All things move and change and are impermanent like clouds, They may be likened to a flash of lightning. They are like a dewdrop on a blade of grass, and deceptive like an empty fist; They have no essence and no self, and lack intrinsic existence in every way.
- Buddha, The Play in Full (Lalitavistara)
If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.
- Margaret Thatcher
Everything and everyone around me is on edge and ready to quit and walk away from their career and lifestyle. It feels like something is about to break and change everything very quickly
When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.
- Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
- Thomas Jefferson
Whoever doesn’t flare up at someone who’s angry wins a battle hard to win.
- Akkosa Sutta: Insult
Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn't come from a store.
- Dr. Seuss
Flowers fall with our attachment, and weeds spring up with our aversion.
- Dogen Zenji, Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are by Jack Kornfield
Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.
- Agatha Christie
Those who mistake the unessential to be essential and the essential to be unessential, dwelling in wrong thoughts, never arrive at the essential.
- Yamakavagga: Pairs
We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
- E. M. Forster
The tremendous danger is that this belief – that genuine happiness comes only from pleasant feelings – becomes a strong motivation to stay closed to anything unpleasant. But by staying closed to all unpleasantness, we also stay closed to our own wellspring of compassion.
- Joseph Goldstein, A Heart Full Of Peace
Quality is not an act, it is a habit.
- Aristotle
Just as a mother would protect her only child with her life even so let one cultivate a boundless love towards all beings.
- Karaniya Metta Sutta: The Discourse on Loving-kindness
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
- John Lennon
Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don’t serve them tea.
- Shunryu Suzuki, quoted by David Chadwick, Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuk
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.
- Dag Hammarskjold
Better it is to live one day wise and meditative than to live a hundred years foolish and uncontrolled.
- Sahassavagga: The Thousands
All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people.
- Alexis Carrel
When pure gold is covered by dirt it is not obvious that it is gold, even though this dirt is temporary. But once it is removed we realize that the gold is gold. In the same way, when our confusion is purified, the wisdom which is our basic wakefulness is made manifest.
- Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, Repeating the Words of the Buddha
