My Favorite Quotes: words to inspire us to action & contemplation
Delphi Inscriptions from 7 sages (circa 550 BC)	Know Thyself. Nothing Too Much. E — Inscriptions at Delphi In Protagoras 343a, Socrates lists the Seven Sages as Thales, Pittacus, Bias, Solon, Cleobulus, Myson, and Chilon. In Protagoras 343b, he cites the Delphi maxims: "Know thyself" and "Nothing overmuch". Plutarch (46-119 AD), the last priest at Delphi has written a treatise "The E at Delphi", exploring mystery of the letter E.
Sappho (630 BC-570 BC)	as the sweetapple reddens on a high branch, high on the highest branch and the applepickers forgot— no, not forgot: were unable to reach. — Poem 105a (translated by Anne Carson in Eros the Bittersweet, 1986) Long hereafter shall thy name Be recalled through foreign lands, And thou be a part of sorrow When the Linus songs are sung. (Epilogue, Sappho: 100 Lyrics by Bliss Carman, 1904)
Lao Tzu (604 BC-517 BC)	Knowing others, one is learned; Knowing thyself, one is enlightened. Conquering others requires force; Conquering oneself requires strength. Knowing contentment, one is rich; Having perseverance, one is firm; Abiding in the center, one endures; Even in dying, one enjoys eternal life. — Tao Te Ching, XXXIII (translated by PYC, 1988) (translated by Stephen Mitchell, 1988)
Pythagoras (570 BC-495 BC)	5. Of all the rest of mankind, make him thy friend       who distinguishes himself by his virtue. 12. But above all things respect thyself. 39. Moderation in all things is most excellent. 41. Never sleep before going over the acts of the day in thy mind. 42. Wherein have I done wrong? What have I done? What have I left undone? 63. But take courage; the race of man is divine. 64. Holy Nature shows them all her mysteries. 69. Take the Supreme Mind as thy guide       (who must ever direct and restrain thy course). 71. Thou shalt be a God, immortal, incorruptible. — Golden Verses of Pythagoras
Gautama Buddha (563 BC-483 BC)	All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. — Dhammapada, Verse 2 (Ch. I: The Twin Verses)     translated by Irving Babbit (1965) If one man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand men,     and if another conquers himself, he is the greatst of conquerors. — Dhammapada, Verse 103 (Ch. VIII: The Thousands) There is no happiness higher than peace. — Dhammapada, Verse 202 (Ch. XV: Happiness)
Confucius (551 BC-479 BC)	The Master said, "At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right." — Confucian Analects 2:4 There were four things from which the Master was entirely free. He had no foregone conclusions, no arbitrary predeterminations, no obstinacy, and no egoism. — Confucian Analects 9:4
Heraclitus (540 BC-480 BC)	8. I have searched myself. 19. Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find truth,       for it is hard to discover and hard to attain. 21. You cannot step twice into the same river, for other       waters are continually flowing on. 40. The fairest universe is but a heap of rubbish pile up at random. 42. You could not discover the limits of soul, even if you traveled       every road to do so; such is the depth of its meaning. 69. A man's character is his guardian divinity. 106. To God all things are beautiful, good, and right;         men deem things right and others wrong. — Heraclitus      Translated by Philip Wheelwright (1959)
Plato (428 BC-348 BC)	There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself. — Seventh Letter (360 B.C.)     Translated by J. Harward • Laws 816b— "Emmelia, the dance of peace" • Timaeus 41d— "each soul assigned to a star" • Philebus 16cd— "seeing one in the many & many in the one"
Mencius (371 BC-289 BC)	The sage is he who does not lose his child's-heart. — Works of Mencius IVB: 12 A man who commands our liking is what is called a good man. 'He whose goodness is part of himself is what is called real man. 'He whose goodness has been filled up is what is called beautiful man. He whose completed goodness is brightly displayed is called a great man. 'When this great man exercises a transforming influence, he is called a sage. 'When the sage is beyond our knowledge, he is what is called a man of the spirit.' — Works of Mencius VIIB: 25
Chuang Tzu (369 BC-286 BC)	Limited by space, a frog in the well has no idea what is the ocean. Limited by time, an insect in summer has no idea what is ice. Limited by intellect, a man in life has no idea what is Consciousness. — Chuang Tzu, Ch. XVII: Autumn Floods To have attained to the human form must be always a source of joy. And then, to undergo countless transitions, with only the infinite to look forward to— what incomparable bliss is that! Therefore it is that the truly wise rejoice in that which can never be lost, but endures always. — Chuang Tzu, Ch. VI: The Great Supreme • Poetry Anthology (3-5-2007) • On Peace & Repose (3-8-2003)
Horace (65 BC-8 BC)	Begin— Be bold, and venture to be wise. — Epistles: Book I That man lives happy and in command of himself, who from day to day can say I have lived. Whether clouds obscure, or the sun illumines the following day, that which is past is beyond recall. — Carmina, iii:29, 41 I care and pray for what is true and right, and to this I am wholly given. — Epistles: Book I.11
