Quotes are cool in that they're a glimpse into various levels of understanding. Sometimes we can't even grasp what someone was really saying until we reach the same stage in our development as the one they inhabited when they wrote down, or spoke the words. (This is especially true for poetry or poetic quotes. Not so much for most of the quotes I chose below.)
I'm a failure, by the way, in terms of trying to start threads on here. (2 or 3 failed ones alrdy.) Did a search and couldn't find one for literary quotes.
Plz show compassion toward me and allow this thread to thrive for at least 2 or 3 posts? All kidding aside, any of your favorite quotes that u share in this thread could potentially help someone else in their journey or practice.
[We could try to number these so that commenters can say, for example: "I disagree with quote #8 because [blah blah something something]".
Just an idea. The numbering would also allow for easier discussion of specific quotes.
We could also leave some of the quotes anonymous, allowing others who recognize them to say, "Oh I like that quote. It's from [insert source material here] ... ]
----1,000 QUOTES? YA, RIGHT:----
1. "That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space."
2. "A man who is sure of himself is not angry at every slight done to him, nor does he carry grudges. A man who fears for his own worth, however, is furious under such conditions."
3. "Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason. When we emerge, perhaps we will realize that we have been dreaming with our eyes open, and that the dreams of reason are intolerable. And then, perhaps, we will begin to dream once more with our eyes closed."
4. "Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. /
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?"
5. "Have you peace? The quiet urge that reveals your power?"
6. "The erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self."
7. "You can change the picture of your life at any time if only you realize it is simply the one portrait of yourself you have created from an unlimited amount of 'probable' ones."
8. "Few of us can easily surrender our belief that our society somehow makes sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." - Arthur Miller
9. "Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness." - James Thurber
10. "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
11. "Once it is understood that human beings are a symbol-driven class of life---once it is grasped that all human behavior is conditioned, shaped, and mediated by symbols---then the idea of self-preservation as the first law of life can be modified to include almost all of the complexities of modern human behavior: the fundamental motive of human behavior is not self-preservation, but the preservation of the symbolic self. If a man symbolizes himself as a certain kind of captain of industry, he must have that tenth, eleventh, or twentieth million dollars. If a woman symbolizes herself as a certain kind of lady of fashion, then that fur coat is much more necessary to her than daily lunch."
I'm a failure, by the way, in terms of trying to start threads on here. (2 or 3 failed ones alrdy.) Did a search and couldn't find one for literary quotes.
Plz show compassion toward me and allow this thread to thrive for at least 2 or 3 posts? All kidding aside, any of your favorite quotes that u share in this thread could potentially help someone else in their journey or practice.
[We could try to number these so that commenters can say, for example: "I disagree with quote #8 because [blah blah something something]".
Just an idea. The numbering would also allow for easier discussion of specific quotes.
We could also leave some of the quotes anonymous, allowing others who recognize them to say, "Oh I like that quote. It's from [insert source material here] ... ]
----1,000 QUOTES? YA, RIGHT:----
1. "That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space."
2. "A man who is sure of himself is not angry at every slight done to him, nor does he carry grudges. A man who fears for his own worth, however, is furious under such conditions."
3. "Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason. When we emerge, perhaps we will realize that we have been dreaming with our eyes open, and that the dreams of reason are intolerable. And then, perhaps, we will begin to dream once more with our eyes closed."
4. "Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. /
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?"
5. "Have you peace? The quiet urge that reveals your power?"
6. "The erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self."
7. "You can change the picture of your life at any time if only you realize it is simply the one portrait of yourself you have created from an unlimited amount of 'probable' ones."
8. "Few of us can easily surrender our belief that our society somehow makes sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." - Arthur Miller
9. "Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness." - James Thurber
10. "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
11. "Once it is understood that human beings are a symbol-driven class of life---once it is grasped that all human behavior is conditioned, shaped, and mediated by symbols---then the idea of self-preservation as the first law of life can be modified to include almost all of the complexities of modern human behavior: the fundamental motive of human behavior is not self-preservation, but the preservation of the symbolic self. If a man symbolizes himself as a certain kind of captain of industry, he must have that tenth, eleventh, or twentieth million dollars. If a woman symbolizes herself as a certain kind of lady of fashion, then that fur coat is much more necessary to her than daily lunch."
Monkey Business 
Gentlemen 
Clique 