R P > R's Quotes

“Don't believe everything you read or hear, remember a large part of our world is made up of fiction!!”
― Victoria Addino

“ The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council

“Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.”
― Lao Tzu

“Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.”
― Lao Tzu

“Take any emotion—love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. “But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment’.”
― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

“The universe is so unhuman, that is, it goes its way with so little thought of man. He is but an incident, not an end. We must adjust our notions to the discovery that things are not shaped to him, but that he is shaped to them. The air was not made for his lungs, but he has lungs because there is air; the light was not created for his eye, but he has eyes because there is light. All the forces of nature are going their own way; man avails himself of them, or catches a ride as best he can. If he keeps his seat, he prospers; if he misses his hold and falls, he is crushed.”
― John Burroughs, The Light of Day (Volume 11); Religious Discussions and Criticisms from the Naturalist's Point of View

“It may be necessary to stand on the outside of one is to see things clearly.”
― Peter Høeg, Tales of the Night

“I still don’t know if this is a good quality or a bad one, to be able to be in the moment and then step out of it.”
― David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary

“The greatest asset to the human experience is the ability to navigate one’s emotions. By practicing the skill of detachment, one can successfully step back from the potentially destructive and tune into the purely positive”
― Gary Hopkins

“Never invest so much in anyone romantically that you lose your head. The Buddha of casual sex, I remain detached at all costs.”
― Edward Vilga, Downward Dog

“Although contemplating the nature of the body highlights its less attractive features, the purpose of the exercise is not to demonize the body. While it is certainly true that at times the discourses describe the human body in rather negative terms, some of these instances occur in a particular context in which the point being made is that the speakers in question have overcome all attachment to their body. In contrast, the Kāyagatāsati Sutta takes the physical bliss of absorption attainment as an object for body contemplation. This passage clearly demonstrates that contemplation of the body is not necessarily linked to repugnance and loathing.

The purpose of contemplating the nature of the body is to bring its unattractive aspects to the forefront of one's attention, thereby placing the attractive aspects previously emphasized in a more balanced context. The aim is a balanced and detached attitude towards the body. With such a balanced attitude, one sees the body merely as a product of conditions, a product with which one need not identify.”
― Anālayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization