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My Massive Quotes Collection

    photo by Matt Ridley

    Enjoy 3238 quotes and proverbs.

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    Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

    — Buddha

    What we think, we become.

    — Buddha

    You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

    — Buddha

    Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

    — Carl Jung

    Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.

    — Carl Jung

    Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.

    — Carl Jung

    All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination?

    — Carl Jung

    It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

    — Carl Jung

    Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

    — Confucius

    He who sling mud, lose ground.

    — Confucius

    Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

    — Carl Jung

    What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.

    — Eckhart Tolle

    Man who eat many prunes get good run for money.

    — Confucius

    Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

    — Dr. Seuss

    Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

    — Dr. Seuss

    If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.

    — Niels Bohr

    You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

    — Dr. Seuss

    Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

    — Mahatma Gandhi

    Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

    — Maya Angelou

    No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

    — Eleanor Roosevelt

    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

    Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

    — Oscar Wilde

    So many books, so little time.

    — Frank Zappa

    Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

    — Mark Twain

    In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

    — Robert Frost

    Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

    — Mahatma Gandhi

    I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

    — Oscar Wilde

    Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

    — Oscar Wilde

    Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

    — Martin Luther King Jr.

    Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.

    — Maya Angelou

    If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?

    — Maya Angelou

    Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

    — Allen Saunders, American writer, journalist and cartoonist (1899 – 1986)

    A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

    — William Shakespeare

    Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

    — Groucho Marx

    A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

    — Steve Martin

    I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

    — Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), The Fellowship of the Ring

    Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

    — Gimli, The Fellowship of the Ring

    It is the measure of my individual struggle from darkness toward some measure of light.

    — Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and writer (1914 – 1953)

    The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

    — Carl Sagan

    Insanity in individuals is something rare — but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.

    — Friedrich Nietzsche

    Still round the corner there may wait
    A new road or a secret gate
    And though I oft have passed them by
    A day will come at last when I
    Shall take the hidden paths that run
    West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

    — J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings

    Oft in lies truth is hidden.

    — Glorfindel, The Fellowship of the Ring

    Bagginses? What is a Bagginses, precious?

    — Gollum, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

    Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

    — Meriadoc Brandybuck (quoting Gildor), The Lord of the Rings: One Volume

    Fair speech may hide a foul heart.

    — Samwise Gamgee, The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers

    It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

    — Gandalf the Grey, The Hobbit

    Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

    — Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.

    — Legolas, The Return of the King

    You have nice manners for a thief and a liar,” said the dragon.

    — Smaug, The Hobbit

    Short cuts make for long delays.

    — Peregrin “Pippin” Took, The Hobbit

    May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks.

    — Gandalf the Grey, The Hobbit

    Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

    — Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring

    It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.

    — Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

    All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

    — Gandalf The Grey (Ian McKellen), The Fellowship of the Ring

    Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.

    — Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Not all those who wander are lost.

    — J.R.R. Tolkien, All That is Gold Does Not Glitter (poem), The Fellowship of the Ring

    Oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.

    — Celeborn, The Lord of the Rings

    It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.

    — Albert Einstein

    Time is an illusion.

    — Albert Einstein

    Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

    — Albert Einstein

    People need religion. It’s a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.

    — Irving Kristol

    I thought of that while riding my bicycle.

    — Albert Einstein

    In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.

    — Albert Einstein

    Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren’t these the same questions as last year’s [physics] final exam?
    Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.

    — Albert Einstein

    To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

    — Oscar Wilde

    I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

    — Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul

    It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.

    — André Gide

    Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

    — Robert A. Heinlein

    We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

    — Anaïs Nin

    You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…

    — Dr. Seuss

    Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

    — Laozi, Tao Te Ching

    Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.

    — Laozi

    If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

    — Laozi

    Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

    — Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)

    Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

    — Laozi

    Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered.
    “Yes, Piglet?”
    “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. “I just wanted to be sure of you.

    — A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

    All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.

    — Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist (1922 – 2000)

    Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

    — John Lennon

    There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.

    — Charles Dickens

    As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.

    — John Lennon (1940 – 1980), English singer and songwriter, the Beatles

    I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

    — John Lennon

    There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…

    — John Lennon

    God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

    — John Lennon

    Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns it calls me on and on across the universe.

    — John Lennon

    We all shine on…like the moon and the stars and the sun…we all shine on…come on and on and on…

    — John Lennon

    Time wounds all heels.

    — John Lennon

    I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

    — Groucho Marx

    You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

    — Ayn Rand

    I think, therefore I’ll think.

