Yet another selection of recently encountered bon mots.
If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.
[Wittgenstein]
What is true during dreamless sleep is true no matter whether you can recall the experience and write about it or not. What is true in a whorehouse in Bangkok is true whether you visit it and take Polaroids or not. What is true for six-legged aliens on the fifth planet circling Epsilon Centauri is true whether you go there and talk to them or not. You may never know the life your toothbrush leads when you’re not around but it’s certainly real.
[Brad Warner; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth about Reality]
Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion, several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbour as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn’t straight.
[Mark Twain]
To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
[Joseph Conrad]
He isn’t a household name even in his own living room.
[David Mellor]
Every scar comes with a story, a memory. Our scars make us who we are. And I’m not only talking about physical scars. We have many scars on our heart and in our mind. Some of these we proudly show off as a sort of trophy of our accomplishments. Others we prefer to keep hidden … every scar has changed the course of our life and is proof of what we’ve been through and what we’ve endured and made it through.
I wouldn’t change one scar. While there are things in my life I wish I would’ve handled differently or avoided altogether, I can never regret those decisions or experiences because they have made me who I am. And I’m OK with that.
[Stephanie Hughes at The Stolen Colon]
As the scholar Paula Arai wrote in a review of Richard Jaffe’s book on clerical marriage, “Men escape domestic duties by marrying. Women escape domestic duties by taking monastic vows!”
[Gesshin at That’s So Zen]
What some people don’t understand is that naturism is designed to heal negative body image. It’s the truest form of body acceptance.
[Steve White on Twitter]
Intuition is the universe telling you what you really want to do. The problem is that we have been taught since birth to drown out our intuition with thought before we can really even understand what those intuitions are.
[Brad Warner; There is No God and He is Always with You]
Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness.
[Lao-tzu (thanks John Monaghan)]
The Sage falls asleep
Not because he ought to
Nor even because he wants to
But because he is sleepy.
[Lao-Tsu]
At all costs, the Christian must convince the heathen and the atheist that God exists, in order to save his soul. At all costs, the atheist must convince the Christian that the belief in God is but a childish and primitive superstition, doing enormous harm to the cause of true social progress. And so they battle and storm and bang away at each other. Meanwhile, the Taoist Sage sits quietly by the stream, perhaps with a book of poems, a cup of wine, and some painting materials, enjoying the Tao to his hearts content, without ever worrying whether or not Tao exists. The Sage has no need to affirm the Tao; he is far too busy enjoying it!
[Raymond Smullyan, The Tao is Silent]
The Tao does not talk. That’s another reason I like the Tao so much; it doesn’t talk! I hate people who talk too much. When I’m in company, I like to be the one to talk; others should just respectfully listen!
Is it not marvellous that I can talk to the Tao to my heart’s content, and the Tao never contradicts me or answers back? The Tao never criticizes me for being egocentric or talking too much.
When I talk about talking to the Tao, the more sophisticated and psychoanalytically oriented reader will say that I am not really talking to the Tao, I am really talking to myself. But this is not so! Since all words come from the Tao, my talking to the Tao is not really me talking to myself but the Tao talking to itself! So, you see, the Tao talks to itself. Yet the Tao does not talk, it is silent! Is this not a remarkable paradox?
[Raymond Smullyan, The Tao is Silent]
In a rare uncalculating moment, Boris Johnson wrote last year that, if Britain finally ended its “sterile debate” over Europe by leaving the EU, it would quickly discover “that most of our problems are not caused by Brussels, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills and a culture of easy gratification and under-investment”.
[Michael White; What if Britain left the EU?; Guardian; 04/11/2014]