"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god."  

                               William Shakespeare

 We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.

                               Talmudic saying

 The Self cannot be known by the senses,
Nor thought by the mind, nor caught by time.
If you know this, you will not grieve.

                                Bhagavad Gita

 To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think, is to weave them into garlands.

                               Anne Sophie Swetchine

 Knowing means to penetrate through the surface, in order to arrive at the roots, and hence the causes; knowing means to "see" reality in its nakedness. Knowing does not mean to be in the possession of the truth; it means to penetrate the surface and to strive critically and actively in order to approach truth ever more closely.

                              Erich Fromm

We imagine that our mind is a mirror, that it is more or less accurately reflecting what is happening outside us. On the contrary, our mind itself is the principal element of creation. The world, while I am perceiving it, is being incessantly created for myself in time and space.

                              Rabindranath Tagore     

 My mind withdrew its thoughts from experience, extracting itself from the contradictory throng of sensuous images, that it might find out what that light was wherein it was bathed....And thus, with the flash of one hurried glance, it attained to the vision of That Which Is.  

                             Saint Augustine

When you change your patterns of thinking, you change the way you feel about yourself, about others, and about the world. And changing the way you feel enables you to deal more productively with your problems and burdens and to take actions necessary to improve your life.

                              Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose DeWolf

The mind is its own place,
`` and in itself
``can make a heaven of Hell,
`` a hell of Heaven

                               John Milton

 Mind is the creator of everything.  You should therefore guide it to create only good.  If you cling to a certain thought with dynamic will power, it finally assumes a tangible outward form.  When you are able to employ your will always for constructive purposes, you become the controller of your destiny. 

                              Paramahansa Yogananda

 Yield not thy neck To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind
Still ride in triumph over all mischance.

                               William Shakespeare

 Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

                               Seneca

 ...our emotions and our actions are not separate from our thoughts. They are all interrelated. Thinking is the gateway to our emotions--and our emotions are the gateway to our actions.

                              Dr. Arthur Freeman

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

                              Charles Darwin

 "That which makes the mind think, but cannot be

Thought by the mind, that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the eye see, but cannot be

Seen by the eye, that is the Self indeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

That which makes the ear hear, but cannot be

Heard by the ear, that is the Self indeeed.

This Self is not someone other than you.

                                The Kena Upanishad

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

                                  Swami Vivekananda

And do not be conformed to this world, ``but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

                                 Romans 12:2

You need not aspire for or get any new state. Get rid of your present thoughts, that is all.   

                                 Ramana Maharshi

When thoughts arise, then do all things arise. When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.   

                                  Huang Po

 Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

                               Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Clear therefore they head, and rally, and manage thy thoughts rightly, and thou wilt save time, and see and do thy business well; for thy judgment will be distinct, thy mind free, and the faculties strong and regular.

                              William Penn

Thoughts of themselves have no substance; let them arise and pass away unheeded.  Thoughts will not take form of themselves, unless they are grasped by the attention; if they are ignored, there will be no appearing and no disappearing.

                                  Ashvaghosha

Action without thought is like shooting without aim.

                               American proverb

 One love it is that pervades the whole world,
few there are who know it fully:
They are blind who hope to see it by the light of reason,
that reason which is the cause of separation –
The house of reason is very far away!

                                Kabir

 Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

                               Henry David Thoreau

 Reason is like an open secret that can become known to anyone at any time; it is the quiet space into which everyone can enter through his own thought.

                              Karl Jaspers

 The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

                               Marcus Aurelius

 Just because we increase the speed of information doesn't mean we can increase the speed of decisions. Pondering, reflecting and ruminating are undervalued skills in our culture.

                               Dale Dauten

As by knowing one lump of clay, dear one,
We come to know all things made out of clay –
That they differ only in name and form,
While the stuff of which all are made is clay;

As by knowing one gold nugget, dear one,
We come to know all things made out of gold –
That they differ only in name and form,
While the stuff of which all are made is gold;

As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one,
We come to know all things made out of iron –
That they differ only in name and form,
While the stuff of which all are made is iron –

So through spiritual wisdom, dear one,
We come to know that all of life is one.

                             The Chandogya Upanishad

 Man is made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.

                              William James

 A man is what he thinks about all day long.

