Quote collection
499 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There's an interdependence between flowers and bees. Where there are no flowers there are no bees, and where there are no bees, there are no flowers. They are really one organism. And so in the same way, everything in nature depends on everything else."
"When your eyes are functioning well you don't see your eyes. If your eyes are imperfect you see spots in front of them. That means there are some lesions in the retina or wherever, and because your eyes aren't working properly, you feel them. In the same way, you don't hear your ears. If you have a ringing in your ears it means there's something wrong with your ears. Therefore, if you do feel yourself, there must be something wrong with you. Whatever you have, the sensation of I is like spots in front of your eyes - it means something's wrong with your functioning."
"We know that from time to time there arise among human beings people who seem to exude love as naturally as the sun gives out heat."
"To the Taoist mentality, the aimless, empty life does not suggest anything depressing. On the contrary, it suggests the freedom of clouds and mountain streams, wandering nowhere, of flowers in impenetrable canyons, beautiful for no one to see, and of the ocean surf forever washing the sand, to no end."
"The truth is revealed by removing things that stand in its light, an art not unlike sculpture, in which the artist creates, not by building, but by hacking away."
"If you are ready to wake up, you are going to wake up. If you're not you are going to stay pretending that you are just a poor little me."
"A living body is not a fixed thing, but a flowing event, like a flame or a whirlpool."
"What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born."
"Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality."
"The Greek word for sinning means to ‘miss the point;’ The point is eternal life which is here and now."
"You can't make love without art."
"This-the immediate, everyday, and present experience-is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe."
"Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world."
"The sound of the rain needs no translation."
"Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment."
"No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them."
"Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball that revolves about a small star at the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy. ... I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball rotating around a spherical fire. It's a very odd situation. And the more I look at things I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird."
"To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening."
"If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world."
"The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless."