The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.
~ Hazrat Khan ~
Using this site: |
Reference
11,600 quotations from 2,200 authors in 220 categories focusing on the inner
life, on personal development and self-actualization.
Therapy
As a field guide to mind states cross-indexed to help identify subjective
realities: Related states, Syntonic support elements and Dystonic contraindications.
Meditation
For random browsing and contemplation of selections.
Wisdom Circle
A random selection of a quotation from the collection by each member of a
workshop or focus group could become a means of introduction, an ice-breaker, as
that member shares with the rest of the group what that quotation means to her or
him, and how it relates to them personally.
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Better than a thousand sayings composed of meaningless statements is a
single meaningful statement on hearing which one becomes calm.
~ Buddha ~
WISDOM TO GO
THE BOOK
WINNER
BEST BOOKS 2006 AWARD
Non-Fiction Anthologies
824 pages, 7 x 10, hard cover
ISBN 0-9773391-0-6
The teachings of elegant sayings
Should be collected when one can.
For the supreme gift of words of wisdom,
Any price will be paid.
~ Nagarjuna ~
No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken the opportunity to act , one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.
~ William James ~
That which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
~ Buddha ~
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 greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
~ William James ~
We are the only creatures on earth who can change our biology by what we think and feel.
~ Deepak Chopra ~
SUBMIT A QUOTE OR COMMENT
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STATISTICS
ranked against ALL BOOKS
listed by Amazon.com
READABILITY
Fog Index 12.9
49% easier / 51% harder
Flesch Index 54.2
44% easier / 56% harder
Flesch-Kincaid Index 10.1
47% easier / 53% harder
COMPLEXITY
Complex words 15%
49% have fewer / 51% have more
Syllables per word 1.6
45% have fewer / 55% have more
Words per sentence 17.6
57% have fewer / 43% have more
NUMBER of
Characters 2,730,727
99% have fewer / 1% have more
Words 428,155
99% have fewer / 1% have more
Sentences 24,287
98% have fewer / 2% have more
VALUE
Words per dollar 12,074
Words per ounce 8,084
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WISDOM FOR THE SOUL
An anthology of quotations compiled and edited
by Larry Chang
Another quotation site? Indeed there are numerous excellent extant
anthologies of quotations, both on- and off-line, but these tend to be
very broad with a bias towards classical and well-known authors. This
collection focuses on the inner life, on personal development and
self-actualization. The quotations have been selected to inspire,
enlighten and encourage. They have been arranged by category and by author
in chronological order. The resulting timeline of thought in itself is
useful and instructive as it demonstrates very clearly the evolution of
consciousness evident in the contemporary thinking on particular subjects.
One or more quotations in each classification will be sure to strike a
responsive chord in the reader.
In the stress of modern life, we seek solutions, or at least some insight
from whatever quarter, that may relate or throw light on the challenges we
may be facing. We can take some small comfort in realizing that there is no
need to reinvent the wheel.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you
shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
~ Socrates ~
We have a legacy of recorded thought spanning some five millennia in
various world cultures that addresses every conceivable condition that
has faced the individual. Somebody somewhere has probably been there,
done that already. We can refer to what they have thought and said of
the experience, and we can learn from them. There is something here
for everyone.
The Logos is digging a channel for water to reach the
next generation.
During every generation there is one who brings the word of God;
Still the sayings of those who have come before are helpful.
~ Rumi ~
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands
of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly,
till they take root in our personal experience.
~ Goethe ~
How this came about
Like many before me, I have been a compulsive collector of quotations
for years and sought a convenient way in which to organize them for ready
reference for my own use. As a counselor, I offered them as suggestions
for clients to clarify particular issues before them. I more often than
not found that someone had already expressed so cogently and concisely,
and oftentimes poetically, the precise intangible I struggled to describe.
All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some
individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men
whose phrases are oracles; who can condense in one sentence the secrets
of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character, or illustrates
an existence.
~ Disraeli ~
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one
might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized
wiser than oneself.
~ Marlene Dietrich ~
It became so I had difficulty in conducting meaningful exchanges without
peppering them, perhaps unbearably pedagogically at times, with references
to what someone else had said. I am at my most pedantic in e-mail
correspondence where I have fingertip access to the files on my hard drive.
