Alan Cassidy > Alan's Quotes

“pure mind is like the empty sky,
without memory, supreme meditation;
it is our own nature, unstirring, uncontrived,
and wherever that abides is the superior mind,
one in buddhahood without any sign,
one in view free of limiting elaboration,
one in meditation free of limiting ideation,
one in conduct free of limiting endeavor,
and one in fruition free of limiting attainment.

vast! spacious!
released as it stands!
with neither realization nor non-realization;
experience consummate! no mind!
it is open to infinity.”
― longchenpa

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description.”
― Albert Einstein

“Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.”
― Lana Wachowski, The Matrix: The Shooting Script

“Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Love says 'I am everything.' Wisdom says 'I am nothing.' Between the two, my life flows.”
― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That

“Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your Self Realization. You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened - at the moment when you were born, when you realized yourself as Being-Knowing-Feeling. There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion and no new explosion will set it right! You have to think yourself out of it. There is no other way.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Truth is not a reward for good behaviour, nor a prize for passing some tests. It cannot be brought about. It is the primary, the unborn, the ancient source of all that is. You are eligible because you are. You need not merit truth. It is your own....Stand still, be quiet.”
― Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Save all your energies and time for breaking the wall your mind has built around you.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“All you need is already within you, only you must approach your self with reverence and love. Self-condemnation and self-disgust are grievous errors. Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. Deny your self nothing--give yourself infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond.”
― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“Humanity's problem lies in the misuse of the mind only.
All the treasures of nature and spirit are open to man who will use his mind rightly.”
― Nisargadatta, I am that

“I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost the equal of family.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Revenge is a dish that tastes best when served cold.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“A friend should always underestimate your virtues and an enemy overestimate your faults”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“I don't trust society to protect us, I have no intention of placing my fate in the hands of men whose only qualification is that they managed to con a block of people to vote for them.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“You cannot say 'no' to the people you love, not often. That's the secret. And then when you do, it has to sound like a 'yes'. Or you have to make them say 'no.' You have to take time and trouble.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Tom, don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it's personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That's what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that's why they have godfathers.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Never let anyone know what you are thinking.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Accidents don't happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."
...
Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Behind every successful fortune there is a crime.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Time erodes gratitude more quickly than it does beauty!”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“But let me say this. I am a superstitious man, a ridiculous failing but I must confess it here. And so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police officer should accidentally shoot him, if he should hang himself while in his jail cell, if new witnesses appear to testify to his guilt, my superstition will make me feel that it was the result of the ill will still borne me by some people here. Let me go further. If my son is struck by a bolt of lightning I will blame some of the people here. If his plane show fall into the sea or his ship sink beneath the waves of the ocean, if he should catch a mortal fever, if his automobile should be struck by a train, such is my superstition that I would blame the ill will felt by people here. Gentlemen, that ill will, that bad luck, I could never forgive. But aside from that let me swear by the souls of my grandchildren that I will never break the peace we have made. After all, are we or are we not better men than those pezzonovanti who have killed countless millions of men in our lifetimes?”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Mothers are like cops. They always believe the worst.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather