Quotes & Inspiration

Words that have inspired me

  Wake up call
  Endurance and Perseverance
  Commitment
  The information age
  Perfect timing, synchronicity
  The human condition
  Becoming
  Learning, trusting, believing

Wake up call

  "Art at its most significant is a distant early warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to  happen," - Marshall McLuhan, media guru

  "The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, 
seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future,"
 - In the Future of Man - Teilhard de Chardin (d 1955)

"Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won't feel insecure around you," -  Nelson Mandela

“Everyone wants to be loved. But first we must make ourselves lovable. We must prepare ourselves to be loved. We do this by becoming ourselves loving, disciplined human beings. If we seek to be loved – if we expect to be loved – this cannot be accomplished; we will be dependent and grasping, not genuinely loving. But when we nurture ourselves and others without the primary concern of finding reward, then we will have become lovable, and the reward of being loved, which we have not sought, will find us. So it is with human love, so it is with God’s love,”
 – M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.

"As for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls," - Jeremiah 6:13-16

  Don't neglect the gift inside you
- 1 Timothy 4:14

  Stir into flame the gift which is in you
- 2 Timothy 1:6

Endurance and Perseverance

  "Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men,"  - Seneca

  "A gem cannot be polished without friction,
 nor a man perfected without trials," - Cicero

  "It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."
- Confucius

  "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. 
Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, 
vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved," 
- Helen Keller

  "A smooth sea never made a skilful mariner," - English proverb

  "Fall seven times, stand up eight." - Japanese proverb

Commitment

  "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything,"
- Bishop W C Magee.

"Until one is committed, there is always the chance to draw back: always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it ! Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it NOW !!"  - Goethe.

  "The greatest wastes are unused talents and untried ideas."
 - Anonymous

  "Again and again, the impossible problem is solved 
when we see that the problem is only a tough decision 
waiting to be made," - Robert Schuller

  "Ah, mastery ... what a profoundly satisfying feeling when one finally gets on top of a new set of skills ... and then sees the light under the new door those skills can open, even as another door is closing," - Gail Sheehy

The information age


  "There is more to life than simply increasing its speed." - Mahatma Gandhi

"Unless man quickly learns to control the rate of change in his personal affairs as well as in society we are doomed to a massive adaptational breakdown," – Victor Ferkiss.

"If only it were a modern document, with a smart index and hyper links stretching all through the world data net. It was terribly frustrating having to flip back and forth between the pages and flat illustrations that never even moved! Nor were there animated arrows or zoom ins. It completely lacked a tap for sound.

  "Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts...A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..." --William Gibson, Neuromancer

  "If man's 50,000 years on this planet are divided into lifetimes of approximately 62 years, then there have been 800 such lifetimes. Of these over 600 were spent in caves, only the last 70 have had written communications and only the last six have had printed words. But of them the most crucial is our lifetime - the 800th. This one lifetime is the centre of history with as much happening in it as in all the previous lifetimes put together." - Alvin Toffler.

"Modern man is far from slaying the beast within; why assume that the man of the future will be a completely new creature? What if the new man combines the animal irrationality of primitive man with the calculated greed and power lust of industrial man, while possessing the virtual God-like powers granted him by technology? This would be the ultimate horror,"- Victor Ferkiss

Perfect timing, synchronicity
  "There comes a time when all the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place and the universe opens itself up for a few seconds to show you what is possible," - from the movie Field of Dreams based on the book Shoeless Joe by W P Kinsella (baseball). The hero (Ray Kinsella played by Kevin Costner) quotes this back at the writer Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones).

"Do you think the furniture in this room is adequately arranged? I have been toying with the notion that if one could find the perfect arrangement of all objects in any particular space it could create a resonance, the benefits to the individual dwelling in that space could be extensive … far reaching. Would you help me with this desk?" - Ben Horne (about to fall off the deep end) in Twin Peaks.

The human condition

  "Emotional pain always results when life’s experiences go beyond the answers we already have. Dig deeper for more wisdom or go on hurting," – David Riddell.

  "The budget must be balanced, government indebtedness must be reduced, the arrogant authorities must be moderated and controlled, people should learn to work again instead of living of the public dole," - Cicero (106-43BC)

"We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it....that does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago," - Rose Elizabeth Bird (first woman chief justice of California)

  Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings - Helen Keller.

 "Empathy is your pain in my heart" – Unknown

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds," – Einstein

"To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves,"
 -Will and Ariel Durant

  "The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in the furnace of earth seven times. You shall preserve them from this generation forever," Psalm 12:6-7.  "...and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us," John 1:14


"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."...You must do the thing you think you cannot do" - Eleanor Roosevelt 

  "Wonder, rather than doubt is the root of knowledge," - Abraham Joshua Heschel.

  The best prayers often have more groans than words," John Bunyan

  "As many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name; which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," - John 1: 11-13

Becoming
We are not put on this earth for ourselves,
But are placed here for each other.
If you are there always for others,
Then in time of need, someone will be there for you."
-  Jeff Warner

  "If you work on your mind with your mind how can you avoid an immense confusion," - Seng-Ts'an

  "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of becoming," 
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

  "Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it." - Tallulah Bankhead

"Never follow anyone's path. Go your own way and leave a trail."
 -  Damien Heath

"He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened," 
-Tao Te Ching

" We cannot become who we need to be by remaining who we are.
Invent yourself everyday," - Unknown

  As you think in your heart, so you are - Proverbs 23:7

  Wisdom makes your face shine - Ecclesiastes 8:1, Daniel 12
  Wisdom is proved right by her actions, - Matthew 11:18-19


"Do not be conformed to this world (this age) and its superficial customs, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God," - Romans 12:2