Jesus Christ (4 BC-29 AD)	And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. — John 8:32 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;     knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;     and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. — Matthew 7:7-8, 12 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child,     the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 18:4
John the Apostle (6-100 AD)	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,     and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him     was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light,     that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. — Gospel of John I.1-9 (75 AD)
Marcus Aurelius (121-180)	All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them; there is scarcely one thing that is isolated from another. Everything is coordinated, everything works together in giving form to one universe. The world-order is a unity made up of multiplicity: God is one, pervading all things; all being is one, all law is one, and all truth is one— if, as we believe, there can be but one path to perfection for beings that are alike in kind and reason. — Meditations VII:9 Withdraw into yourself. Our master reason asks no more than to act justly, and thereby to achieve calm. — Meditations VII:28
Plotinus (204-270)	Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful; he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine... Never did eye see the sun unless it had first become sunlike, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful. — The First Ennead (250 AD)     Sixth Tractate, Part 9, "On Beauty"     translated by Stephen MacKenna
Hui-Neng (638-713)	Bodhi originally has no tree, The mirror also has no stand, Buddha nature is always clear, Where can the dust gather? — The Platform Sutra, Section 8 (780)      (verse by illiterate rice-pounder Hui-Neng that      made him the Sixth Zen Patriarch by Hongren)      translated by Philip B. Yampolsky (1967), p. 132 Not thinking of good or evil, this moment here and now— What is your original face before your parents were born? — The Platform Sutra, Section 11 (p. 134)      (Hui-Neng's koan that enlightened Hui-ming)
Chou Tun-yi (1017-1073)	Sincerity is the foundation of the sage. — Penetrating the Book of Changes, Ch. 1 The way of the sage is nothing but humanity, virtue, harmony, and rectitude. Preserve it and it will be ennobling. Practice it and it will be beneficial. Prolong it and it will match Heaven and Earth. Is it not easy and simple? Is it hard to know? If so, it is because we do not preserve, practice, and prolong it. — Penetrating the Book of Changes, Ch. 6
Chu Hsi (1130-1200)	If one makes no progress in his study, it is simply because he lacks courage. — Chin-ssu lu, II.37 Difficulties improve a person because they help him discriminate moral values carefully and they make his sensitivity greater. This is why Mencius said, "Men who have the wisdom of virtue and the knowledge of skill are always found to have experienced great difficulties." — Chin-ssu lu, II.87 ("The Essentials of Learning")
Lu Hsiang-shan (1139-1193)	The four directions plus upward and downward constitute the spatial continuum. What has gone by in the past and what is to come in the future constitute the temporal continuum. The universe is my mind, and my mind is the universe. —Hsiang-shanch'uan-chi, Section 13     (cited by Wing-Tsit Chan in A Source Book     in Chinese Philosophy, 1963, p. 579) • Lu Hsiang-shan's Quotes • 1944 Book by Siu-chi Huang • Poem: "Elephant Rock" (11-5-1993) • Poem: "Ascension"(10-2-2007) • Poem: "Wonder" (3-11-2016)
St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)	Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. — "Prayer of Peace"
Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273)	Quatrain #82 (circa 1250 A.D.) Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the earth. Quatrain #1246 The minute I heard my first love story I began searching for you, not knowing how foolish that was. True lovers are not out there somewhere, but in each other all along. Rubaiyat #178a In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)	Within a single volume, bounded by love I saw the scattered leaves of all the universe— Substance and accidents, and their relations, As though together fused in such a way That what I speak of is a single light. The universal form of this commingling I think I saw, for when I tell of it My heart rejoice so much the more... Too feeble for such flights were my own wings; But by a lightning flash my mind was struck— And thus came the fulfilment of my wish. My power now failed that phantasy sublime; My will and my desire were both revolved, As in a wheel in even motion driven, By Love, which moves the sun and other stars. — Paradiso, XXXIII, 85-93, 139-145 (1321)
Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499)	What is in itself mortal, through history attains immortality; what is absent becomes present, what is ancient becomes new. A young man quickly matches the full development of the old; and if an old man of seventy is considered wise because of his experience of life, much wiser is he who covers a span of a thousand or three thousand years. For each man seems to have lived for as many thousands of years as the span of history he has studied. Once more, farewell. — Letter 23 to Jacop Bracciolini Meditations on the Soul: Selected Letters of Marsilio Ficino (1996) Read this passage to my Dad on his deathbed as he was a historian (12-13-2000)
Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529)	The mind of the sage is like a clear mirror. Since it is all clarity, it responds to all stimuli as they come and reflects everything. There is no such case as a previous image still remaining in the present reflection or a yet-to-be-reflected image already existing there... a sage does a thing when the time comes. The only fear is that the mirror is not clear, not that it is incapable of reflecting a thing as it comes. The study of changing conditions and events is to be done at the time of response. — Ch'uan-hsi lu (1518), Part I.21 • Poem: "Homage to Wang Yang Ming" (1-9-1979)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)	O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping! — As You Like It, III.2.68 (Celia to Rosalind) The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth,     from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. — A Midsummer Night's Dream, V.i.15-19 (1595)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)	Philosophy is written in this grand book, which stands continually open before our eyes— the Universe, but can not be understood without first learning to comprehend the language and know the characters as it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which it is impossible to humanly understand a word; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth. — Il Saggiatore (Rome, 1623) • Poem: "Linkage of Souls of Scientific Geniuses" (3-14-2018) Galileo died 1/8/1642, Stephen Hawking born 1/8/1942, exactly 300 years after Galileo died. Newton was born the year Galileo died (1642); Einstein was born the year Maxwell died (1879); It's all chance and coincidence, but perhaps there is a linkage of scientific souls?
Isaac Newton (1642-1727)	I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. — David Brewster. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, & Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) • Simon Schaffer, "Newton on the Beach" (1-14-2008) • William R. Newman, "Newton and Alchemy" (5-5-2004) • Newton's Prism: From the One Flows the Many (1-29-2013)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)	Before instructing others, one should have inner enlightenment... The task I had set myself called for long and tranquil meditations... "Know Thyself" at the Delphi Temple was not such an easy precept to observe as I had thought in my Confessions. — Reveries of the Solitary Walker (1776), Fourth Walk, p. 63 My meditations and reveries are never more delightful than when I can forget myself. I feel transports of joy and inexpressible raptures in becoming fused as it were with all beings and identifying myself with the whole of nature. — Reveries of the Solitary Walker (1776), Seventh Walk, p. 111 • Rousseau's Letter to Voltaire (August 18, 1756)
Matsuo Basho (1716-1784)	Go to the pine or bamboo if you want to learn about the pine or bamboo. Leave your ego behind, otherwise you impose yourself on the object and do not learn. Your poetry comes naturally when you have become one with the object. When you plunge deep into the object, you'll see a hidden glimmering there. — Kawazu Awase (1686) Basho's Japanese Haiku: Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto Translation (Alan Watts): The old pond, A frog jumps in: Plop!
Goethe (1749-1832)	Chorus Mysticus All things corruptible Are but a parable; Earth's insufficiency Here finds fulfilment; Here the ineffable Wins life through love; Eternal Feminine Leads us above. — Faust, Part II, Act V, Closing Lines • Poem: "Meeting Goethe in Heidelberg" (12-13-2007)
William Blake (1757-1827)	Poetry Painting & Music: the three Powers in Man of conversing with Paradise which the flood did not sweep away. — A Vision of the Last Judgment (1810) To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower. Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. — Auguries of Innocence (1794) • "Exploring Silicon Valley"
Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805)	Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy" (1803) inspired Beethoven's choral Ninth Symphony (1824) Joy, beautiful spark of gods, Daughter of Elysium, We enter, drunk with fire, Heavenly one, thy sanctuary! Thy magic binds again What custom strictly divided; All people become brothers, Where thy gentle wing abides... All creatures drink of joy... O you millions, I embrace you. Here's a joyful kiss for all!