    — Ayn Rand

    Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

    — Pablo Picasso

    The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.

    — Pablo Picasso

    If I don’t have red, I use blue.

    — Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright (1881 – 1973)

    A person’s a person, no matter how small.

    — Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who!

    Kindness is always fashionable.

    — Amelia Barr, British novelist (1831 – 1919)

    Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

    — Margaret Mead

    “Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

    — Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,

    My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

    — Dalai Lama XIV

    If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.

    — Dalai Lama XIV

    Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

    — Dalai Lama XIV

    Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

    — Henry David Thoreau

    Things do not change; we change.

    — Henry David Thoreau

    there’s nothing you can do that can’t be done…..

    — John Lennon

    It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love.

    — John Lennon

    When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

    — Jimi Hendrix

    Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

    — Jimi Hendrix (1942 – 1970), American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter

    Excuse me while I kiss the sky.

    — Jimi Hendrix

    Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.

    — George Carlin

    “Meow” means “woof” in cat.

    — George Carlin

    May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.

    — George Carlin

    Religion is like a pair of shoes…..Find one that fits for you, but don’t make me wear your shoes.

    — George Carlin

    Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

    — George Carlin

    Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

    — George Carlin

    Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward.

    — George Carlin

    How is it possible to have a civil war?

    — George Carlin

    Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?

    — George Carlin

    What if there were no hypothetical questions?

    — George Carlin

    Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.

    — George Carlin

    Everyone smiles in the same language.

    — George Carlin

    Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

    — Helen Keller

    Don’t give your money to the church. They should be giving their money to you.

    — George Carlin

    Always do whatever’s next.

    — George Carlin

    “No comment” is a comment.

    — George Carlin

    The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.

    — George Carlin

    Is there another word for synonym?

    — George Carlin

    If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

    — George Carlin

    Make love, not war.

    — John Lennon

    I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.

    — Robert Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

    And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

    — Roald Dahl

    The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

    — Socrates

    Books are a uniquely portable magic.

    — Stephen King

    That’s the thing about magic; you’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.

    — Charles de Lint

    Magical places are always beautiful and deserve to be contemplated … Always stay on the bridge between the invisible and the visible.

    — Paulo Coelho

    hark, now hear the sailors cry,
    smell the sea, and feel the sky
    let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic…

    — Van Morrison

    The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without.

    — Aleister Crowley

    It’s all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.

    — Charles de Lint

    There is darkness in light, there is pain in joy, and there are thorns on the rose.

    — Cate Tiernan, American author

    We must be careful what we imagine, fear, or hope for. The echoes of our thought live on in eternity.

    — Robert Fanney

    Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!

    — Audrey Hepburn

    God has no religion.

    — Mahatma Gandhi

    God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

    — Voltaire

    My arms are too short to box with God.

    — Johnny Cash

    If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope he likes enchiladas, because that’s what he’s getting.

    — Jack Handey

    Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.

    — Christopher Hitchens

    Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

    — John Steinbeck

    Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

    — Stephen King

    One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.

    — Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

    You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

    — Ray Bradbury, American author and screenwriter (1920 – 2012)

    You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

    — Khalil Gibran

    Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

    — G.K. Chesterton (Alarms and Discursions)

    Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

    — Leonardo da Vinci

    For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind? And when the Earth has claimed our limbs, Then we shall truly dance.

    — Khalil Gibran

    One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.

    — Khalil Gibran

    I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers.

    — Khalil Gibran

    Joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

    — Khalil Gibran

    To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

    — Khalil Gibran

    One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.

    — Khalil Gibran

    We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.

    — Khalil Gibran

    The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.

    — Khalil Gibran

    It was the possibility of darkness that made the day seem so bright.

    — Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla

    But even when the moon looks like it’s waning…it’s actually never changing shape. Don’t ever forget that.

    — Ai Yazawa (Nana, Volume 14)

    Here’s looking at you, kid.

    — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca

    The baby bat
    Screamed out in fright,
    ‘Turn on the dark,
    I’m afraid of the light.

    — Shel Silverstein, Batty

    We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

    — Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan

    Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

    — Oscar Wilde

    The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

    — Oscar Wilde

    Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

    — Oscar Wilde

    Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.

    — Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

    Who, being loved, is poor?

    — Oscar Wilde

    Everything in moderation, including moderation.

    — Oscar Wilde

    Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

    — Oscar Wilde

    The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.

