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Quotes From Books:
These are quotes I have found meaningful for one reason or another
(or just plain funny).
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!


* From "Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion:"

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are."

"What you have to do
you do with play.
Life is without meaning.
You bring meaning to it.
The meaning of life is
whatever you ascribe it to be
Being alive is the meaning."

"Participate joyfully
in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows,
but we can choose to live in joy."

"Our own life lives on the acts of other people."

"What we are really living for
is the experience of life,
both the pain and the pleasure."

"Eternity is a dimension of here and now.
The divine lies within you."

"Your real duty
is to go away from the community
and find your bliss."

"A bit of advice
given to a young Native American
at the time of his initiation:
'As you go the way of life
you will see a great chasm.
Jump.
It is not as wide as you think."

"If you follow your bliss,
you will always have your bliss, money or not.
If you follow money,
You may lose it,
and you will have nothing."

"It takes courage
to do what you want.
Other people
have a lot of plans for you.
Nobody wants you to do
what you want to do.
They want you to go on their trip,
but you can do what you want."

"When the world
seems to be falling apart,
the rule is to hang onto your own bliss.
It's that life that survives."

"Apocalypse
does not point to a fiery Armageddon
but to our ignorance and complacency
coming to an end."

"Do not give up your vices.
Make your vices work for you.
If you are a proud person,
don't get rid of your pride.
Apply it to your spiritual quest."

"Love informs the whole universe
right down into the abyss of hell."

"Awe is what moves us forward."

"'Devil' is a word we use
for another person's god."

"You become mature
when you become
the authority for your own life."

"Your sacred space is
where you can find yourseslf again and again."

"You give yourself to life
by leaving temporality behind.
Desire for mortal gains
and fear of loss
hold you back from giving
yourself to life."

"When it's all love,
all must be love.
Nothing must interfere;
Love conquers all."

"The goal of life is rapture.
Art is the way we experience it."






* From "The Last American Man"

"He was gentle and idealistic about nature, but he wasn't a wimpy hippie, encouraging people to take off their clothes and make out with trees"
- Elizabeth Gilbert

Mom that one's for you!!!


"What a wild life! What a fresh kind of existence."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"And absolutism is great for getting a lot of work done, but when absolutisms collide, it can be a loud and fatal train wreck."

"I alone comprehend the true plan and the means of fulfilling it."
- Charles Fourier, Utopian

"Oh, he thinks now, maybe I can't change the world. Maybe Eustace's influence will be more modest, affecting small groups and scattered individuals..."

�There is no way, Eustace said, that you can have a decent life as a man if you aren�t awake and aware every moment. Show up for your own life, he said. Don�t pass your days in a stupor, content to swallow whatever watery ideas modern society may bottle feed you through the media, satisfied to slumber through life in an instant-gratification sugar coma. The most extraordinary gift you�ve been given is your own humanity, which is about consciousness, so honor that consciousness.

�Revere your senses; don�t degrade them with drugs, with depression, with willful oblivion. Try to notice something new every day, Eustace said. Pay attention to even the most modest of daily details. Even if you�re not in the woods, be aware at all times. Notice what food tastes like; notice what the detergent aisle in the supermarket smells like and recognize what those hard chemical smells do to your senses; notice what bare feet feel like; pay attention every day to the vital insights that mindfulness can bring. And take care of all things, of every single thing there is � your body, your intellect, your spirit, your neighbors, and this planet. Don�t pollute your soul with apathy or spoil your health with junk food any more thank you would deliberately contaminate a clean river with industrial sludge. You can never become a real man if you have a careless and destructive attitude, Eustace said, but maturity will follow mindfulness even as day follows night.�



* From "Lies My Teacher Told Me"

"By downplayinig covert and illegal acts by the government, textbook authors narcotize students from thinking such issues as the increasing dominance of the executive branch. By taking the government's side, textbooks encouragestsudents to conclude that criticism is incompatible with citizenship. ...Thus our American history textbooks minimize the potential power of the people and, despite their best patriotic efforts take a stance that is overtly undemocratic." pg 237

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
- William Faulkner

"Our increasing power makes it increasingly possible that humankind will make the planet unihabitable by accident." pg. 262

"Socialization is not primarily cognitive. We are not persuaded rationally not to pee in the living room, we are required not to."

"Concealment of the historical truth is a crime against the people."
- General Petro G. Grigorenko samizdat letter to a history journal c. 1975 USSR

"By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves...We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise."
- Charales V. Willie

"History is the polemics of the victor."
- William F. Buckley, Jr.

"Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived,and if faced
with courage, need to be lived again."
- Maya Angelou

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln

"Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat."
- Will Rogers

"As long as you are convinced you have never done anything, you can never do anything."
- Malcolm X

"We see things not as they are but as we are."
- Anais Nin

"Once you have learned how to ask questions - relevant and appropriate and substantial questions - you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know."
- Neil Postman & Charles Weingertner

"Do not try to satisfy your vanity by touching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them."
- Anatole France

"He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins."
- Frederick Douglass



* From "The Rainbow People of God"

"You will recall, too, in his parable of the Last Judgment, his describing what will determine whether we are fit or not fit for heaven. And the criteria have nothing that you could call relgious or other-worldly in the narrow sense about them. We qualify ourselves for heaven by whether we have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, or visited the sick and those imprisoned. And Jesus says to do those things to the least of his brethren is to have done them as to him." pg 29



* From "the Christmas train"

"I'm not saying that riding the train will change your life, or that passenger rail will be a big moneymaker one day. But no matter how fast we feelwe have to go, shouldn't there be room for a train, where you can just sit back, take a breath, and be human for a little while? Just for a little while? Is that so bad?"

