Essemsee > Essemsee's Quotes

“All things are in flux; the flux is subject to a unifying measure or rational principle. This principle (logos, the hidden harmony behind all change) bound opposites together in a unified tension, which is like that of a lyre, where a stable harmonious sound emerges from the tension of the opposing forces that arise from the bow bound together by the string.”
― Heraclitus

“The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way.”
― Heraclitus

“For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment, so elusive in ordinary hours.”
― Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire : A Plant'S-Eye View of the World

“... the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

“My actions are my only true belongings.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Understanding Our Mind: 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology

“Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated "building blocks," but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object's interaction with the observer.”
― Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.”
― John Irving, The Cider House Rules

“It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.”
― John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire

“The phenomenon of emergence takes place at critical points of instability that arise from fluctuations in the environment, amplified by feedback loops.”
― Fritjof Capra, The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living

“…the consequences of sex are often more memorable than the act itself.”
― John Irving, A Widow for One Year

“If you are careful,' Garp wrote, 'if you use good ingredients, and you don't take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.”
― John Irving, The World According to Garp

“It's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“Half my life is an act of revision.”
― John Irving

“The gardener had a dread of small women; he'd always imagined them to have an anger disproportionate to their size.”
― John Irving, A Widow for One Year

“If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital.”
― John Irving

“It seems to me that people who don’t learn as easily as others suffer from a kind of learning disability—there is something different about the way they comprehend unfamiliar material—but I fail to see how this disability is improved by psychiatric consultation. What seems to be lacking is a technical ability that those of us called ‘good students’ are born with. Someone should concretely study these skills and teach them. What does a shrink have to do with the process?”
― John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
― Heraclitus

“The goal of life is living in agreement with Nature.”
― Zeno

“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty...”
― Robert M. Pirsig

“To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.”
― Robert M. Pirsig

“If someone's ungrateful and you tell him he's ungrateful, okay, you've called him a name. You haven't solved anything.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
― Albert Einstein

“A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”
― Albert Einstein

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
― Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
― Albert Einstein

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling 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 to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Albert Einstein