Wisdom
Here, as a community, we share thought provoking words of wisdom that are variously inspiring, empowering, motivating, warming, instructive, comforting and insightful. And beautifully expressed! Many of them help us have courage to move forward with our creating.
We can’t be sure, of course, but several of the people quoted below are considered by some to be or to have been Indigo or Crystal.
Please peruse this part of our site as you would a favorite bookstore or library.
Please feel free to copy the quotes and please give appropriate attribution to the authors, as we have done.
If you see any quotes here that you think are attributed to the wrong person, or any other errors, please by all means let us know so we can correct it.
List of Authors you will find here and the beginning or the topic of their quotes:
Nelson Mandela: Our deepest fear...
W. H. Murray and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): Until one is committed...
Henry David Thoreau: If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams...
Alan Watts: The world is a spell, an enchantment, an amazement,...
Albert Schweitzer, M.D., OM: Constant kindness can accomplish much...
Bill Moyers: What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally...
Gautama Buddha: A parable in sutra: A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger...
Woody Hochswender, Greg Martin, Ted Morino & Herbie Hancock: The three poisons: greed, anger...
Albert Camus: Man is mortal...
Edith Wharton: There are two ways of spreading light...
Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi): Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence
Ralph Waldo Emerson: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...
Mahatma Gandhi: Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly beautiful...
Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller: They came first for the communists...
Albert Einstein: Knowledge is experience...
Unknown Author: Death is not extinguishing the light...
Benjamin Franklin: They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security...
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek?...
Kurt Lewin: If you really want to understand something, try to change it...
Rainer Maria Rilke: Why don't you think of God as...+ Our deepest fears are like dragons... + I want to beg...
Carl Jung: Everything that irritates us about others...
Rumi: The Guest House: This being human is a guest house...
Thomas Woodrow Wilson: You are not here merely to make a living...
Nelson Mandela (July, 1918 - ) was the first president of South Africa to be elected in fully-representative democratic elections. This quote is from Nelson Mandela’s inaugural speech.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. You are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within you. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
back to top
W. H. Murray (March 18, 1913 – March 19, 1996) was one of a group of active Scottish mountain climbers. Murray includes a quote from Johann Wolfgang Goethe (August 28, 1749 – March 22, 1832), who was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, theorist, humanist, scientist, painter and polymath. This quote had historically been attributed wholly to Goethe. Researchers now tell us that it was written by W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951, and Mr. Murray therein quotes a couplet from Goethe’s Faust.
...Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
back to top
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, land development critic and philosopher.
If you advance confidently
In the direction of your dreams,
And endeavor to live the life you have imagined,
You will meet with a success unexpected
In common hours.
You will pass an invisible boundary:
New, universal and more liberal laws will begin
To establish themselves around and within you,
And you will live with the license
Of a higher order of beings.
If you have built castles in the air,
Your work need not be lost;
That is where they should be.
Now put the foundation under them.
back to top
Alan Wilson Watts (January 6, 1915 – November 16, 1973) was a philosopher, writer, speaker and expert in comparative religion.
The world is a spell, an enchantment, an amazement, an arabesque
of such stunning rhythm and a plot so intriguing that we are drawn
by its web into a state of involvement where we forget it is a game.
back to top
Albert Schweitzer, M.D., OM (January 14, 1875 – September 4, 1875) was an Alsatian theologian, musician, philosopher and physician.
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt,
kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
back to top
Bill D. Moyers (June 5, 1934 - ) is an American journalist and public commentator, often seen on public television and heard on public radio, as well as other major media.
What's right and good doesn't come naturally.
You have to stand up and fight for it –
as if the cause depends on you, because it does.
Allow yourself that conceit – to believe that the flame of Democracy
will never go out as long as there's one candle in your hand.
back to top
Gautama Buddha: Siddhartha Gautama (563 BCE to about 410-483 BCE) was a spiritual teacher from Nepal and the historical founder of Buddhism. Buddha told a parable in sutra:
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 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!
back to top
Woody Hochswender, Greg Martin, Ted Morino and Herbie Hancock: This quote is from their book, The Buddha in Your Mirror: Practical Buddhism and the Search for Self (2002; page 129)
Buddhism teaches that false attitudes or beliefs about the self and
others, which lead to misery and suffering, can be traced to the "three
poisons": greed, anger, and foolishness.