In this way, my own inadequacies of thought and expression are camouflaged
and compensated, creating the spurious impression of great erudition.
I quote others only the better to express myself.
~ Montaigne ~
I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking.
~ Dorothy Sayers ~
Next to being witty yourself, the best thing is being able to
quote another's wit.
~ Christian Bovee ~
If I quote liberally, it is not to show off book learning,
which at my stage of life can only invite ridicule, but rather to bathe
in this kinship of strangers.
~ Tuan Yi-Fu ~
Due to faulty memory or sluggish synapses, however, I tended to mangle
even well known and noble utterances. This collection is as much for my
own convenience, and delectation, as for anyone else's, to save me untold
embarrassment. As the exercise of handling these quotations was in itself
an occasion of learning and a revelation, contributing greatly to filling
conspicuously rudimentary gaps in my literary education, I cannot lay
claim to Pearson's vindication:
Misquotation is the pride and privilege of the learned.
A widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the obvious reason that
he has read too widely.
~ Edward Pearson ~
While I would not expect the reader to indulge me in misquoting within
these pages, stranger things have been known to happen. Like in the
children's game of telephone, I am merely repeating what someone repeated
of what someone else said. If my sources got it wrong somehow, or incorrect
attributions appear, then I apologize ahead of time. If inaccuracies are
brought to my attention, I'll endeavor to correct them. Likewise, I will
readily surrender any of the lines for which I claim authorship, not
necessarily because I never originated them but in deference to earlier,
more illustrious sources.
I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
~ George Bernard Shaw ~
Criteria for selection
I cannot better outline and describe the process of making this collection
than by quoting (what else?) someone else:
One could say of me that in this book I have only made up a
bunch of other men's flowers, providing of my own only the string to tie
them together.
~ Montaigne ~
The string I have provided, homespun and rough-drawn though it may be,
differs from the selective criteria of most traditional collections in
that it eschews and omits expressions of unhelpful criticism, carping
and cynicism, however trenchant and witty. It is intended to parcel
together related themes for the purpose of self-analysis, elucidation
and empowerment. Its preponderant worldview reflects the perennial
philosophy and accepts a reality of our own creation, our experience
of it based on our prevailing attitude. This attitude is infinitely
malleable and subject to our control, hence it is the basis of our
empowerment.
There is an inordinate amount of material available, and I have
been through a great deal of it — still only scratching the surface —
filtering for negativity and unhelpfulness. Many were called but
relatively few were chosen. Of what remained, only those quotations
characterized by clarity of thought, lyricism or sonority, or
possessed of that distinctive authoritative ring were selected
for inclusion. All spoke directly to me, some albeit in a whisper,
but they are all imbued with a high degree of authenticity.
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
~ Samuel Johnson ~
In the same way that we sometimes hunger for, nay, crave, a
particularly well-prepared dish, so we have a need to feast on
choice selections of words and well-turned phrases that our souls
may be nourished.
A quotation at the right moment is like bread in a famine.
~ Talmud ~
Some quotations will be found to fit as easily in one category as
another, and the reader may very well question their assignment. To
mitigate this somewhat, cross-indexing is provided but ultimately the
choices were based on my own subjective responses for which I take
full responsibility.
Another studied departure is the inclusion of quotations from less
familiar sources, tending to encompass, more than heretofore, thinkers
and writers of non-western cultures, of people of color, from the
earliest recorded Khemetic civilization to the present time. Creating
a forum for unfamiliar and seldom heard voices makes it a more inclusive,
more global representation appropriate for these times and this medium.
Voices previously drowned out can have special meaning in
the struggle to eradicate inequality.
~ Allan Hutchinson ~
Despite this intention, however, the preponderance of Western authors
is not surprising given the limitations and a priori bias of selecting
from available writings in English. In some instances, quotations have
been rendered as well in their original languages.
