Great quotes

Be still, and know that I am God. — Psalm 46:10

The Truth is true, and all is well. Unconquerable life prevails. — Martin Cecil

He it is, the innermost one, who awakens my being with his deep hidden touches. He it is who puts his enchantment upon these eyes and joyfully plays on the chords of my heart in varied cadence of pleasure and pain. — Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, Song Offerings to the Creator.

I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power — that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.
But I find that thy will knows no end in me. And when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders. — Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

Every step on the path to Heaven is Heaven. — St. Catherine of Siena

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. — Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born. — Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

What we give really exists,
For this is the veritableness of the world,
what people achieved, it happened right there;
and great things occurred;
yet great things only happened
because thousands awakened every day
and created and designed and suffered and loved and thought
and because none of this was ever lost. — Rainer Maria Rilke, Quote translated and submitted by Isabelle Fuchs, a German friend. Said Isabelle:”It was as if Rilke’s spirit dictated the words, as if he was standing beside me, helping me comprehend what he wanted to say.

The joy of Being, which is the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event — through anything that happens. That joy cannot come to you — ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and thus is one with who you are. — Eckhart Tolle, One With All Life

Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you. — Eckhart Tolle, One With All Life

When there is an openness to fear, where can it be found? What a strange creature fear is. It exists only when there is resistance to its existence. When you stop and open to what you have resisted throughout time, you find that fear is not fear. Fear is energy. Fear is space. Fear is the Buddha. It is Christ’s heart knocking at your door. — Gangaji, The Diamond in your Pocket

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness. — Chang Tzu

This above all, To thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. — William Shakespeare

For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. — Matthew 7:8

The call to adventure signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his (her) society to a zone unknown. This fateful region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented: as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable deeds, and impossible delights. — Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Until at last the strength I longed for came to me, and steered me through the Java Sea. — Dwight Long, Sailing All Seas in the Idle Hour

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home. — William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth – not going all the way, and not starting.” — Buddha

I shall hear in heaven. — Ludwig van Beethoven

We ought, so far as it lies within our power, to aspire to immortality, and do all that we can to live in conformity with the highest that is within us; for even if it is small in quantity, in power and preciousness, it far excels all the rest. — Aristotle

When life tends to get too complex, too fast, too cluttered, too deadline oriented, or too type A for you, stop and remember your own spirit. You’re headed for inspiration, a simple, peaceful place where you’re in harmony with the perfect timing of all creation. — Dr. Wayne Dyer

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury — to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind. — Albert Einstein

A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. — A Course in Miracles

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend. — Robert Louis Stevenson

True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable. — Dave Tyson Gentry

Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being, between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality. — Thomas Merton

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. — Abraham Lincoln

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it. — Blaise Pascal

Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working. — Pablo Pascal

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. — Michelangelo

Great things are done when men and mountains meet. — William Blake

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. — Mother Teresa

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. — Helen Keller

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. — Albert Camus

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. — Eleanor Roosevelt.

There is no defense against adverse fortune which is so effectual as an habitual sense of humor. — Thomas W. Higginson

About midnight the fog shut down again denser than before. One could almost “stand on it.” It continued so for a number of days, the wind increasing to a gale. The waves rose high, but I had a good ship. Still, in the dismal fog I felt myself drifting into loneliness, an insect on the straw in the midst of the elements. — Capt. Joshua Slocum

Land! An island! We devoured it greedily with our eyes and woke the others, who tumbled out drowsily and stared in all directions as if they thought our bow was about to run on to a beach. Screaming seabirds formed a bridge across the sky in the direction of the distant island, which stood out sharper against the horizon as the red background widened and turned gold with the approach of the sun and the full daylight. — Thor Heyerdahl

Dear God!
My boat is so very small –
and Thy sea so very wide.
Have mercy! — Author unknown

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent. — D.H.Lawrence

The land retains an identity of its own, still deeper and more subtle than we can know. Our obligation toward it then becomes simple: to approach with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard…be alert for its openings, for that moment when something sacred reveals itself within the mundane, and you know the land knows you are there. — Barry Lopez

In the beginning of all things, wisdom and knowledge were with the animal. For Tiraswa, the One Above, did not speak directly to man. He sent certain animals to tell mankind that he showed himself through the beast. And from them, and from the stars and the sun and the moon, man should learn. — Pawnee Indian

Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently, as the hush and stillness of twilight come upon the woods. It is the sweetest, ripest hour of the day. And as the hermit’s evening hymn goes up from the deep solitude below me, I experience that serene exaltation of sentiment of which music, literature, and religion are but the faint types and symbols. — John Burroughs

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long. — Walt Whitman

We are here to witness the creation and to abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would be playing to an empty house. — Annie Dillard

Three silences there are: the first of speech, the second of desire, the third of thought. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Without great solitude no serious work is possible. — Picasso

Inside myself is a place where I live alone, and that’s where you renew your spring that never dries up. — Pearl Buck

To develop our real selves, we need time alone for thought and meditation. To be always giving out and never pumping in, the well runs dry. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. — Anne Frank

You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: There is nothing there…You feel the world’s word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: This hum is the silence. — Annie Dillard

The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and asked for my advice, I should reply, ‘Create silence.’” — Kierkegaard

Discover your undying Self and be immortal and happy. — Ramana Maharshi

There is more to life than increasing its speed. — Gandhi

Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance beween spirit and humility. — Gary Snyder

Every person has the right to look and feel like a million bucks. — Dr. Mehmet Oz

The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. — Victor Frankl

And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. — Anais Nin

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin

When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things — not the great occasions — that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness. — Bob Hope