    — Oscar Wilde

    Only the shallow know themselves.

    — Oscar Wilde

    We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.

    — Oscar Wilde

    Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

    — Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Picture of Dorian Gray

    A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.

    — Leonardo da Vinci

    Well, art is art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh… now you tell me what you know.

    — Groucho Marx

    Nature is a haunted house–but Art–is a house that tries to be haunted.

    — Emily Dickinson

    Forever is composed of nows.

    — Emily Dickinson

    Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

    — Emily Dickinson

    Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.

    — Emily Dickinson

    One need not be a chamber to be haunted.

    — Emily Dickinson

    The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.

    — Khalil Gibran

    Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.

    — Native American Prayer

    The Holy Land is everywhere.

    — Black Elk

    Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.

    — Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, orator, and philosopher (106–43 BC)

    The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

    — Black Elk

    There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which… is within the souls of men.

    — Black Elk

    All over the sky a sacred voice is calling your name.

    — Black Elk

    Peace will come to the hearts of men when they realize their oneness with the universe, It is everywhere.

    — Black Elk

    While I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw;
    For I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being….And I saw that it was holy

    — Black Elk

    Know the Power that is Peace.

    — Black Elk

    The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

    — E.E. Cummings

    Be Impeccable With Your Word..
    Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

    — Miguel Ruiz

    Don’t Make Assumptions..
    Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

    — Miguel Ruiz

    Always Do Your Best..
    Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

    — Miguel Ruiz

    We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

    — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

    Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

    — T.S. Eliot

    Your life is your spiritual path.

    — Sandy Nathan

    Be — don’t try to become.

    — Osho

    Be realistic: Plan for a miracle.

    — Osho

    Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. By and by love becomes not a relationship, it becomes a state of your being. Not that you are in love – now you are love.

    — Osho

    Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.

    — Osho

    Nobody has the power to take two steps together; you can take only one step at a time.

    — Osho

    It’s not a question of learning much. On the contrary. It’s a question of UNLEARNING much.

    — Osho

    Truth is not to be found outside. No teacher, no scripture can give it to you. It is inside you and if you wish to attain it, seek your own company. Be with yourself.

    — Osho

    Now man must learn to live without ideologies religious, political or otherwise. When the mind is not tethered to any ideology, it is free to move to new understandings. And in that freedom flowers all that is good and all that is beautiful.

    — Osho

    The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.

    — Chief Sealth

    Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life, we are merely strands in it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.

    — Chief Sealth

    Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors — the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

    — Chief Sealth

    At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

    — Chief Sealth

    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 neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.

    — Mark Twain

    Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it’s the cyanide.

    — Tom Robbins

    All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

    — Thomas Paine

    Mythology is what we call someone else’s religion.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Religion disapproves of original thought the way Dracula does sunlight.

    — Pat Condell

    Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned–I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture, or necrodestination.

    — Frank Zappa

    No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter… than you and I; and all religion … is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.

    — Edgar Allan Poe

    To the believers it is true. To the wise it is false. To the leaders it is useful.

    — Seneca

    About the gods I have no means of knowing either that they exist or that they do not exist or what they are to look at. Many things prevent my knowing. Among others, the fact that they are never seen.

    — Protagoras (Essay on the Gods, 5th Century B.C.E.)

    It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of Religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason, and Morality.

    — Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789)

    To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die.

    — Oscar Wilde

    It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men.

    — Carl Sagan

    The good part of Christmas is not always Christian — it is generally Pagan; that is to say, human, natural.

    — Robert G. Ingersoll

    Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it’s not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.

    — Salman Rushdie

    The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.

    — Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, lecturer, and poet (1803 – 1882)

    Beware the man of one book.

    — English proverb, Thomas Aquinas

    Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.

    — Joseph Campbell

    All religions are true but none are literal.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Gods suppressed become devils, and often it is these devils whom we first encounter when we turn inward.

    — Joseph Campbell

    If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.

    — Joseph Campbell

    The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.

    — Joseph Campbell

    The fates lead him who will; him who won’t they drag.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted as biography, history, or science, it is killed.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.

    — Joseph Campbell (The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work)

    The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe to match your nature with Nature.

    — Joseph Campbell

    The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here is the place to have the experience.

    — Joseph Campbell

    We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.

    — Joseph Campbell

    The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Not all who hesitate are lost. The psyche has many secrets in reserve. And these are not disclosed unless required.

    — Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)

    The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.

    — Joseph Campbell

    What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life and in the universe.

    — Joseph Campbell

    I don’t have to have faith, I have experience.

    — Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

    I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman or child.

    — Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth)

    When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.

    — Joseph Campbell

    For we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heros of all time have gone before us…

    — Joseph Campbell

    One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment.

    — Hart Crane, poet (1899-1932)

    When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die. . . .

    — Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

    How does the ordinary person come to the transcendent? For a start, I would say, study poetry. Learn how to read a poem. You need not have the experience to get the message, or at least some indication of the message. It may come gradually.

    — Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

    The demon that you can swallow gives you it’s power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.

    — Joseph Campbell

    All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you.

    — Joseph Campbell

    I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

    — Joseph Campbell

    It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Mythology may, in a real sense, be defined as other people’s religion. And religion may, in a sense, be understood as popular misunderstanding of mythology.

    — Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

    How teach again, however, what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind’s prudent folly? That is the hero’s ultimate difficult task.

    — Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)

    Myth must be kept alive. The people who can keep it alive are the artists of one kind or another.

    — Joseph Campbell

    How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.

    — Joseph Campbell

    [Comedies], in the ancient world, were regarded as of a higher rank than tragedy, of a deeper truth, of a more difficult realization, of a sounder structure, and of a revelation more complete. The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man…. Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachments to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the world? In our tradition God is a male. This male and female differentiation is made, however, within the field of time and space, the field of duality. If God is beyond duality, you cannot say that God is a “He.” You cannot say God is a “She.” You cannot say God is an “It.

    — Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

    Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

    — Joseph Campbell

    If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Love is a friendship set to music.

    — Joseph Campbell

    Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

    — Joseph Campbell

    With the moon walk, the religious myth that sustained these notions could no longer be held. With our view of earthrise, we could see that the earth and the heavens were no longer divided but that the earth is in the heavens.

    — Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

    And if there was no Fall, what then of the need for Redemption? What god was offended and by whom? Some especially touchy cave bear whose skull had been improperly enshrined?

    — Joseph Campbell

    It may be a species of impudence to think that the way you understand God is the way God is.

    — Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

    [T]he experience of mystery comes not from expecting it but through yielding all your programs, because your programs are based on fear and desire. Drop them and the radiance comes.

    — Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)

    The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward.

    — Joseph Campbell

    ..enlarge the pupil of the eye, so that the body with its attendant personality will no longer obstruct the view. Immortality is then experienced as a present fact…

    — Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)

    Just because I’m on a different path doesn’t mean I’m lost.

    — Unknown

    Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.

    — Walt Whitman

    “if you have time to breathe you have time to meditate.”
    You breathe when you walk. You breathe when you stand. You breathe when you lie down.

    — Ajahn Amaro

    Although its light is wide and great, the Moon is
    reflected in a puddle one inch wide. The whole Moon
    and the entire sky is reflected in one dew drop on the grass.

    — Dogen

    In everything natural there is something marvelous.

    — Aristotle

    Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit. – Called or not called, the god will be there.

    — ancient Roman saying

    A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism.

    — Dion Fortune

    The Goddess is Alive. Magic is afoot.

    — Z. Budapest

    This planet is our home.
    Our life and hers are interdependent.

    — Doreen Valiente

    When we let go of believing we are superior, we open ourselves to the experience of living in the community of Nature.

    — Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm

    Religion is about creation, and for that reason religion should be about the earth.

    — Laurie Cabot

    No matter how important everything else is to magical success, belief is the most crucial.

    — Dorothy Morrison

    Make no mistake about it, magick is an art form, and every true magician is an artist.

    — Lon Milo DuQuette

    The entire universe is but one vast symbol of God.

    — Thomas Carlysle

    Nature has her proper interest; and he will know
    what it is, who believes and feels, that every Thing
    has a Life of its own, and that we are all one Life.

    — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

    One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

    — André Gide

    Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.

    — Claude Bernard

    Even a small star shines in the darkness.

    — Finnish proverb

    The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all.

    — Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

    If you look around and think the world is missing something, it is probably the gift you were supposed to be bringing.

    — Julie Cuccia Watts

    We can do no great things, only small things with great love.

    — Mother Teresa, Love

    The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

    — Nietzsche

    The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

    — Alan Kay

    Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

    — Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

    Recognize that the other person is you.

    — Buddhist proverb

    Avoid arguments with a fool, it may be difficult to tell you two apart.

    — Unknown

    If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.

    — Catherine Aird
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