In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.

Lord Chesterfield

Few people have the imagination for reality.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

Goethe

Thank you for your criticism of me

A monkey on a tree hurled a coconut and the head of a Sufi.
The man picked it up, drank the milk, at the flesh, and made a bowl from the shell.

Anthony De Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 163

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

Carl Jung

Pay attention to episodes in nature that kindle an inner spark of awe and admiration. You don't have to discuss it with another being. If it has meaning to you, it's valid.

Wayne Dyer in "Your Ultimate Calling" page 23

Understanding comes when you investigate, when you enquire, when you search out, which requires care, consideration, thought, affection.

Krishnamurti,  Bombay 13th March, 1948

The Religious Man

But the religious man is he who, through self-knowledge, begins to discover his conditioning and to break through it; and the breaking through is not a matter of time.

Krishnamurti Poona 6th Public Talk 24th September 1958

Remembrance

The remembrance of yesterday only darkens today, and comparison prevents perception. How lovely were those red and yellow flowers ! Loveliness is not of time. We carry our burdens from day to day, and there is never a day without the shadow of many yesterdays. Our days are one continuous movement, yesterday mingling with today and tomorrow; there is never an ending. We are frightened of ending; but without ending, how can there be the new? Without death, how can there be life? And how little we know of either!

Krishnamurti in "Commentaries on Living Series I" Satisfaction

How free would you be if you just didn't care what others thought or felt about you?

Scott Shaw

Have nothing

If you want to have the whole world, have nothing. If you are always busy doing something, you cannot enjoy the world.

Tao Te Ching trans. John R Mabry

Only a quiet mind can understand

It is only when the mind is silent that we can understand anything. If I want to understand somebody, my mind must be quiet, not chattering, not prejudiced, not having innumerable opinions and experiences, for they prevent the observation and the understanding. One can see directly that it is only when the mind is very quiet that there is a possibility of clarity;

Krishnamurti

Compassion has no ideology

People are not naturally cruel. They become cruel when thay are unhappy - or when they succumb to an ideology.
If religious people had always followed the instinct of their heart reather than the logic of their religion we would have been spared the sight of heretics burning at stakes, widows walking into funeral pyres, and millions of innocent people slaughtered in wars that are waged in the name of God.
Compassion has no ideology.

Anthony De Mello in "The Song of the Bird" page 152

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.

Michael Jordan

What one has not experienced, one will never understand in print.

Isadora Duncan

Take things as they come along

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Carl Jung

There is no such thing as distraction

So a mind that has the power of concentration, that says it has complete control over thought, is a stupid mind. If that is so, then you must find a way of enquiring which is not merely through concentration. Concentration implies distraction, does it not? The mind takes up a position and says everything else is a distraction. It says I must think about this and exclude everything else. Now to me there is no such thing as distraction because there is no central position which the mind takes and then says: I will pursue this and not that. So let us remove both the word and the condemnatory feeling of distraction. Please experience what I am saying. Remove that word distraction not merely verbally but emotionally, inwardly. Then you will see what happens to your mind. To us at present there is concentration and distraction, a concentrated outlook and a wandering off. So you see we have created a duality, and therefore a conflict. You spend your life battling between the chosen thought and the distractions, and when you can get an hour when you are completely held by an idea you feel you have achieved something. But if you remove this idea of distraction altogether then you will find that your mind is in a state of reaction - in a state of association which you call "wandering". That is the fact, and you have removed the element of conflict. Then you are free to deal with the wanderings; you can enquire as to why the mind wanders and not merely try to stop it, to control it. Then, since you have removed the word, the feeling of being distracted, what is now operating is a mind that is attentive to the wandering, to reaction.

Krishnamurti Collected Works, Poona 4th Public Talk 17th September 1958

Remain with a feeling

Try remaining with the feeling of hate, with the feeling of envy, jealousy, with the venom of ambition; for after all, that's what you have in daily life, though you may want to live with love, or with the word `love'. Since you have the feeling of hate, of wanting to hurt somebody with a gesture or a burning word, see if you can stay with that feeling. Can you? Have you ever tried? Try to remain with a feeling, and see what happens. You will find it amazingly difficult. Your mind will not leave the feeling alone; it comes rushing in with its remembrances, its associations, its do's and don'ts, its everlasting chatter. Pick up a piece of shell. Can you look at it, wonder at its delicate beauty, without saying how pretty it is, or what animal made it? Can you look without the movement of the mind? Can you live with the feeling behind the word, without the feeling that the word builds up? If you can, then you will discover an extraordinary thing, a movement beyond the measure of time, a spring that knows no summer.

Krishnamurti in Commentaries On Living Series III Chapter 37 Aloneness Beyond Loneliness

Age

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain