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May you find comfort and joy in these encouraging quotes by Zen Koan.
The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan
What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan
Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan
The Sweetest Strawberry:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice,
he caught hold of the root of a wild vine
and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above.
Trembling, the man looked down to where,
far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.
Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black,
little by little started to gnaw away the vine.
The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him.
Grasping the vine with one hand,
he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
- Zen Koan
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan
The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan
This above all, to thine own self be true.
- William Shakespeare
Play with life, laugh with life,
dance lightly with life,
and smile at the riddles of life,
knowing that life's only true lessons
are writ small in the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The book of life is filled with incoherent riddles.
Life's true lessons are inscribed in a corner of the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All our dreams can come true,
if we have the courage to pursue them.
- Walt Disney
I do not need anyone's permission to be my true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
- Oscar Wilde
The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson
You do not need anyone's permission to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If I try to be like him, who will be like me?
- Yiddish proverb
Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.
- Leonardo da Vinci
To thine own self be true.
- William Shakespeare
A true friend is someone who
thinks that you are a good egg
even though he knows that
you are slightly cracked.
- Bernard Meltzer
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare
It costs you nothing to make another happy -
and you gain your true self through the act of spreading joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
True love is a process of co-creation
in which neither feels ownership or superiority.
Jealousy is a highly destructive force
for love and relationships.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common.
Celebrate it every day.
- Anonymous
The secret of making dreams come true
can be summarized in four C's.
They are Curiosity, Confidence, Courage, and Constancy;
and the greatest of these is Confidence.
- Walt Disney
There are trivial truths and there are great truths.
The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
- Niels Bohr
You are never given a wish without also
being given the power to make it true.
You may have to work for it, however.
- Richard Bach
Honor True Self
Forgive with Compassion
Receive ALL of life with Thanksgiving
CHOOSE with Thoughtful Consideration
Dream with Powerful Vision
Act with Bold Courage
Dance with a Light Heart
Relax in the Arms of Spirit
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The true sign of intelligence
is not knowledge but imagination.
- Albert Einstein
If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true
were really true, there would be little hope of advance.
- Orville Wright
Smile at the riddles of life,
knowing that life's only true lessons
are writ small in the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
To be a beneficial presence in the world,
cultivate a conscious awareness of your unity with Spirit.
Expect good in your own life.
Desire good for all others as well.
See and affirm abundant blessings of peace,
health, and plenty for everyone.
Align your thoughts with peace and happiness,
and realize that these qualities are your true nature.
- Kathy Juline
Life's true lessons are inscribed in a corner of the margin -
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Only one who devotes himself to a cause
with his whole strength and soul
can be a true master.
For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
- Albert Einstein
The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life.
If it be true that optimism compels the world forward,
and pessimism retards it, then it is dangerous to
propagate a pessimistic philosophy.
- Helen Keller
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
- Socrates
Those of true faith don't require guaranteed security.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The key to happiness is having dreams.
The key to success is making your dreams come true.
- Anonymous
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
- Lao Tzu
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize
how little we understand about life,
ourselves, and the world around us.
- Socrates
We seek opinions that are likely to
support what we want to be true.
- Thomas Gilovich
True wisdom cannot be learned in a lifetime,
but can be revealed in a moment,
for it has always lived within each and every one of us.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Mastering others is strength.
Mastering yourself is true power.
- Lao Tzu
Loving, hating, having expectations:
all these are attachments.
Attachment prevents the growth of one's true being.
- Lao Tzu
Know that your true self,
a spiritual being,
is always perfect.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends.
But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy
is the quintessence of true religion.
The other is mere business.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Our actions are constrained by fear of reprisal,
but our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The true delight is in the finding out,
rather than in the knowing.
- Isaac Asimov
In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west;
people create distinctions out of their own minds
and then believe them to be true.
- The Buddha
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson
Society censors our actions,
but our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If evil be spoken of you
and it be true, correct yourself,
if it be a lie, laugh at it.
- Epictetus
People are like stained glass windows,
they sparkle and shine when the sun is out,
but when darkness sets in their true beauty
is revealed only if there is a light from within.
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
True learning is not about facts,
but about conscious appreciation
of the experience of living.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
True love has no limits.
- Anonymous
Know that you do not need anyone's permission
to be your true self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Trust men and they will be true to you;
treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Every loving thought is true.
Everything else is an appeal for healing and help,
regardless of the form it takes.
- A Course In Miracles
The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.
- The Buddha
"To know" is to know that you know nothing.
That is the meaning of true knowledge.
- Confucius
Be true to thyself.
- William Shakespeare
(paraphrase of Shakespeare's famous quote)
Many persons have a wrong idea of
what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification
but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
- Helen Keller
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
Women are like teabags.
We don't know our true strength
until we are in hot water!
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge -
broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false,
and lofty things from low.
- Helen Keller
I Honor My True Self.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Everything deep is also simple
and can be reproduced simply
as long as its reference
to the whole truth is maintained.
But what matters is not what is witty
but what is true.
- Albert Schweitzer
Only those who have learned the power
of sincere and selfless contribution
experience life's deepest joy: true fulfillment.
- Tony Robbins
A true "moral compass" never points toward discrimination.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
'Tis strange - but true;
for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction.
- Lord Byron
The most telling act of true Faith
is celebrating the death of a loved one
with the certain knowledge that
they are now in a better place.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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