In particular, anger, the poison compounded of equal measures of
arrogance and self-centeredness, destroys relationships. The poison
of anger leads inevitably to strife and conflict among people, whether
individuals, groups, and nations. War has its roots in the poison of anger.
back to top
Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was an Algerian-French author and philosopher, often associated with existentialism, but he preferred to be known as a man and a thinker, rather than as a member of a school or ideology.
Man is mortal. That may be; but let us die resisting,
and if our lot is complete annihilation, let us not behave
in such a way that it seems justice.
back to top
Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer.
There are two ways of spreading light;
To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
back to top
Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948) was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. In India, he is recognized as the Father of the Nation.
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principle.
back to top
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."
back to top
Mahatma Gandhi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) (October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948) was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. In India, he is recognized as the Father of the Nation.
Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly beautiful
Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you.
back to top
Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (January 14, 1892 – March 6, 1984) was a prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor. He is best known as the author of this poem. He was imprisoned at Dachau concentration camp. He survived to be a leading voice of penance and reconciliation for the German people after World War II. This is the version of the poem that is inscribed at the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston, Massachusetts.
They came first for the Communists,
I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
And I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant
Then they came for me,
By that time no one was left to speak up.
back to top
Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for his theory of relativity (E=mc2). He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics. He said these words towards the end of his life.
Knowledge is experience.
Anything else is just information
back to top
Unknown Author – If you know who wrote this, please let us know so we can give attribution.
Death is not extinguishing the light, but putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
back to top
Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the best-known Founding Fathers of the United States. He was a leading author, political theorist, politician, printer, scientist, inventor, civic activist and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.
back to top
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963) was the 35th President of the United States. He said these words in a speech at American University on June 10, 1963.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
back to top
Kurt Zadek Lewin (September 9, 1890 – February 12, 1947) was a German-born psychologist and one of the pioneers of social psychology. He is often called the father of social psychology. He was one of the first researchers to study group dynamics and organizational development. He advocated Gestalt psychology.
If you really want to understand something, try to change it.
Rainer Maria Rilke (December 4, 1875– December 19, 1926) is generally considered the German language’s greatest 20th century poet. He wrote in both verse and highly lyrical prose, as you can see in the three quotes below:
Why don't you think of God as the one who is coming, who has been approaching
from all eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of a tree
whose leaves we are? What keeps you from projecting his birth into coming ages,
and living your life as a painful and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy?
And another quote from Rilke:
I want to beg you to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
And another quote from Rilke:
Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.
back to top
Carl Gustav Jung: Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, influential thinker, and founder of analytical psychology. Much of his life’s work was spent exploring other realms of reality, alchemy, astrology, sociology, literature and the arts. His most notable contributions include his concepts of the psychological archetype, the collective unconscious and his theory of synchronicity.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves
back to top
Jalai ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (September 30, 1207 – December 17, 1273) was a 13th century Persian Muslim poet, jurist, and theologian. Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His poems are widely read in the Persian speaking countries of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan and have been widely translated into many of the world's languages in various formats. The Illustrated Rumi: A Treasury of Wisdom from the Poet of the Soul , by Jalalu’ddin Rumi, Philip Dunn (Translator/Author), Manuela Dunn Mascetti (Translator/Author) and Huston Smith (Introduction/Author) is a taste of Rumi’s countless works and includes beautiful illustrations taken from early Islamic art. The Illuminated Rumi by Jalud’ddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks and illustrated by Michael Green, is a gorgeous book – mind altering in its beauty and the depth of the love about which Rumi writes and Green illustrates. There are many other books by and about Rumi,as well as audio CDs. One could drown in Rumi and be ecstatic. I was introduced to Rumi many years ago by Robert Bly, author of Iron John: A Book About Men.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even though they are a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing,
And invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond
back to top
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 18, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th President of the United States, and a leading intellectual of the Progressive Era. He also served as president of Princeton University.
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.
|
