READ,WRITE & LIVE YOUR TRUTH

Tag: #UniversalWisdom

  • Searching for a Quote, and Finding the Best One or Maybe More

    E.G. Kardos

    I love quotes- all kinds of quotes.

    Wisdom

    Quotes say so much without taking up a lot of space on the page. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could express our thoughts in a sentence or two rather in a lengthy disertation?

    Photo by Feng Yu 

    Often, I find myself searching for a quote for various reasons. Like me, I bet you stop, read a quote, and take a moment to reflect on it. Sometimes, you smile afterward; sometimes, you feel puzzled; and sometimes, it’s something else entirely. 

    Not Long Ago

    I was searching for a quote for the book I wrote, Zen Master Next Door: Parables for Enlightened Everyday Living. It’s a book of seventeen short stories that suggest spiritual growth can be found in the most unexpected places, such as a child’s reaction to an event, a stranger who enters our lives, or even our neighbor next door. 

    Tongue in Cheek

    The stories are a little tongue-in-cheek to keep the reading light, and I must admit, they were fun to write. While the stories and the simple idea I used for each are straightforward, the message is anything but fluff. 

    Using everyday, relatable situations, I aimed to show how we all strive for the same things, regardless of our background, socioeconomic status, or where we are in life.

    Here’s the thing about searching for a quote: once I started, instead of finding one perfect quote I thought would demonstrate this concept, I began searching for a quote for each of the stories. 

    And it Snowballed

    I became so immersed that I decided to add, not one or two but many quotes throughout. I even created a section in the book filled with quotes that highlight the very human parts of our lives—quotes about our journey, love, loss, wisdom, and determination, to name a few

    —and I found quotes from diverse people as a true reflection of each aspect of our humanity.

    Five Hundred plus

    The more I delved into it, the more I realized that we all want and need the same things, no matter who we are. While searching for quotes, I compiled about five hundred that support the idea that simple, powerful words—regardless of culture, religion, or upbringing—help reveal how little separates us and remind us to let go and live inspired lives. 

    Through this search for quotes, I enjoyed writing a unique book full of stories that reflect the best parts of who we are, supported by quotes from those known to many of us. Here are some of the quotes in Zen Master Next Door.

    So, if you’re searching for a quote, take a look at these…more to come in a future post.

    The Journey

    Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire, the reality of your own nature should determine the speed.  If you become restless, speed up.  If you become winded, slow down, you climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.  Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself.

    Robert Pirsig

    In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time. 

    Leonardo da Vinci

    It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.

    Dizzy Gillespie

    Our life is a long and arduous quest after the truth and the soul requires inward restfulness to attain its full height.

    Mahatma Gandhi

    Yes we can.

    Barack Obama

    May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.  May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

    Edward Abbey

    Today

    Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

    Albert Einstein

    Never let yesterday use up too much of today.

    Will Rogers

    The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.

     Harriet Beecher Stowe

    The future starts today, not tomorrow.

     Pope John Paul II

    Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. 

    Translation: Seize today, and put as little trust as you can in the morrow.

    Horace

    Knowledge and Wisdom

    Seek Wisdom, not knowledge.  Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.

    Lumbee saying.  “Lumbee” is the name of a Native American tribe in North Carolina.

    Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

    Alfred Lord Tennyson

    As soon as a man does not take his existence for granted, but he holds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

    Albert Schweitzer

    To know that you know, and to know that you don’t know—that is the real wisdom.

    Confucius 

    Doubt

    Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

    William Shakespeare

    Believing hath a core of unbelieving.

    Robert Williams Buchanan

    Laugh at yourself, but don’t ever aim your doubt at yourself.  Be bold.  When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore.  Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. 

    Alan Alda

    Determination

    Self help is the best help.  Heaven helps those who help themselves.

    Aesop – Hercules and the Wagoner

    One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged.  Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.

    Lucille Ball

    What saves a man is to take a step.  Then another step.

