Famous
Quotes
by
Dee
Cohen LCSW
Copyright
© 2012 Dee
Cohen LCSW
All
right reserved.
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Famous
Quotes
Quotes
from Western and Eastern Thinkers on Relationships, Work, Self-Growth
and Truth
PLUS:
Question to Ponder on each topic
by
Dee Cohen LCSW
Copyright
© 2006-12
www.outside-the-box.net
No
part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by
any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the
copyright owner and publisher of this book.
A
bout
the Author
Dee
Cohen, LCSW is a licensed social worker and Certified Yoga and
Meditation Teacher in Boca Raton, Florida. She incorporates her
studies of Western and Eastern Philosophy with techniques from yoga
and Meditation in her work with clients and workshops for
corporations.
Table
of Contents
Introduction
Action
Attachment
Character
Courage
Emptiness
Fear
Goals
Gratitude
Growth
Habit
Hope
Love
Men
and Women
Money
Motivation
Patience
Perseverance
Recognition
Solitude
Wisdom
Zen
and Cosmic Humor
Introduction:
Dee Cohen, LCSW
“A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished.”
- The Talmud
“One who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; one who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.”
- Chinese proverb
Great ideas creep up on us and can make us squirm, transcend our daily perspective through humor, stop us dead in our tracks and show us a door to another vision. Yogi Bhajan says that a real thought will , “Poke, Provoke to a Reaction, Confront and Elevate.”
The
quotes in this book cover topics such as “Work”, “Relationships”,
“Love”, “Money”, “Truth” and “Zen”
with the intent
of illuminating everyday life. I’ve also added questions after each
chapter to help stimulate further inquiry.
I find that when I read a book, a phrase or idea will often look hard at me and reverse my ordinary sense of being the “looker”. When we speak of insights, it’s interesting that violent phrases are often used such as “it struck me”, “it hit me”, “I was bowled over” or “it blew me away”. Religiously, some people use the phrase “Chased by Light”.
It’s hard to avoid feeling haunted by Nietzsche’s line: “The most common lie is the lie one tells to oneself; lying to others is relatively the exception.” And when Woody Allen says, “I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens”, we can’t help having a sense of relief from the cosmic questions.
I hope this collection of quotes and questions will help to add some wonder to each day, spark new thoughts, create a pause and aid one’s walk on the journey. Seeing the courage and efforts of others helps one undergo the trials involved in self-transformation. There are lots of stimulating thoughts from the great minds of the East and West accompanied by questions to consider at the end of each chapter.
The topics are presented in alphabetical order. Great ideas often touch on many categories and are not an exact science to classify. The deep search for meaning, love and wisdom have been with us from the beginning.
I hope this book will connect us to the timeless truths that Eastern and Western thinkers have captured and illuminate our relationships to work, friendship, love and self-transformation.
Action:
Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what we are doing? What do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you? If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work on that.
~ Epictetus ~
How can anyone see straight when he does not see himself and the darkness he unconsciously carries with him into all his dealings?
~ Carl Jung ~
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
~ Thomas Henry Huxley ~
Action should culminate in wisdom.
~ Bhagavad Gita ~
We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is it's coerciveness: it is always urgent, "here and now" without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank.
~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset ~
Questions:
1) What is the nature of distraction? Why don't we do what we wish to be doing?
2) What's the relation between action and knowledge? Do we sometimes use one to dodge the other? What is action for the man of wisdom?
Attachment:
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
~ Marcus Aurelius ~
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water and breeds reptiles of the mind.
~ William Blake ~
Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.
~ John Milton ~
Buddha's doctrine: man suffers because of his craving to possess and keep forever things which are essentially impermanent. Chief among these things is his own person, for this is his means of isolating himself from the rest of life, his castle into which he can retreat and from which he can assert himself against external forces. He believes that his fortified and isolated position is the best means of obtaining happiness; it enables him to fight against change, to strive to keep pleasing things for himself, to shut out suffering and shape circumstances as he wills. In short, it is his means of resisting life. The Buddha taught that all things, including his castle, are essentially impermanent and as soon as man tries to possess them they slip away; this frustration of the desire to possess is the immediate cause of suffering.
~ Alan Watts ~
Zen masters hold that an individual's full understanding of Zen is often precipitated by the hearing of a single phrase exactly calculated to destroy his particular demon of ignorance; so they have always favored the brief paradoxical dialogue as a means of instruction; finding it of great value in giving a sudden jolt to a pupil's mind which may propel him towards or over the brink of Enlightenment.
~ John Blofeld ~
Disappointment, always a shock to the feelings, it not only the mother of bitterness but the strongest possible incentive to a differentiation of feeling. The failure of a pet plan, the disappointing behavior of someone one loves, can supply the impulse either for a more or less brutal outburst of affect or for a modification and adjustment of feeling , and hence for higher development. This culminates in wisdom if feeling is supplemented by reflection and rational insight.
~ Carl Jung ~
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer ~
Questions:
1) Watts speaks about attachment as “resistance to life”. What is the relation between desire and resistance?
2) If our pain at loss is a function of our perception (Marcus Aurelius), why do we tend to attribute the pain to something external of our minds?
Character:
Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate.
~ William Arthur Ward ~
Take care of your
thoughts,
Then, actions will take care of themselves.
You sow
an action and reap a tendency.
You sow a tendency and reap a
habit.
You sow your habit and reap your character.
You sow
your character and reap your destiny.
Therefore, destiny is in
your hands.
~ Sathya Sai Baba ~
Talent is nurtured in solitude; Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.
~ Goethe ~
It is with trifles and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.
~ Schopenhauer ~
If I try to be like him, who will be like me?
~ Yiddish Proverb ~
You cannot dream yourself into a character, you must hammer and forge yourself one.
~ James Froude ~
Questions:
1) If Schopenhauer is right that one’s character is revealed when one is off-guard, then what is it that most people are displaying aware of the other’s glance?
2) What do we mean when we see “character” in someone’s face?
Courage:
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.
~ Seneca ~
Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
~ Andre Gide ~
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.