QUOTES FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT

"Initiation includes: a radical altering of a person;s mode of being; a shattering and shaking all the way to the ground of the soul. The initiate becomes as another person; more fully in life emotionally and more spiritually aware."

-Author Unknown

"Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."

-Thoreau, Walden

"When old words die out on the tongue, New melodies break forth from the heart, and where old tracks are lost, A new world is revealed with its wonders."

-Rabindranath Tagore

"All further growth requires the immolation of that which was fundamental to an earlier stage."

-Author Unknown

"Tell me: what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

-Mary Oliver

"Each of us is brought to the cliff's edge. At such moments we can either back away in bitterness and confusion, or leap forward into mystery. And what does mystery ask of us? Only that we be in its presence, that we fully, consciously, hand ourselves over. That is all, and that is everything."

-Philip Simmons

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."

-Cicero

"Right now, right where I am, I am standing in sacred space. What I'm thinking and doing, and everything going on around me, is precious and holy. No matter what comes along, everything I see, and do, and everything that comes into my space, is here to teach me what I need to know at this very moment."

-Author Unknown

"Disappointment results when something fails to live up to your expectations. Look at your own views. Cease to see things as you want them to be. Instead, seek the truth. People will show you who they really are. Familiar places will become entirely different. Change your thoughts And you change the world."

-Author Unknown

Common wisdom states that in order to build community, you must first resolve conflict. I believe that the reverse is more accurate: That in order to resolve conflicts you must first build community."

-Scott Peck

"We have made a start in discovering the meaning of human life when we plant shade trees under which we know full well we will never sit."

-Elton Trueblood

He was a devout Buddhist; he believed people should live every moment as if it were to be the last. 'That,' said Enzo, 'is the best way to avoid wasting time.'"

-Kowalski

"Sometimes, divine revelation simply means adjusting your brain to what your heart already knows."

-Dan Brown, Angels and Demons

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

 E.M.Forster

"Begin the one journey only you can take."

"Tell a wise person or else keep silent."

"Create an Alive that's large enough to take all the deaths, even the large on at the end."

"Constantly resuscitate yourself from the self enclosed tombs in which you put yourself."

-From David Whyte's talk at Benaroya Hall, November 14, 2003

"Chaos is the core of our existence. Life is about risk. Life-altering events place us at a Crossroads where greater gifts await. Celebrate chaos."

-Author unknown

"Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving Till the right action arises by itself?"

-Lotus, Tao-te-Ching

"What I want is to leap out of this personality and then sit apart from that leaping; I've lived too long where I can be reached."

-Rumi

 "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."

-Arthur Schopenhauer

"Integrity is our willingness to live out our vision, even against all odds.
The most fundamental choice we make is to create a future of our own choosing. In some ways, the future is the cause of our current behavior."

-Peter Block, The Empowered Manager

"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 kill countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would come his way. I have developed 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."

-W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a might one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."

-George Bernard Shaw, from Man and Superman , dedicatory letter

"With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing, because listening to your brother or your sister until they have said the last words in their hearts is healing and consoling. Someone has said that it is possible to 'listen a person's soul into existence.' I like that."

-Catherine de Hueck Doherty Poustinia

"A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner."

-English Proverb

"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 and 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. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-Marianne Williamson, quoted by Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address

The Journey One day you finally knew
what you had to do, an began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It is already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver