“We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.”
— Hannah Arendt
“It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
— George Carlin
“Enlightenment does not perfect the personality - only the point of view.”
— Stephen Levine
“Following religion or spirituality blindly and without heart is like eating the menu instead of the meal.”
— Abdi Assadi
“Learn to spend time alone without numbing. ”
— Abdi Assadi
“This could be our revolution: to love what is plentiful as much as what’s scarce.”
— Alice Walker
“Those who don’t want to change, let them sleep.”
— Rumi
“People are so alienated from their own soul that when they meet their soul they think it comes from another star system.”
— Terence McKenna
“Take away the me, so only you remain.”
— Al-Hallaj
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
— Rudyard Kipling
“Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled, made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? Dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change.”
— Rudyard Kipling
“America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers.”
— William S. Burroughs
“Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.”
— Angelus Silesius
“When the mind is at peace, the world too is at peace. Nothing real, nothing absent. Not holding on to reality, not getting stuck in the void, you are neither holy nor wise, just an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.”
— Layman P’ang
“God, whose love and joy are present everywhere, can’t come to visit you unless you aren’t there.”
— Angelus Silesius
“Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go. The screen is real, the pictures are mere shadows on it.”
— Ramana Maharshi
“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Half of life is lost in charming others. The other half is lost in going through anxieties caused by others. Leave this play, you have played enough.”
— Rumi
“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.”
— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
“Future generations will look back on TV as the lead in the water pipes that slowly drove the Romans mad.”
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
— Will Rogers