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)	dun dun dun DUN ! — Opening four notes of Fifth Symphony (1808) telling us to wake up, wake up! The spirit must rise from the earth, in which for a time the divine spark is confined, and much like the field to which ploughman entrusts precious seed, it must flower and bear many fruits, and, thus multiplied, rise again towards the source from which it has flown. For only by persistent toil of the faculties granted to them do created things revere the creator of infinite Nature. — Conversation with Johann Stumpff (1824)
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)	Tintern Abbey (1798), lines 93-102— To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. — "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,       On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798"
John Keats (1795-1821)	If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all. — "Letter to John Taylor" (February 27, 1818) Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone — "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (May 1819) A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. — "Endymion, Book I", Lines 1-5 (1818)
Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)	God is within us; it is that inner presence which makes us admire the beautiful, which rejoices us when we have done right and consoles us for not sharing the happiness of the wicked. It is that, beyond a doubt, which constitutes the inspiration of men of genius and which warms them at the spectacle of their own productions. There are men of virtue as there are men of genius; the one group and the other are inspired and favored by God. — Journal, Augerville, October 12, 1862 • Illumination of Eugène Delacroix (10-12-2001) • Visit to Delacroix's Studio at 6, Rue de Fürstenberg, Paris, (August 1979)
Honoré Balzac (1799-1850)	Jesus was a specialist. He saw the deed in its roots and in its products; in the past, which begot it; in the present, where it is manifested; in the future, where it develops; his sight penetrated the understanding of others. The perfection of the inward sight gives birth to the gift of specialism. When the whole race shall have attained to Cosmic Consciousness, our idea of God shall be realized in man. — Louis Lambert (1832) • Chapter 12 on Balzac in Richard Bucke's Cosmic Consciusness (1901) • Visit to Maison de Balzac, 47, rue Raynouard, Paris (August 1979)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)	All true greatness must come from internal growth. — Journal, October 17, 1832 Blessed is the day when the youth discovers that Within and Above are synonyms. — Journal, Dec. 21, 1834 Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. — Journal, August 1847 The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. — Essays: First Series, "Circles" (1841) • Emerson: Enlightened Sage" (5-25-2003)
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)	Who knows what sort of life would result if we had attained to purity? If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity I would go to seek him forthwith. "A command over our passions, and over the external senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by the Ved to be indispensable in the mind's approximation to God." Yet the spirit can for the time pervade and control every member and function of the body, and transmute what in form is the grossest sensuality into purity and devotion. The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it. Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open. — Walden, "Higher Laws", Chapter 11 • Emerson & Thoreau (6-6-2000)
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)	For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. — "Locksley Hall", Lines 119-128, 141-144 • Chapter 16 on Tennyson in Richard Bucke's Cosmic Consciusness (1901) • Visionary poem on aerial combat & United Nations in "Locksley Hall" (1842)
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)	Poem 288 (1861) I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you— Nobody— too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise— you know. How dreary— to be— Somebody! How public— like a Frog— To tell one's name— the livelong June— To an admiring Bog! • Emily's Poetry Anthology (2-20-2007) • Emily's definition of poetry (11-29-2003) • Emily on alchemy & Philosopher's Stone (5-1-2008)
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)	To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread     with the same, Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same. To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim— the rocks— the motion of the     waves— the ships with men in them, What stranger miracles are there? — Leaves of Grass, Section 8 "Miracles" (1860), p. 220 • Whitman Camden Conversations (1888-1892) • Notes to Poem: "Song of the Self" (2-4-2009)
