Rick-Phil > Rick-Phil's Quotes

“Faith is not a question of the existence or non-existence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable.”
― Emmanuel Levinas

“Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you.”
― Anonymous, The Nag Hammadi Library

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
― T.S. Eliot

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, Time stays, we go.”
― Henry Austin Dobson

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom...You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.”
― William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

“Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. I will meet you there.”
― Rumi

“Who are you?"
"No one of consequence."
"I must know."
"Get used to disappointment.”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

“In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”
― Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.
-Albus Dumbledore”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Joyful Christian

“The criers of the Mysteries speak again, bidding all men welcome to the House of Light. The great institution of materiality has failed. The false civilization built by man has turned, and like the monster of Frankenstein, is destroying its creator. Religion wanders aimlessly in the maze of theological speculation. Science batters itself impotently against the barriers of the unknown. Only transcendental philosophy knows the path. Only the illumined reason can carry the understanding part of man upward to the light. Only philosophy can teach man to be born well, to live well, to die well, and in perfect measure be born again. Into this band of the elect--those who have chosen the life of knowledge, of virtue, and of utility--the philosophers of the ages invite YOU.”
― Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
― Francis Bacon, The Essays

“In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.”
― Plutarch

“Why resurrect it all now. From the Past. History, the old wound. The past emotions all over again. To confess to relive the same folly. To name it now so as not to repeat history in oblivion. To extract each fragment by each fragment from the word from the image another word another image the reply that will not repeat history in oblivion.”
― Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

“It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
"But that's terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say 'That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.”
― Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“The path of greatest desires often lies ...through the undesirable.”
― René Daumal, Mount Analogue

“He questioned us one after the other. Each one of his questions—all of them very simple: Who were we? Why had we come?—caught us completely off our guard and seemed to probe our very insides. Who are you? Who am I? We could not answer him as we could a police official or a customs inspector. Give one's name and profession? What does that mean? But *who* are you? And *what* are you? The words we uttered—we had none better—were worthless, repugnant and grotesque as dead things. We realized that with the guides of Mount Analogue, we could no longer get away with just words.”
― René Daumal, Mount Analogue

“Focus your attention upon yourselves. Do not focus your attention upon other things—that is, what you have cast away from yourselves. Do not return to eat what you have vomited. Do not be moth-eaten, do not be worm-eaten, for you have already gotten rid of that. Do not be a place for the devil, for you have already destroyed him. Do not strengthen what stands in your way, what is collapsing, to support it. One who is lawless is nothing. Treat the lawless one more harshly than the just one, for the lawless does what he does because he is lawless, but the just does what he does with people because he is righteous. Do the Father’s will, then, for you are from him.”
― Marvin Meyer, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: An Enlightening Compilation of Gnostic Manuscripts Revealing New Perspectives on Early Christianity, Ancient Judaism, and Greco-Roman Religions

“A good systems thinker, particularly in an organizational setting, is someone who can see four levels operating simultaneously: events, patterns of behavior, systems, and mental models.”
― Art Kleiner, The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

“Oh I've plenty of time, my time is entirely my own.”
― Dostoevski Fiordor, Идиот

“Time, as it grows old, teaches all things.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“When one is wise, it's wisest to seem foolish.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“Do not labor uselessly at what helps not at all.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“This is a sickness rooted and inherent in the nature of a tyranny: that he that holds it does not trust his friends.”
― Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
― Friedrich W. Nietzsche