Acceptance

Always be who you are, and say what you feel, because people who mind don’t matter, and people who matter don’t mind.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.

Birds make great sky circles of their freedom. How do they do that? They fall. And falling, they are given wings"

"...religion must be the cause of unity, harmony and agreement among mankind. If it be the cause of discourd and hostility, if it leads to separation and creates conflict, the absence of religion would be preferable in the world...

The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe.

Oh, threats of hell and hopes of paradise! / One thing at least is certain -- this life flies; / One thing is certain, and the rest is lies; / The flower that once has blown forever dies.

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are.

My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.

Seek not, my soul, the life of the immortals; but enjoy to the full the resources that are within thy reach.

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.

A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that is troublesome.

Before you go and criticize the younger generation, remember who raised them.

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

the art of being wise is knowing what to overlook

the art of being wise is knowing what to overlook

Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians.

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.

There is no perfection exept in the dead

Each one of us here today will, at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question. "We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed?" It is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us, but we can still love them. We can love completely, without complete understanding.

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.

It is when we are confronted with...poignant reminders of mortality that we become most aware of the strangeness and wonder of our brief life on Earth.

I try to remind myself that we are never promised anything, and that what control we can exert is not over the events that befall us but how we address ourselves to them.

The dream is illusion. The work is life.

Our choicest plans
have fallen through,
our airiest castles
tumbled over,
because of lines
we neatly drew
and later neatly
stumbled over.

The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

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

The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it.

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.

For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain.

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

Everybody is unique. Do not compare yourself with anybody else lest you spoil God's curriculum.

Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves.

i am my parents child

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.

Life is filled with surprises. The journey itself is smooth and bumpy. We need to fastened our seat belts, switch gears and enjoy the ride.There's still a long road ahead and we never know what comes next.

The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.

Loss makes artists of us all as we weave new patterns in the fabric of our lives.

Sometimes we behave as though there was something more important than life. But what?

It began in mystery and it will end in mystery, but what a rare and beautiful country lies in between.

In the presence of eternity, the mountains are as transient as the clouds.

Tell me did you sail across the sun, did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights are faded, that heaven is overrated.

No one can be always right and be a true Christian. It is a contradiction of terms. It comes from the failure to be real about oneself in the light of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. It is based on fear, and on the misuse of power. I imagined that I could somehow prevent my children from making mistakes. This is a temptation that many parents have to face, and it can be agonizing. After their early years, in which they must be taught the difference between right and wrong, we need to encourage them to choose to do the very best they can, to obey the deepest thing in their hearts, thoughts good and loving; but we must leave them really free to choose, without fear in ourselves. Perfect love drives out fear, and goes on whichever way they may choose.

The first thing you must do is forget that I’m Black. Second, you must never forget that I’m Black.

Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence.” -

Generosity is another quality which, like patience, letting go, non-judging, and trust, provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice. You might experiment with using the cultivation of generosity as a vehicle for deep self-observation and inquiry as well as an exercise in giving. A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation-to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.

In this holiday season let us remember that kindness, charity and goodwill transcend belief, creed or religion. Happy Holidays"

All beauty of this world is wet with the dew of tears.

I have reached a point in my life where I understand the pain and the challenges; and my attitude is one of standing up with open arms to meet them all.

A harmonized mind produces harmony in this world of seeming discord.

When you listen generously to people they can hear the truth in themselves, often for the first time.

In being with dying, we arrive at a natural crucible of what it means to love and be loved. And we can ask ourselves this: Knowing that death is inevitable, what is most precious today?

Outwardly one's life may suffer every kind of limitation, from bodily paralysis to miserable surroundings, but inwardly it is free in meditation to reach out to a sphere of light, beauty, truth, love, and power.

The store was closed so I went home and hugged what I own.

Be contented with what you possess in life;
be thankful for what does not belong to you,
for it is so much care the less.

Though you may not be able to change it, you can handle an ugly situation beautifully.

Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deeply.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

The same lesson keeps presenting itself to me. As soon as I rebound, I will be presented with the same lesson.

In their voices they found themselves.

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

There is no promise of love and light or visions of any kind -- no angels, no devils. Nothing happens: it is absolutely boring. Sometimes you feel silly. One often asks the question, "Who is kidding whom? Am I on to something or not?" You are not on to something. Traveling the path means you get off everything, there is no place to perch. Sit and feel your breath, be with it.

Control no one. Control yourself --this is freedom.

What you cannot enforce, do not command.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.

Black sheep are still sheep.

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.

Only he who accepts clashes and conflicts in life, loves life.

Now that I'm in my senior years I need to work towards small changes in my patterns. With luck I may only have twenty years left on this plane. I won't try to figure it out, I will only try to be more mindful of moments.

“Women are the mothers of nations; by empowering them, we empower the next generation.”

We only die once, but for such a long time

Transition does not require that you reject or deny the importance of your old life, just that you let go of it. The process begins with surrender (of avoidances), awareness (of who and where we really are) and release (of the old ways of being).