    C.S. Lewis

    It’s all about the attitude, gut, heart and determination to go out and give 120% every time to try and help the team win. 

    Bo Jackson

    Faith and Hope

    Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand.  

     Saint Thomas Aquinas

    Hope is the thing with feathers

    That perches in the soul.

    And sings the tune

    Without the words,

    and never stops at all.

    Emily Dickinson

    While there’s life, there’s hope.

    Cicero

    Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.  Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

     Helen Keller

    Believe in yourself!  Have faith in your abilities!  Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. 

    Norman Vincent Peale

    Not truth, but faith, it is that keeps the world alive. 

     Edna St. Vincent Millay

    To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder. 

    Louis L’Amour

    Gentleness

    The greatest strength is gentleness.

    Iroquois saying

    Only the weak are cruel.  Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.  

     Leo Buscaglia

    Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.

     Saint Francis de Sales

    Gentleness is the antidote for cruelty. 

     Plato

    Peace

    Peace comes from within.  Do not seek it without.

    Buddha

    Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone

    lives. Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.

    From The Mother by Bertolt Brecht

    There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.

    Black Elk, Native American

    For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

    The Bible, Matthew 6:21

    While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.  

    Leonardo da Vinci 

    Self 

    Those who would mend other, should first mend themselves.

    Aesop – The Quack Toad

    Seek not good from without; seek it within yourself or you will never find it.

    Epictetus

    Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

    The Bible, John 8:32

    You only grow when you are alone.  

    Paul Newman

    If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. 

    Maya Angelou

    There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

    Benjamin Franklin 

    When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.  

    Billy Graham

    Friendship with one’s self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

    Eleanor Roosevelt 

    Introspection

    The night wind with the big dark curves of the night sky in it, the night wind gets inside of me and understands all of my secrets.

    Carl Sandburg

    Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

    Carl Jung

    I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within, It is there all the time.

    Anna Freud

    We forge gradually our greatest instrument for understanding the world – introspection.  We discover that humanity may resemble us very considerably – that the best way of knowing the inwardness of our neighbors is to know ourselves.  

    Walter Lippmann

    On being human

    We are what we believe we are.

    C.S. Lewis

    We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

    Dalai Lama

    All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!

    Bob Newhart

    The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

    George Orwell

    A human being is a deciding being.

    Viktor E. Frankl

    The ideas that have lighted my way have been kindness, beauty and truth. 

    Albert Einstein 

    You don’t have a soul.  You are a Soul.  You have a body.

    C.S. Lewis 

    The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it,   but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.                                             

    Samuel Johnson

    Giving

    God gave us each a song.

    Ute saying

    Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

     C.S. Lewis

    For it is in giving that we receive. 

    St. Francis of Assisi

    Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving. 

    Henry Ford

    Pity may represent little more than the impersonal concern which prompts the mailing of a check, but true sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one’s soul. 

    Martin Luther King Jr.

    I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity…  I didn’t feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not – more important now was for me to love them.  Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving. 

    Beverly Sills

    Let us not be satisfied with just giving money.  Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them.  So, spread your love everywhere you go. 

     Mother Teresa

    I have many more quotes in Zen Master Next Door, so I’ll post round two of Searching for a Quote soon.

    If you enjoyed this post, take a look at these:Best Quotes Ever. Searching for More -PART TWO,If You Were Able toTalk to Your OLDER Self, Eddie Zen: A Zen Master Next Door, Love is a Strange Thing, The Time We Have

    All quotes within this manuscript have been found in publications and the internet and remain the intellectual property of those to whom they have been attributed.  Usage of all quotations adheres to the fair use copyright principle. 

    Share your favorite quotes in the comment section below!

    About E.G. Kardos

    I am a fiction writer and the author of five books. My writing draws inspiration from the beauty surrounding us all—both in nature and in each other. Spirituality, friendship, love, and our connection to the universe inspire me to write.  Here’s more about me and my books.

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