Below is a list of quotes appearing in this site’s sidebar. These are quotes I’ve found wisdom in, whether seemingly mundane, humorous, or morose. A good quote at the right time can be like a bell, spurring one to action, perhaps offering a clue to guide one through the wilderness.

You can use your web browser’s Find tool (CTRL+F) to search through these quotes; entries include quote and when available author and/or source. If there’s a quote you’d like to share, please do so in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.

Study books and observe nature; if they do not agree, throw away the books.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Iterations are fine, we don’t have to be perfect

Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.

We’re all just walking each other home.

If you have to choose between being kind and being right, choose being kind and you will always be right.

Science, engineering, design, and art can together be viewed as a circle where the output of one is the input of another

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself

So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of humankind.

If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

Before a child talks they sing. Before they write they draw. As soon as they stand they dance. Art is fundamental to human expression.

Be humble for you are made of dung. Be noble for you are made of stars.

pressure makes diamonds
we are carbon based beings

The food system: what it takes to get sunshine on your plate

It’s not “food desert”, it’s “food apartheid”. This is a man made system, it’s not a biome that naturally exists out there.

Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.

If you had remained silent, you would have remained a philosopher.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

The letters of the name of G-d in Hebrew are yod, hay, vav and hay. They are frequently mispronounced as ?Yahveh.? But in truth they are unutterable. Not because of the holiness they evoke, but because they are all vowels and you cannot pronounce all the vowels at once without risking respiratory injury. This word is the sound of breathing. The holiest Name in the world, the Name of the Creator, is the sound of your own breathing.

Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.

There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.

The burning logs give back the glow of summer suns of long ago.

“There is no peak.”
“…In the garden of the mind [you can grow things]” – Mr. Rogers
“Every one’s got their own masterpiece.”

Plan, but plan for your plan to be completely changed.

If you think that the store and your job is where your sustenance comes from, you’re going to fight to the death to support that system.
If you think that wild nature is where your sustenance comes from, you’re going to fight to the death to support that system.

The rule of no realm is mine. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, these are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything that passes through this night can still grow fairer or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I too am a steward. Did you not know?

Luck favors the prepared.

…We can even stalk our own weaknesses. You do it in the same way you stalk prey. You figure out your routines until you know all the doing of your weaknesses and then you come upon them and pick them up like rabbits inside a cage.

No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.

The value of information is its capacity to transform oneself to be of greater service to all.

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

If the world were to follow you today, where would you lead them?

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked.
“Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure.”

“The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”
— Ram Dass

empty the mind through mind-full-ness of the moment

Although I am Bodhisattva, I am energy. I am not a
person. Really, the Kwan Yin energy was never in
one single body. It has always been a great part of
the energy of ALL the Universe.

If a dream job is like any other job, then isn’t making all jobs better the dream?

“It’s impossible,” said pride.
“It’s risky,” said experience.
“It’s pointless,” said reason.
“Give it a try,” whispered the heart.

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.

Hoof and horn, hoof and horn, all that dies shall be reborn.
Corn and grain, corn and grain, all that falls shall rise again.

No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.

Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

A good, happy life looks like someone who’s in charge of their life, who’s connected to their community, and who’s doing things that are important to them. It’s not necessarily someone who’s working a 9-5 job, living on their own, meeting all the milestones.

The eye through which I see God is
the same eye through which God
sees me; my eye and God’s eye are
one eye, one seeing, one knowing,
one love.

It is a tree of life to all who grasp it, and whoever holds on to it is happy; its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all it paths are peace.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.

Vultures are holy creatures.
Tending the dead.
Bowing low.
Bared head.
Whispers to cold flesh,
“Your old name is not your king.
I rename you ‘Everything.'”

If this is your work too, we work together.

The story you tell becomes your story. Life meets you where you push it. You become your story.

The sound of crickets gradually prevails more and more. I hear the year falling asleep… Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character?

What a great thing…if we can begin to realize that our differences enrich us, if we can learn to humbly respect those differences, then diversity is something good. Otherwise diversity is just the walls that separate us. So that building of an understanding of how we can bless each other is very important. …Humble, mutual respect.

The seeing through which I know him is the same seeing through which he knows me.