41 Random Quotes

What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?

The bad news is you are falling through the air; nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there is no ground.

— Chögyam Trungpa

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.

— Unknown

We all tell little lies, and we all think that maybe they're harmless, and we all find out that they're not harmless after all, and some of us fail to lie ever again and some of us get addicted to the stuff because it leads to interesting situations. Lying, unfortunately, is NOT *good* or *evil* — but it is indicative. Are you the kind of person who takes shortcuts — or the kind of person who learns how to savor the work involved in telling the truth?

— Srini Kumar «unamerican.com»

I guess that the source of all suffering is a sense of separation between you and everything else. That separation is always fictitious but that fiction is always very powerful. Sometimes, you kneel before it. It is a fiction, though, and it has to be dissolved like all other fictions.

— Leonard Cohen «Having Lunch With Leonard Cohen, Sabotage Times»

Breathe, motherfucker!

— Wim Hof

Every kind of addiction is bad, no matter whether the drug be alcohol, morphine or idealism.

— Carl Jung

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and it looks like work.

— Thomas Edison

To imagine one can live in the country of money and preserve one’s soul is like imagining one can preserve one’s life at the bottom of a lake.

— Kondiaronk «via The Dawn of Everything
» in #teaching & #wilding

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.

— Laozi

All the problems of the world can be solved in a garden.

— Geoff Lawton

The soul should always stand ajar.

— Emily Dickinson

The only Zen you find on tops of mountains is the Zen you bring there.

— Robert Pirsig

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

— Napoleon Bonaparte in #crying & #reflecting

Not blind opposition to progress, but opposition to blind progress.

— John Muir

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

— William Blake

Those in power write the history, while those who suffer write the songs.

— Frank Harte «Via Glen Hansford in Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming
» in #breaking & #making

Security is achieved through openness. Take things apart and play with them… exposing bad security is what protects us all.

— Deviant Ollam «DEFCON 13»

We are trying to make the world a better place, but that is not necessarily what we accomplish. Many of the problems which preoccupy us are basically insoluble.

— George Soros

A lot of scary futures are showing themselves to us today: totalitarianism, social breakdown, ecological collapse, civil conflict. People want to know, will these really happen? What will the next year bring? Let us take ownership of those questions. Yes, what is going to happen? Let us no longer ask. Let us tell.

— Charles Eisenstein «How it is Going to Be»

I can't myself raise the wind that might blow us, or this ship, into a better world. But at least I can put up the sail so that when the wind comes, I can catch it.

— E.F. Schumacher «Good Work»

Nothing tastes as good as being healthy feels.

— Dana Spencer Shute «Zeroing In On Health»

… we're just fucking monkeys in shoes.

— Tim Minchin «Confessions»

Trust in Allah, but tether your camel first …

— Osho «The Wisdom of the Sands»

There are two ways to escape the suffering. The first is easy for many: accept the Inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the Inferno, are not Inferno then make them endure, give them space.

— Italo Calvino «via Bruce Sterling
» in #daring & #healing

Toking is also the most popular method of consuming marijuana, thus clove cigarettes may serve as a gateway drug to addictive substances.

— Unknown

I get asked, “Doesn't it bother you when people call you a Nazi?” No, and for a very simple reason: no one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and ravished by someone dressed as a liberal.

— P.J. O'Rourke

… his lips drink water but his heart drinks wine …

— e.e. cummings

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

— Pablo Picasso

Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.

— Linus Torvalds

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force! Like fire, it is a troublesome servant and a fearful master.

— George Washington

Ever notice that “what the hell” is always the right decision?

— Marilyn Monroe

Human life is gradually turning from a struggle against suffering into a struggle against pleasure.

— Gurwinder Bhogal «@gurwinder» in #crying & #teaching

Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do, friends can do better. In so many ways a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.

— Kevin Kelly «68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice»

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine,
Under every grief and pine,
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so,
We were made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know,
Through the world we safely go.

— William Blake «via Anna Banas» in #healing & #teaching

And you commit yourself to say all right, I'm not going to do any extensive damage here until I know what it is that you are asking of me. And this can't be hurried. This is the dreadful situation that young people are in. I think of them and I say well, the situation you're in now is a situation that's going to call for a lot of patience. And to be patient in an emergency is a terrible trial.

— Wendell Berry «Interview with Bill Moyers»

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

— Carl Sagan in #making & #teaching

I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.

— Banksy «banksy.co.uk»

I don’t know, but I’m willing to take a look with you.

— Peter Crone «The Human Upgrade Podcast
» in #teaching

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

— Joseph Campbell

I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.

— Anaïs Nin