The Great Sage says…What? Post a quote or passage

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Here's a few...


The temple bell stops
But the sound keeps coming out of the flowers.

-- Basho


Looking back over these seventy years and more
The human world of good-and-bad
completely dissolves before my gaze
A late-night snowfall blurs
the footsteps of the last passerby
I light a stick of incense
and sit and meditate beside my old window

-- Ryokan, Zen poet



"...like the baseless fabric of vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with sleep."

- Shakespeare, The Tempest

"Sometimes we cry,
merrily the thought,
of rampant Decay."

My words.

"Sanity is not statistical." -Eric Blair

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Krishnamurti.

"42." -The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

-King Solomon

(Ecclesiastes 1:3-11)

I love quotes. Brief little sound snippets are the only way I can understand things. Here are some of my favs.

"He who attains his ideal by that very fact transcends it." - Nietzsche

"That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." -Nietzsche

"But I tell you, all these things you speak of do not exist: there is no devil and no hell. Your soul will be dead even before your body. Therefore: fear nothing more!" -Zarathustra

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin

"Nothing is true - all is permitted." - Hassan-i-Sabbah

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." - Kant

Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.

-- A. E. Housman

If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked long ago.

Though the river tells no lies, the dishonest man standing on the shore still hears them.

A tall man can not hide is short grass.

How deep is the river if you can't see the bottom?

Though a candle burns in my house…there's nobody home.

I'm totally blown away by some of these quotes. Thanks for adding them to my collection of favorite things.

and yes... No Nader! its almost like a set up...

I saw above a sea of hills
A solitary planet shine,
And there was no one near or far
To keep the world from being mine.

-Sarah Teasdale

"After the knowledge of, and obedience to, the will of God, the next aim must be to know something of His attributes of wisdom, power, and goodness as evidenced by His handiwork."

James Prescott Joule

"Speculations? I have none. I am resting on certainties. 'I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.'"

Michael Faraday

" ...This thing [a model of our solar system] is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you, as an atheist, profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?"

Sir Isaac Newton

"From a knowledge of His work, we shall know Him"

Robert Boyle

"Almighty God, Who has created man in Thine own image, and made him a living soul that he might seek after Thee, and have dominion over Thy creatures, teach us to study the works of Thy hands, that we may subdue the earth to our use, and strengthen the reason for Thy service; so to receive Thy blessed Word, that we may believe on Him Who Thou has sent, to give us the knowledge of salvation and the remission of our sins. All of which we ask in the name of the same Jesus Christ, our Lord."

James Clerk Maxwell

"The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator."

Louis Pasteur

"Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us...
the atheistic idea is so non-sensical that I cannot put it into words."

Lord Kelvin

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station,
through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."

George Washington Carver

"Scientific concepts exist only in the minds of men. Behind these concepts lies the reality which is being revealed to us, but only by the grace of God."

Wernher Von Braun

Citizen!
Whence came your voice
your right to speak?
Is there a purpose to your tongue
and gnawing teeth?
I ask thee;
How deep and hollow
is your mouth?
What lie is too decayed
for you to stomach?

With humility and obedience
you pride yourself
Evasive and lukewarm
until the end

Citizen!
The interdependent morality
of your collective
made too soft the bed
in which you lie
I ask Thee;
Do you acknowledge
your own fragility
when you sleep
to serve the "Greater Good"

United in fear
Lives "hard to bear"
Illusions that "we are all peers"

I preach not for understanding
In you I have no faith
I spit at you my truth;
that you are the burden of my heritage

For herein lies the irony
There is neither room
nor air
for the wakeful fire
in your precious world
of equality

Citizen!
You are truly faithful
to tradition
when you crucify
those whose voices burn
Alas
a hundred years from now
you recite and corrupt
their epitaphs
to crucify another

- ihsahn

Capitalization and punctuation, with proper spelling too? I'm shocked! Good job for once!

Some Woody Allen quotes:

"On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down."

"I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."

"My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers. "