"We must enhance the light, not fight the darkness."

~ Aharadon David Gordon

"Indian wisdom says our lives are rivers. We are born somewhere small and quiet and we move toward a place we cannot see, but only imagine. Along our journey, people and events flow into us, and we are created of everywhere and everyone we have passed."

~ Linda Wingate

"It is when we go beyond our edge that we discover the next layer of potential, experience ourselves and our relationship to the world in a new way, and find new meaning to the concept of possibility."

~ Alan Seale

"The change we are looking for is always a change within ourselves. And the change will come. I've noticed that as long as I'm willing to be different, something or someone arrives to show me how."

~ Marianne Williamson
The Age Of Miracles: Embracing The New Midlife

"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."

~ Herbert Simon

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."

~ Richard P. Feynman

"So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you--your relationship with others and with the world--there is nothing else."

~ Krishnamurti

"We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others,
that in the end we become disguised to ourselves." 

~ Francois de la Rochefoucauld

"Feelings are you inner guidance system--your emotional compass. When you allow this compass to direct your actions you build self-trust. When you feel hungry, you eat. When you feel tired, you rest. When you feel lonely, you reach out for a connection to others. In this most basic way your feelings link you with the wisest part of yourself. They tell you what you need to know at any given moment."

~ Cheryl Richardson

"Those who wish to change things may face disappointment, loss, or even ridicule. If you are ahead of your time, people laugh as often as they applaud, and being there first is usually lonely. But our protection cannot come between us and our purpose. Right protection is something within us rather than something between us and the world, more about finding a place of refuge and strength than finding a hiding place." 

~ Rachel Naomi Remen

"Surround yourself only with people who are going to lift you higher."

~ Oprah Winfrey

"The ego is not only the unobserved mind, the voice in the head which pretends to be you, but also the unobserved emotions that are the body's reaction to what the voice in the head is saying."

~ Eckhart Tolle

"Be content with what you have;
Rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking, 
The whole world belongs to you."

~ Lao-Tzu

"How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened." 

~ Thomas Jefferson

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

~ Albert Einstein

"Peace doth not dwell in outward things, but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence, not in an exemption from suffering."

"If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic."

~ Hazel Henderson

"The only justification for ever looking down on somebody is to pick them up."

~ Jesse Jackson

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature."

~ Helen Keller

"Like any other major experience, illness actually changes us. How? Well for one thing we are temporarily relieved from the pressure of meeting the world head on. We enter a world of introspection and self-analysis. We think soberly, perhaps for the first time, about our past and future. Illness gives us that rarest thing in the world--a second chance, not only at health, but at life itself!"

~ Louis E. Bisch, MD

"When we talk about settling the world's problems,
we're barking up the wrong tree.
The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We're not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives."

~ Joseph Campbell

"Although all of us desire happiness, few of us reach that goal because of the seemingly endless cycle of expectation and disappointment."

~ Tarthang Tulku

"The voices inside you
can lead your soul astray
Believe in what you dream
Don't turn away
don't you turn away.
Reach for the light
You might touch the sky
Stand on the mountaintop
and see yourself flying
Reach for the light
to capture a star
Come out of the darkness
and find out who you are."

~ Steve Winwood

"If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once a week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have thus been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness and may possibly be injurious to the intellect and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."

~ Charles Darwin

"Walk out of any doorway
feel your way, feel your way
like the day before
Maybe you'll find direction
around some corner
where it's been waiting to meet you."

~ Robert Hunter

"If you are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace."

~ Thomas Merton

"One of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God."

~ C.G. Jung

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."

~ Rachel Carson

"Happiness cannot be found through great effort and willpower, but is already there, in relaxation and letting go. Nothing to do, nothing to force, nothing to want, and everything happens by itself."

~ Lama Gendun Rinpoche

"Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing that it is not fish that they are after."

~ Henry David Thoreau

"Do not conquer the world with force, for force only causes resistance."

~ Tao Te Ching

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

~ Lord Buddha

"You can map out a light plan or a life plan,
but when the action starts,
it may not go the way you planned,
and you're down to the reflexes
you developed in training.
That's where roadwork shows --
the training you did in the dark of the mornin'
will show when you're under the bright lights."

~ Joe Frazier

"Work and life are an interconnected adventure, guided by the heart, winged with spirit, and nourished by the soul."

~ Ron Rubin & Stuart Avery Gold

"You are merely the lens in the beam. You can only receive, give and posses the light as the lens does... You will know life and be acknowledged by it according to your degree of transparency, your capacity, that is, to vanish as an end, and remain purely a a means.

~ Dag Hammarskjöld

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

~ Anaïs Nin

"How can a man's life keep it's course
If he will not let it flow,
Those who flow as life flows know
They need no other force:
They feel no wear, they feel no tear,
They need no mending, no repair."