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)	Alone on a hillside of heather, I lay with dark thoughts in my mind, In the midst of the beautiful weather I was deaf, I was dumb, I was blind. I knew not the glories around me, I counted the world as it seems, Till a spirit of melody found me, And taught me in visions and dreams. No mortal can utter the beauty That dwells in the song that they sing; They move in the pathway of duty, They follow the steps of their King. I would barter the world and its glory, That vision of joy to prolong, Or to hear and remember the story That lies in the heart of their song. — "To the Air of Lörelei", Stanza 1 & 4 (Aberdeen, 1-20-1858)
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)	Love all God's creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal. — The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)	What is the most important thing in art? Sincerity? Truth? The most important thing in art is a sense of measure. — Yasnaya Polyana Notebooks, September 25, 1907 Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression. Art is a human activity— that one man consciously by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are touched by these feelings and also experience them. — What is Art? Ch. V (1898)
Rabindrath Tagore (1861-1941)	On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.,, On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the patess sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children. — Gitanjali (Song Offerings) Verse #60 (1912), Stanzas 1 & 5 • Tagore & Einstein on nature of reality (July 14, 1930) • Tagore Poems on Peace (3-17-2003)
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)	I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core. — "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"       from The Rose (1893) • "Sailing to Byzantium" (1928 poem) • Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1890-1914)
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)	I can't give you any advice but this: to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create. Accept that answer, just as it is given to you, without trying to interpret it. Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside. For the creator must be a world for himself and must find everything in himself and in Nature, to whom his whole life is devoted. — Letters to a Young Poet, Letter One: Paris, February 17, 1903 • "Sonnets to Orpheus II.29" (1921) • "Winged Energy of Delight" (1924) • "First Poem in Paris" (2-14-2007)
James Joyce (1882-1941)	and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. — Ulysses, Ending (1st edition, 1922) Random House, NY (1946), p. 768 • Beginning of Finnegans Wake— "riverrun, past   Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay"
Robert Frost (1874-1963)	Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. — "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1922) • "The Road Not Taken" (1915)
Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950)	The idea of time is only in your mind. It is not in the Self. There is no time for the Self. Time arises as an idea after the ego arises. But you are the Self beyond time and space, you exist even in the absence of time and space. — Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (Feb. 7, 1939, pp. 589-590) When you speak of a path, where are you now? and where do you want to go? If these are known, then we can talk of the path. Know first where you are and what you are. There is nothing to be reached. You are always as you really are. But you don't realize it. That is all. — Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (Feb. 17, 1946, p. 167) • Ramana Maharshi: Talks & Insights (9-16-2008)
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)	Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. He is considered successful in our day who gets more out of life than he puts in. But a man of value will give more than he receives. (This was Einstein's reply to a father's request for advice to his son who was going to enter Harvard during their visit to Einstein's Princeton home. — reported in Life, May 2, 1955) • Poetry Anthology (3-6-2007)
Georges Braque (1882-1963)	11. The painter thinks in forms and colors. The object is his poetics. 12. You should not imitate what you want to create. 47. Keep your head clear. Concepts cloud it. 64. Let's not arrive at conclusions! The present, a chance event, will free us. 82. Few people can say, "I am here". They seek themselves       in the past and see themselves in the future. 88. Never join an organization. — Braque's Illustrated Notebooks (1917-1947) You see, I have made a great discovery: I no longer believe in anything. Objects don't exist for me except in so far as a rapport exists between them, and between them and myself. When one attains this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual non- existence— what I can only describe as a state of peace— which makes everything possible & right. Life then becomes a perpetual revelation. — "The Power and Mystery of Georges Braque",       Observer, London, (December 1, 1957).
