken

"But the history of the world shows the vast majority, in every generation, passively accept the conditions into which they are born, while those who demand larger liberties are ever a small, ostracized minority, whose claims are ridiculed and ignored." ― Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

"The pen is mightier than the sword." ― Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803-1873), Richelieu (The Conspiracy)

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." ― Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

"Scientia potentia est - Knowledge is power" ― Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), De Homine

"If one does not realize the nature of non-sickness, the suffering of sickness is inconceivable." ―Milarepa (c1052-c1135)

"If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha." ―Linji Yixuan (?-c866)

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