~ Lao-tzu

"Normal is someone you don't know very well."

~ Anonymous

"That which distinguishes the new thought from the old is not a denial of this Divine Reality, but an affirmation of its immediate availability."

~ Ernest Holmes

"We always attract into our lives whatever we think about most, believe most, expect on the deepest level, and imagine most vividly."

~ Shakti Gawain

"The law of your mind is the law of belief. This means to believe in the way your mind works, to believe in belief itself."

~ Joseph Murphy

"There was a time when I looked to other people for recognition, because I didn't have enough confidence to trust my own judgment. Now I'm not looking for reassurance, because I realize how fickle people are. My own strength is the best I can have."

~ Annie Lennox

"For most of us, generosity is a quality that must be developed. We have to respect that it will grow gradually; otherwise our spirituality can become idealistic and imitative, acting out the image of generosity before it has become genuine."

~ Jack Kornfield

"In the long run, we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving."

~ Sheldon Kopp

"The grudge you hold on to is like a hot coal that you intend to throw at somebody else, but you're the one who gets burned."

~ The Buddha

"When I look at the world, I'm pessimistic.
But when I look at people, I'm optimistic."

~ Carl Rogers

"Christmas gift suggestions:

To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect."

~ Oren Arnold

"Humans are powerful spiritual beings meant to create good on earth. This good isn't usually accomplished in bold actions, but in
singular acts of kindness between people. It's the little things that count, because they are more spontaneous and show who you truly are."

~ Dannion Brinkley

"If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice."

~ Meister Eckhart 

"Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us."

~ The Dalai Lama

"I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver."

~ Maya Angelou

"When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are,
look within and examine your own self."

~ Confucius

"Some spiritual traditions view the moment of birth as a passage from a state of wholeness and knowledge to a state of forgetting. In this view of the world, we spend the rest of our lives searching for wholeness and knowledge, wellness and health—the balance and harmony we lost when we were born. If our wholeness is interrupted, then our health suffers, and we need to find a way to restore our sense of meaning. When we move in the direction of that meaning, we're healing."

~ Bernie Siegel

"We are not here just to survive and live long .... We are here to live and know life in it's multi-dimensions, to know life in its richness, in all it's variety. And when a man lives multi-dimensionally, explores all possibilities available, never shrinks back from a challenge, goes, rushes to it, welcomes it, rises to the occasion then life becomes a flame, life blooms."

~ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge--that myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts--that hope always triumphs over experience--that laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death."

"Nothing is more natural than grief, no emotion more common to our daily experience. It's an innate response to loss in a world where everything is impermanent."

"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few."

~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

"Choices in a meditator's life are very simple: Do those things that contribute to your awareness, and refrain from those things that do not."

~ Sujata

"How do we know if our practice is a real practice? Only by one thing: more and more, we just see the wonder. What is the wonder? I don't know. We can't know such things through thinking. But we always know it when it's there."

~ Charlotte Joko Beck

"One thing that comes out of myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light."

~ Joseph Campbell

"The world is no more than the Beloved's face. And the desire of the One to know its own beauty, we exist."

~ Ghalib

"Every decision that you make either moves you toward your personality, or toward your soul. Each decision you make is an answer to the question, 'How do you choose to learn love?', 'How do you choose to learn authentic empowerment--through doubt and fear, or through wisdom?'"

~ Gary Zukav

"Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender."

~ Eckhart Tolle

"I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair."

~ Nelson Mandela

"Overcome anger by non-anger, overcome evil by good. Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth."

~ The Dhammapada

"Often we are caught in a mental trap of seeing enormously successful people and thinking they are where they are because they have some special gift. Yet a closer look shows that the greatest gift that extraordinarily successful people have over the average person is their ability to get themselves to take action."

~ Anthony Robbins

"Soul cannot thrive in a fast-paced life because being affected, taking things in and chewing on them, requires time."

~ Thomas Moore

"As I look back at the entire tapestry of my life, I can see from the perspective of the present moment that every aspect of my life was necessary and perfect. Each step eventually led to a higher place, even though these steps often felt like obstacles or painful experiences."

~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

"Intellect and a trained brain-mind are great adjuncts, but they often become barriers to truth and a true expression of Divine Love."

~ Sister Francis Banks 
as channeled by Helen Greaves

"Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to conduct our life in such a way that it reflects deep philosophical and metaphysical understanding of reality and of ourselves discovered through personal experience during systematic spiritual pursuit."

~ Stanislav Grof M.D., Ph.D.

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite."

~ William Shakespeare

"We can go through our whole lives worrying about our future happiness, and totally miss where true peace lives--right here, right now."

~ Peter Russell

"As Benjamin Franklin said, 'Those things that hurt, instruct.' It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually to welcome problems and actually to welcome the pain of problems."

~ M. Scott Peck

"Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals choose the way they think."

~ Martin Seligman