                               Ralph Waldo Emerson

 We can accomplish almost anything within our ability if we but think that we can! Every great achievement was first carefully thought out...Think--but to a purpose. Think constructively. Think as you read. Think as you listen. Think as you travel and your eyes reveal new situations. Think as you work daily at your desk, or in the field, or while strolling. Think to rise and improve your place in life. There can be no advancement or success without serious thought.

                               George Matthew Adams

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

                              The Buddha

A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth...

Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits, which he requires, so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless, and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers an fruits of right, useful, and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the laws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind-elements operate in shaping his character, circumstances, and destiny.

                             James Allen

 ... because your thoughts -- whether positive or negative -- have a profound effect on what you do, there are times when it is vital to make yourself consciously aware of precisely what you are thinking... Learning how to challenge a conclusion to which your brain has leaped will help you to recognize when that conclusion is unjustified by facts... The time to challenge your thoughts is when you feel yourself getting upset...

                               Dr. Arthur Freeman

 There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much.

Mother Teresa

Thinking is seeing.... Every human science is based on deduction, which is a slow process of seeing by which we work up from the effect to the cause; or, in a wider sense, all poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.

                               Balzac

 It is difficult to distinguish deduction from what in other circumstances is called problem-solving. And concept learning, inference, and reasoning by analogy are all instances of inductive reasoning. (Detectives typically induce, rather than deduce.) None of these things can be done separately from each other, or from anything else. They are pseudo-categories.

                               Frank Smith

 Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice.
Better than knowledge is meditation.
But better still is surrender in love,
Because there follows immediate peace.

                              Bhagavad Gita

Let all our employment be to know God; the more one knows him, the more one desires to know him. And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love; and if our love of God were great, we should love him equally in pains and pleasures.

                            Brother Lawrence

 "I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right."  

                           Albert Einstein

 Those who depart from this world without knowing who they are or what they truly desire have no freedom here or hereafter.

But those who leave here knowing who they are and what they truly desire have freedom everywhere, both in this world and in the next.

                             The Chandogya Upanishad

We satisfied ourselves the other day that there was no real ill in life except severe bodily pain; everything else is the child of the imagination, and depends on our thoughts. All other ills find a remedy either from time, or moderation, or strength of mind.

                               Marquise de Sevigne

The struggle of the mind to keep itself free from every sort of bondage--to remain curious, open, unsatiated in all its relations with nature--is tenfold more difficult than the cultivation of a stable, satisfying point of view, but a thousandfold more precious.

                               Gardner Murphy

 Know the Self as lord of the chariot,
The body as the chariot itself,
The discriminating intellect as
The charioteer, and the mind as the reins.
The senses, say the wise, are the horses;
Selfish desires are the roads they travel.
When the Self is confused with the body,
Mind, and senses, they point out, he seems
To enjoy pleasure and suffer sorrow.

                            The Katha Upanishad

 "A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

 This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."  

                             Albert Einstein

"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked; it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
 

                              Franz Kafka

The senses derive from objects of sense-perception,
Sense-objects from mind, mind from intellect,
And intellect from ego; ego from undifferentiated
Consciousness, and consciousness from Brahman.
Brahman is the first Cause and last refuge.
Brahman, the hidden Self in everyone,
Does not shine forth. He is revealed only
To those who keep their minds one-pointed
On the Lord of Love and thus develop
A superconscious manner of knowing.
Meditation empowers them to go
Deeper and deeper into consciousness,
From the world of words to the world of thought,
Then beyond thoughts to wisdom in the Self.

                          The Katha Upanishad

 Those who know do not speak;
Those who speak do not know.
Stop up the openings,
Close down the doors,
Rub off the sharp edges.
Unravel all confusion.
Harmonize the light,
Give up contention:
This is called finding the unity of life.

                          Lao Tzu

A thought that does not result in action is nothing much, and an action that does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.

                          Georges Bernanos

 I make no distinction between the mind and the spirit, and therefore no distinction between the process of achieving spiritual growth and achieving mental growth. They are one and the same.

                               M. Scott Peck

"Him our eyes cannot see, nor words express;

He cannot be grasped even by our mind.

We do not know, we cannot understand,

Because he is different from the known

And he is different from the unknown.

                              The Kena Upanishad

“Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.

Let them look up and see no longer me but only Jesus! Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine: it will be You shining on others through me.

Let me thus praise You in the way You love best: by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching, not by words, but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. Amen.”

                               Mother Teresa

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