As soon as mindfulness, samma sati, occurs, we find that the mind acts no more; it stops like a witness to watch the inner state. When this watching becomes a constant habit, second nature, the cycle of reacting mindlessly to the environment is broken. In this moment of breakthrough, “seeing” or “awareness” occurs: crystal-clear perception of things as they are, of people, situations and things properly in perspective, free of discriminations, likes and dislikes. From new insight there follows right thinking, right speech and right action, relative and appropriate to each specific circumstance and instance. Then the question of what is absolutely right or absolutely wrong no longer arises.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.

It is not life and wealth and power that enslave men, but the cleaving to life and wealth and power.

Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.

Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity. ~Pride and Prejudice~

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Albert is a very poor student. He is mentally slow, unsociable and is always daydreaming. He is spoiling it for the rest of the class. It would be in the best interests of all if he were removed from school immediately.

If you have nothing nice to say about a person . . . don't say it.

To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

I have lost the consolation of faith / though not the ambition to worship.

You can't always change the feelings you're having but you can always change your thinking.

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.

Vex not thy spirit at the course of things,
They heed not thy vexation.
How ludicrous and outlandish is astonishment
At anything that may happen in life.

Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest.

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.

You simply can’t make someone love you if they don’t. You must choose someone who already loves you. If you choose someone who does not love you, this is the sort of love you must want.

Our greatest prejudice is against death. It spans age, gender and race. We spend immeasurable amounts of energy fighting an event that will eventually triumph. Though it is noble not to give in easily, the most alive people I’ve ever met are those who embrace their death. They love, laugh and live more fully.

Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball -- the further I am rolled the more I gain.

As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be.

Once you accept your own death, all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically to promote a cause you believe in.

The falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.

There is something tenderly appropriate in the serene death of the old. . . . When the duties of life have all been nobly done; when the sun touches the horion; when the purple twilight falls upon the past, the present, and the future; when memory, with dim eyes, can scarcely spell the blurred and faded records of the vanished days--then, surrounded by kindred and by friends, death comes like a strain of music. The day has been long, the road weary, and the traveler gladly stops at the welcome inn.

You always have the choice to take all things evenly, to hold on to nothing, to receive each irritation as if you had only fifteen minutes to live.

There are rules, necessities and duties, and limits, possibilities and impossibilities. Until doom, one can accept them and make the best of them, much to one’s pleasure and honor, or one can do the opposite and suffer the consequences. The choice between these two options is the very essence of freedom.

Perfection is fit for a stone. It may appeal to a wretchedly tired soul in dire need of a rest. Dead, however, would this soul not adopt the opposite stance after a lengthy bout of mineral tranquility? Would it not dream of having a second chance to live and love life?

The meaning of life is not dependent on a particular way of life, but on the conformity of one’s way to the present possibilities. Similarly, a door key is not useful in itself, but in relation to a lock that it opens because it matches it. The key to happiness therefore consists in having our desires match our reality. We are locked out of happiness when we refuse to do this and fiddle in vain with the wrong key – that is, the key to misery

A wild bird put in a cage… grows more and more tame with time, until it finally adapts to captivity and resumes singing. Does this song hold the essence of earthly contentment, which involves confinement? I am alluding to the confines of reality.

My friend, be not like him who sits by his fireside and watches the fire go out, then blows vainly upon the dead ashes. Do not give up hope or yield to despair because of that which is past, for to bewail the irretrievable is the worst of human frailties.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.

Faith in humanity, in posterity, in the destiny of one's religion, nation, race, party or family--what is it but the visualization of that eternal something to which we attach the self that is about to be annihilated?

Everything flows and nothing remains the same. You cannot step in the same river twice.

Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.

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

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life in all their purity.

We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: 'And this, too, shall pass away.' How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well.

To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here--that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

When you see a straight piece of wood, you do not want to make it into a wheel.

The creature born is the creature dying.

Geese are white, crows are black.  No argument will change this. 

As important as "hanging on" is knowing when to let go.

Show me a person who has never made a mistake
and I'll show you somebody who has never achieved much.

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have.

Bromidic though it may sound, some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.

Of course life is bizarre. The more bizarre it gets, the more interesting it is. The only way to approach it is to make yourself some popcorn and enjoy the show.

With the stones we cast at them, genius build new roads for us.

Harvard Law:
Under the most rigidly controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

The essence of man is imperfection.

Try to relax and enjoy the crisis.

Unless I accept my faults, I will most certainly doubt my virtues.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

To succeed, it is necessary to accept the world as it is - and rise above it.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.

Your mind has enormous hidden dimensions. Open yourselves completely to whatever reactions and emotions the world evokes from time to time. Accept them all without any reservation or resentment. By assimilating everything and all, your mind grows deeper, stabler and more enriched.

Living well is the best revenge.

Come, Whoever you are! Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, Come. Ours is not a caravan of despair. It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vow a thousand times, Still come. And yet again, come!

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

As long as we require someone else to make us happy, we are slaves.