Quotes

 

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) French Pied Noir (Algerian) author, journalist and philosopher.

Means to me: I don’t profess to know the truth in so complex a matter as human existence, so don’t make the mistake of slavishly adopting my point of view. Conversely, I’m more interested in formulating my own path based upon an analytical approach to my own experience – no matter how misguided that might be – so don’t be offended if I appear lukewarm to your own equally passiontely held views. But let’s find what common ground there is between us, and share it, respect the differences, and learn from them.

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“All the true things must change and only that which changes remains true.”

CG Jung

Human activity, be it physical or psychical, is not characterised by a tendancy to settle in a position of neutral statsis. Or, put more simply, nothing stays the same for ever. Things change. Technology moves us on, and the Zeitgeist changes from one generation to the next. Growth, change, and the dynamic interplay of thought – these are the only true things in life. Seeking to maintain the status quo in the face of an inexorable natural movement towards such change is a false ideal and doomed to failure. By the same token, those solutions we relied upon in solving the problems of yesterday, can’t always be relied upon to solve the problems of today or tomorrow, without at least accepting the need for adaptation, improvisation and change.

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“If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what’s left is who you are.”

Eckhart Tolle,

Who am I? What am I? The New Ager’s quest. We mistakenly believe the answers to such questions will solve the mystery of our lives, so we set about analysing the various masks we wear, not realising even the mask of impartial investigator is just one more persona, one more label we attach to ourselves, one more distorted lens through which we hope to glimpse the image of our true selves. So stop looking, embrace the void. And let it go.

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“Only if you resist what happens will you be at the mercy of what happens.”

Eckhart Tolle,

The stress we so often feel in life comes about from anticipating, or reacting to events over which we have no control – yet we seek to control them all the same.  We feel a threat. We label a potential happening as” bad”, and we resist it. However, if we can bring ourselves to let it go, recognise that life goes on if we resist or not, maintain an attitude of passive forbearance,  and just see what happens, we can avoid damaging ourselves in the process.

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“Personally, I refer you to the ancient pharaoh, King Tu-N-Tut. He is dead and nobody cares. Do what makes you feel less stupid.”

Tom Rasmussen,

Even a million pounds in the bank means nothing when you’re going up the chimney at the crematorium. Chasing fame and fortune, even if you’re good at it, is a futile exercise and a waste of an otherwise potentially useful life, if immortality is your aim, because there’s no such thing. So in life just try to do right by yourself and never mind the rest.

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“Be yourself–not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.”

Henry David Thoreau

This is the single most important piece of advice I’d give to anyone. Don’t waste your life living it through someone else’s eyes, always judging yourself by what you imagine others might be thinking about you. Forget it, they’re not thinking about you at all. They don’t know the first thing about you. Be yourself. Think as yourself, not as you would imagine others might think or wish you to think. God created you in order to see creation through your eyes, so realise your purpose and cherish the uniqueness of your vision.

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“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) – German theoretical physicist and one of the founding pioneers of the field of Quantum Mechanics.

When we begin to study the physical sciences we learn to de-construct reality in a fairly simplistic way. We see the universe as a giant inter-meshing mechanism in which there is no requirement for a deity, and where we need only theorise upon its material interactions in order to understand the whole of its behaviour. But the more we study, and the closer we study those materials and the paradoxes left untouched by our incomplete theories, it begins to dawn that the universe is a far more complex and mysterious place than we had first thought. Quantum Mechanics is the most counter-intuitive of all subjects, one that probles the very building blocks of matter and energy, and where experimental results seem to defy our ability to imagine how things might be that way. Its telling that its leading exponents begin to speak again in mystical terms.

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“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”   

Martin Luther King Jnr. Pastor, activist, humanitarian, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

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“An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional”

 F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”

Eckhart Tolle, Spiritual teacher and author.

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The ancient sages say we should not despise the snake for having no horns, for who is to say it will not become a dragon. So may one just man become an army!

From the opening title sequence of the 1970’s Martial Arts classic The Water Margins.