I put this page here to help you see that this is not just a far fetched opinion of mine. The ideas at this site are not mine. On the contrary, I had to see that my opinions and beliefs did nothing for me and were in fact wrong and useless. I had to UNLEARN what I KNEW FOR SURE. Seeing through self delusion is the first step.

Most of the following quotes came from people who knew nothing of each other. Yet they all convey the same message, in their own way. How? It did not come from them, but from something higher than themselves that they were in contact with.

"It is not far, it is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know." "I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood; I see that elementary laws never apologize." "You have not known what you are, you have slumbered upon yourself all your life... Whoever you are! Claim your own." "What do you suppose will satisfy the soul except to walk free and own no superior?" Walt Whitman

"A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labours are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong... Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and to perfect contentment." "We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe: can we not make the leap." "Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles. Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Truth makes all things plain." "Sleep no more" "But man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assured, his glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make the angels weep. "Is not the Truth the Truth." "We must follow, not force Providence." "We are not ourselves." "Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful." "Oppose not rage while rage is in its force, but give it way a while and let it waste." "Fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns." William Shakespeare

"Patience is powerful." "Who dares to say that he alone has found the Truth." "Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of God, and secret passages, running deep beneath the external nature, give their thoughts intercourse with higher intelligences, which strengthens and consoles them, and of which the labourers on the surface do not even dream." "To be strong is to be happy." "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"The rule for doing unto others as you would wish them to do unto you, calls for no miraculous proof, neither does it require faith, because the rule is convincing in itself, both to reason and to human nature." "There comes a time when, on the one hand, a vague awakening consciousness stirs the soul, the consciousness of the higher law ... and the sufferings a man endures from the contradictions of life, compel him to renounce the social order and to adopt the new ... And this time has now arrived." "It is in the recognition or non-recognition of these principles that a man finds or fails to find freedom." "An idea about God is not God." "However much we have dulled ourselves with hypocrisy, and dulled ourselves with the self-suggestion resulting from hypocrisy, nothing can destroy the absolute certainty of that simple and clear truth that no exterior effort can provide us with security." "But maybe I have overlooked something, or misunderstood certain ideas. It cannot be possible that this condition of despair is natural to man." Leo Tolstoy

"The Kingdom of Heaven is within." "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free." "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." "What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself?" "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." "I will liken him unto a wise man, which build his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" "Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Jesus

"Without going out of doors, one may know the whole world; without looking out the of the window, one may see the way to heaven. The further one travels, the less one may know. Thus it is that without moving you may know; without looking you shall see; without doing you shall succeed." "A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." "While they dream, they do not know they are dreaming." "Perfect kindness acts without thinking of kindness." "Use the light that is within you to recover your natural clearness of sight." "To see small beginnings is clearness of sight." "The sage attends to the inner, and not to the outer. "Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself." Lao-tse

"The first lesson, then, is to sit for some time and let the mind run on. The mind is bubbling up all the time. It is like that monkey jumping about. Let the monkey jump as much as he can; you simply watch and wait. Knowledge is power says the proverb, and that is true. Until you know what the mind is doing you cannot control it. Give it the full length of the reins; many most hideous thoughts may come into it; you will be astonished that it was possible for you to think such thoughts. But you will find that each day the mind's vagaries are becoming less and less violent, that each day it is becoming calmer... until at last it will be under perfect control, but we must patiently practise every day." "These are the stages through which we have to pass, and all those who persevere will succeed. Give up all argumentation and other distractions. Is there anything in this dry intellectual jargon? It only throws the mind off its balance. and disturbs it. these things have to be realized. Will talking do that? So give up all vain talk. Read only those books which have been written by persons who have realization." "A few golden apples are rolled, and the world scrambles after them. You were never bound by laws, Nature never had a bond for you ... We have placed ourselves in this net, and will have to get out ... Never forget this is only a momentary state, and that we have to pass through it." "It is true that all knowledge is within ourselves, but this has to be called forth by another knowledge. Although the capacity to know is inside us. it must be called out." Vivekananda

"If a man empties himself of himself, who can harm him?" "Cease striving; then there will be self-transformation." "To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." "Great truths do not take hold of the hearts of the masses." "After a while comes the Great Awakening." Chuang-tse

"Human life is thus only and endless illusion. Men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does when we are gone. Society is based on mutual hypocrisy." "We are troubled only by the fears which we, and not nature, give ourselves." "A principle installed into a good mind brings forth fruit." "We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we desire to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness or generosity or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence." "Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present, and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future ... So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so." "Observe yourselves." "Why do we follow the majority? Is it because they have more reason? No, because they have more power." "Each has his own fancies, opposed to his true good." Blaise Pascal

"Who in the world, then, is the man who has any authority to make any declaration about you?" "No man is damaged by an action which is not his own." "When I see an anxious man, I say, "What does this man want?' If he did not want something which is not in his power, how could he be anxious? For this reason, a lute player when he is singing by himself has no anxiety, but when he goes to the theater, he is anxious, even if he has a good voice and plays well on the lute, for he not only wishes to sing well, but also to obtain applause, which is not in his power." "The beginning of philosophy is to know the condition of one's own mind. If a man recognizes its weaknesses, he will not wish to apply it to important questions." "Relying on what? Not on reputation nor on wealth nor on the power of the law, but on his own strength ... for these are the only things which make men free." "Is freedom anything else than the power of living as we choose? Nothing else. Tell me then, you men, do you wish to live in error? We do not. No one who lives in error is free. Do you wish to live if fear? Do you wish to live in sorrow? Do you wish to live in tension? By no means. No one who is in a state of fear or sorrow or tension is free, but who ever is delivered from sorrow or fears or anxieties, he is at the same time also delivered from servitude." "The anger of an ape - the threat of a flatterer - these deserve equal regard." Epictetus

"Truth above all, even when it upsets and overwhelms us." "I perfer those men of genius who awaken in me the sense of truth, and who increase the sum of one's inner liberty." "To be happy, to possess eternal life, to be in God, to be saved - all these are the same. All alike mean the solution of the problem, the aim of existence. And happiness is cumulative, as misery may be. An eternal growth is an unchangeable peace, an ever more profounder depth of understanding, a possession constantly more intense and more spiritual with the joy of heaven - this is happiness. Happiness has no limits." "My true being, the essence of my nature, myself, remains inviolate and inaccessible to the world's attacks." "At bottom there is but one subject of study ... the mind. All other subjects may be reduced to that; all other studies bring us back to this study." "Nothing is more hidden from us than the illusion which lives with us day by day, and our greatest illusion is to believe that we are what we think ourselves to be." Henri Frederic Amiel

"Truth is the highest thing that man may keep." Geoffrey Chaucer

"The precept, 'Know yourself' was not solely intended to abolish the pride of men, but also that we might understand our own value." "The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs." "Our minds possess by nature an insatiable desire to know the Truth." "Careful attention to one thing often proves superior to genius." "He employs his emotion who can make no use of his reason." Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch ... you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening." Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Truly, I see he that will but stand to the Truth, it will carry him out." "Dwelling in the light, there is no occasion at all for stumbling, for all things are discovered in the light." George Fox

"The first and last thing which is required of genius is the love of Truth." "He is happy as well as great who needs neither to obey nor to command in order to be something." "Every man has within himself a continent of undiscovered character. Happy is he who proves to be the Columbus of his spirit." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Links to all pages at this site
Truth's Domain Home page So what do I do? Quotes from famous people who did it A True Story.

Correspondence is welcome @ [email protected]