quotes
151765297847
Mind
151747003452
And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.
151745043572
There is no greater weapon than a prepared mind.
151707724997

151687979882
“Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to
dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the
Unreasoning Animal… In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things
which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my
experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends.
I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a
rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a
squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace;
even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish
Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch
Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek
Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of
Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a
Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole
days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was
all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends
of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh–not a specimen
left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological
detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”
― Mark Twain
151654473152
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
151630908567
151604323782
… an enlightened ruler does not worry about people not knowing him; he worries about not knowing people. He worries not about outsiders not knowing insiders, but about insiders not knowing outsiders. He worries not about subordinates not knowing superiors, but about superiors not knowing subordinates. He worries not about the lower classes not knowing the upper classes, but about the upper classes not knowing the lower classes.
151509096152
Opportunistic relationship can hardly be kept constant. The acquaintance of honorable people, even at a distance, does not add flowers in times of warmth and does not change its leaves in times of cold: it continues unfading through the four seasons, becoming increasingly stable as it passes through ease and danger.
151462801637
Nothing is harder to see into than people’s nature. The sage looks at subtle phenomena and listens to small voices. This harmonizes the outside with the inside and the inside with the outside.
151423621262
Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 270.
“It is man’s intelligence that makes him so often behave more stupidly
than the beasts. … Man is impelled to invent theories to account for
what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent
enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he
acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic. Thus, no
animal is clever enough, when there is a drought, to imagine that the
rain is being withheld by evil spirits, or as punishment for its
transgressions. Therefore you never see animals going through the absurd
and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. No horse, for
example would kill one of its foals to make the wind change direction.
Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the
same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies.
Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the
feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous
folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as
yet, intelligent enough.”—Aldous Huxley
151375826667
Temper
A Zen student came to Bankei and complained: “Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?”
“You have something very strange,” replied Bankei. “Let me see what you have.”
“Just now I cannot show it to you,” replied the other.
“When can you show it to me?” asked Bankei.
“It arises unexpectedly,” replied the student.
“Then,” concluded Bankei, “it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over.”
151324051627
Society is an interweaving and interworking of mental selves. I imagine your mind and especially what your mind thinks about my mind and what my mind thinks about what your mind thinks about my mind. I dress my mind before you and expect that you will dress yours before mine. Whoever cannot or will not perform these feats is not properly in the game.