"Do you love her? Do you? It's really that simple."
"Yes," Steve said without hesitation.
"Then you take her without reservation, disclaimer, parental demands, or otherwise. You take her as she is with all her faults, weaknesses, idiosyncracies, and requirements. You take her without qualification, with no strings attached by anyone else, that's what loving someone means.If you let that woman out of your life, you're a fool. She's given up as much as you, if not more. This may be the only shot you have at happiness. She may be the one woman in the entire world who you will love and who will make you happy. If you blow it, there's no going back, Steve, trust me."
"I love her, Tom, I really love her."
"Then that's all you need, that's all you need."

"Eleanor, love is like a good piece of wood: It just gets stronger and stronger as the years go by. ...It sounds corny, I know, but it's really the only thing that works between two people. The only thing."

"You see,...its often said that God works in mysterious ways. You have to really think about what He's trying to do. You can't be lazy and believe in God; He doesn't make it that easy. It takes spirit and faith and passion to really believe. Like most things worthwhile in life, you get back what you put into it. Only with faith, you get back a lot more."



* From "Naked"

"Lisa wouldn't know a sensitive loner if he crawled into her lap with a fistful of daisies..."
- From 'True Detective'

And Random Fun Quotes:


"[This is] the closest election that we have seen in this country--in about four years."
- The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, putting the results in a historical perspective



click here to see something I made, but I think the quote was in an ad in a magazine.









The quotes below are from Sara Wray :)


"While one person hesitates because he feels inferior; the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior."
- Henry C. Link

"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward."
-Soren Kierkegaard

"For everything you have missed, you have gained something else."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Ad astra per aspera."
- Latin proverb (does anyone know latin and tell me what that means?) :)

"An example from the monkey; the higher it climbs, the more you see of its behind."
- Saint Bonaventure

"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."
- C.S. Lewis

"Rejoice in the knowledge that you have given so much love and happiness to everyone around you and thus have won many hearts."
- Anonymous

"The difference between an adventure and a catastrophe is the attitude you take."
-Hugo van Perlstein

"The wise man travels to discover himself."
- James Russell Lowell



"Airports see it all the time, where someone's last goodbye blends in with someone's sigh cause someone's coming home, in hand a single rose. And that's the way this wheel keeps working out."
- John Mayer "Wheels"

"And if you never stop when you wave goodbye you just might find if you give it time you will wave hello again, you just might wave hello again."
- John Mayer "Wheels"

"I believe that my life's gonnna see, the love I give, returned to me."
- John Mayer "Wheels"



"Birthdays are good for you; the more you have the longer you live."

"All glory comes from daring to begin."
- Eugene F. Ware

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."
- Goethe

"You can change your thinking and thereby change your life, you can become what you think."
- M. Grove

"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; The naive forgive and forget; The wise forgive but do not forget."
- Thomas Szasz

"Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you."
- Langston Hughes

"Your focus is your life."
- Lynda Snowball

"Have you ever heard this xmas song called Dominick the Donkey? Supposedly it's italian, but i just think it is annoying."
- Kevin Morris



The quotes below are from Jennie Flynn :)


"Blossom as a flower with each endeavor; strive for the sun, grow with the rain."

"I was blessed with a birth and a death
and a gift or a curse somewhere in between
'cause you're only as loud as the noises you make
and as big as the things you dream."

"A feminist is a woman who does not allow anyone to think in her place."

"If God is a DJ
Life is a dance floor
Love is the rhythm
You are the music."

"Sic parvis magna." (Great things from small beginnings in latin)

"Roses are red, violets are blue, God made me pretty, what the hell happened to you?"

"Friendship is like peeing your pants...everyone can see it, but only you can feel it's true warmth."



The quotes below are from John Verdi's Supervisor Resource Manual - He was my stellar summer '04 office mate :)
The author's aren't noted, I'm not sure who wrote any of these.


�I trust that you are as a thermostat and not a thermometer. A thermometer measures the climate while a thermostat changes the climate.�

�Don�t burn bridges. You�ll be surprised how many times you have to cross the same river.�

�Every person that you meet knows something you don�t; learn from them.�

�The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy.�

�Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things... I am tempted to think there are no little things.�

�Learn to listen. Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly.�

�The child plucks the fruit from a tree the grandparent planted.�

�The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.�

�I�ve learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.�

�Take care of your reputation. It�s your most valuable asset.�

�I�ve learned that you learn most from people who are learning themselves.�

�The red voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.�



"Tears will get you sympathy, sweat will get you change."
- Jesse Jackson

"Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts."
- Charles Dickens

"There's a world of difference beteween truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth."
- Maya Angelou

"You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time fight it or perish, and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand."
- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth."
- John F. Kennedy

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."
- Antoine de Saint Exupery

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
- Mark Twain

"Your true passion should feel like breathing; its that natural."
- Oprah Winfrey



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