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)	It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. — "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" (1955) so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. — "The Red Wheelbarrow" (1923) • "The Great Figure" (1921)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)	"On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven" Sweet sounds, oh, beautiful music, do not cease! Reject me not into the world again. With you alone is excellence and peace, Mankind made plausible, his purpose plain. Enchanted in your air benign and shrewd, With limbs a-sprawl and empty faces pale, The spiteful and the stingy and the rude Sleep like the scullions in the fairy-tale. This moment is the best the world can give: The tranquil blossom on the tortured stem. Reject me not, sweet sounds; oh, let me live, Till Doom espy my towers and scatter them, A city spell-bound under the aging sun. — "Sonnet 69" (1941)
e.e. cummings (1894-1962)	love is more thicker than forget more thinner than recall more seldom than a wave is wet more frequent than to fail it is most mad and moonly and less it shall unbe than all the sea which only is deeper than the sea love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky — published January 1939
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)	But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me. — The Little Prince, Ch. 21 (1943) and at night I love to listen to the stars. It is like five hundred million little bells... Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes. And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance! — The Little Prince, Ch. 27 (1943) beyond the diversity of the visible world, a knot divine binding things together — then neither Time nor Space can sunder you, for the gods within whom your unity is stablished laugh at walls & seas. — The Wisdom of the Sands, Ch. 123 (1948)
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)	I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path... The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth... I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. — Speech dissolving Theosophical Society's Order of the Star (8-3-1929) • "On Peace" (Bombay, 5th Public Talk, March 12, 1950) • "What is a religious man?" (Dialogue with Laura Huxley, 1968)
Wei Wu Wei (1895-1986)	Truth is that which lies in a dimension beyond the reach of thought. Whole-mind has no 'thoughts', thoughts are split mind. There is no entity, only a continuum— and that continuum is consciousness. Science is concerned with objects, which are unreal. If it concerned itself     with the subject of the objects it might find out what they really are. — Ask the Awakened (1963), Ch. 8 "Reflections" An awakened sage lives and thinks vertically. If his body is flowing horizontally in the stream of time like the rest of mankind, his mind has acquired the vertical dimension which rises at right-angles from each moment of that time-river... Vertical vision is a consequence, not a method. It cannot be practised. But the understanding of it, its being envisaged, may point towards the state of wisdom from which it will result. — Ask the Awakened (1963), Ch. 16 "Vertical Vision" • Discovering Wei Wu Wei (Cornell 1968 & Stanford 2008)
Paul Brunton (1895-1986)	Mind is in essence the Formless but by reflection the Formed... When Mind is active in knowing and distinguishing one thing from another, it is finite consciousness. When it assumes forms and qualities, it is the things themselves When it is centralized as an individual observer of these presented objects it is the "I". When it is centralized as the observer through the Overself of all the innumerable separate observers it is World-Mind. When it is passively at rest, it is itself, Mind. The universe cannot help eventually but move from the Many to the One. This is why all life tends to the grand climax of blessed unity in the end. — Wisdom of the Overself (1943), p. 194 The distinguishing quality of Mind is a continuous stillness, whereas that of World-Mind is a continuous activity. In the one there is absolutely nothing whereas in the other there is an infinite array of universes. (Part 4, 1.44). — Notebooks of Paul Brunton, Vol. 16 (1988), p. 8 • Conversation with Paul Brunton (Corseaux sur Vevey, Switzerland, 10-26-1978)
Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980)	VIII Ends of the earth join tonight with blazing stars upon their meeting. These sons,        these sons fall burning into Asia. IX Time comes into it. Say it.        Say it. The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. — "The Speed of Darkness" (1992) • Poem: "The Universe Is Made of Stories" (12-9-2010)
Robert Lax (1915-2000)	(life) is not holy because it is beautiful it is beautiful because it is holy — A Thing That Is, Poem 27 (1997) • Steve T. Georgiou's Talk on Robert Lax (10-4-2005)
Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)	5. I am the golden eternity in mortal animate form. 8. You are the golden eternity because there is no me     and no you, only one golden eternity. 13. This is the knowledge that sees the golden eternity        in all things, which is us, you, me,        and which is no longer us, you, me. 18. There is a blessedness surely to be believed,        and that is that everything abides        in eternal ecstasy, now and forever. 65. This is the first teaching from the golden eternity. 66. The second teaching from the golden eternity is        that there never was a first teaching        from the golden eternity. So be sure. — The Scripture of the Golden Eternity (1970)
Mary Oliver (1935-2019)	Attention is the beginning of devotion. — "Upstream" in Blue Iris (2004) Are there trees near you, and does your own soul need comforting? Quick, then— open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song may already be drifting away. — "Such Singing in the Wild Branches" (2003) • Robert Bly: Mary Oliver's Poems (5-7-2008) • Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings (4-20-2013) • Poem: "Speculations on the Soul" (1-8-2006) • Poem: "What Will You Do with the Rest of Your Wild Life?" (10-6-2008)

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