All men are interdependent. Every nation is an heir of a
vast treasury of ideas and labor to which both the living and the dead
of all nations have contributed. Whether we realize it or not, each of
us lives eternally 'in the red.' We are everlasting debtors to known
and unknown men and women.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~
What began as a divertissement, soon took over to become an obsession
with no apparent end in sight. I am still discovering words of wisdom;
new profundities are being uttered every day. Perhaps I have inadvertently
stumbled upon the ultimate perpetual motion machine, as future editions
and updates of indeterminate number will have to reflect and include
latterly revealed and newly minted expressions of wisdom. The criteria
for selection will evolve and the categories themselves will tend to
proliferate as hitherto undefined distinctions of psycho-spiritual
subtleties become established.
The majority of those who put together collections of
verses or epigrams resemble those who eat cherries or oysters: they
begin by choosing the best and end by eating everything.
~ Sebastien Chamfort ~
And to what purpose?
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The first and most obvious is as a reference to many of the world's
great quotations, providing quick access to part of humanity's greatest
legacy: recorded thought. They are cross-referenced and indexed by
subject and author.
The lips of the wise are as the doors of a cabinet; no
sooner are they opened, but the treasures are poured before you. Like
unto trees of gold arranged in beds of silver, are wise sentences
uttered in due season.
~ Khemetic Saying ~
The teachings of elegant sayings
Should be collected when one can.
For the supreme gift of words of wisdom,
Any price will be paid.
~ Nagarjuna ~
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages
is preserved, into perpetuity, by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk
wisdom, maxims, aphorisms and quotations.
~ William Feather ~
The art of thinking is practiced by all of us with greater or
lesser facility. Language is the medium in which we think. There is
much we can learn from the words selected by others, how they combined
them and the effect they have on us. In this way, we refine and clarify
our own thinking process.
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
~ Goethe ~
If we have a need to communicate the results of this process to
another human being, we need to be able to express what we think in
a way that convinces them of what we think. Reference to what has
been said before is often an effective way to do this for the recipient
commonly shares in the same literary legacy.
An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light
over the whole sentence.
~ L. E. Landon ~
A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle
in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.
~ Brendan Francis ~
Researchers, speakers and writers will find much to mine here, but
everyone, regardless of station or calling, likes to relate to what
others have said and quote whatever amplifies or supports our thinking.
It adds another dimension, gives validity and increases the legitimacy
of what we say if we are able to allude, however obliquely, to some
prior well-turned, but hopefully not well-worn, utterance.
A book that furnishes no quotations is, me
judice , no book — it is a plaything.
~ Caroline Lamb ~
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know ...
By necessity, by proclivity, - and by delight, we all quote.
All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment.
There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. The highest
statement of new philosophy complacently caps itself with some prophetic
maxim from the oldest learning.
~ Emerson ~
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The second, and perhaps most significant, way to utilize
Wisdom for the Soul is as a field guide to varying
experiences and states of mind. It can be both diagnostic and prescriptive
allowing us to identify and better understand the ineffable human spirit,
to self-treat whatever sense of dissatisfaction or dis-ease may come upon
us; it may suggest a regimen to follow or an antidote to apply. If
Anger is our current challenge, we may wish to assess how others have
dealt with their own, and then be directed to consider the remedies of
Acceptance, Composure, Equanimity or Forgiveness. Cross-references to therapeutic
elements to restore or enhance spiritual tone are listed as Syntonic,
while toxic or injurious elements as classed as Dystonic .
Each quotation maybe regarded as a mind pattern for the replication of
neuropeptides, those amino-acids produced by the body and that control the
emotions and immune system.
Neuropeptides provide the physiological basis for the emotions
... The striking pattern of neuropeptide receptor distribution in
mood-regulating areas of the brain, as well as their role in mediating
communication through the whole organism, makes neuropeptides the obvious
candidates for the biochemical mediation of emotion. It may be too that
each neuropeptide biases information processing uniquely when occupying
receptors at nodal points with the brain and body. If so, then each
neuropeptide may evoke a unique "tone" that is equivalent to a mood
state.
- Candace
Pert, "Neuropeptides: The Emotions and Bodymind," in Noetic
Sciences Review, No. 2, Spring 1987
This messenger molecule (neuropeptide) and cell-receptor
communication system is the psychobiological basis of mindbody healing,
therapeutic hypnosis, and holistic medicine in general.
- Ernest Rossi, The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing
Let the buyer beware, however:
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less
wise, to balance it.
~ George Santayana ~
A cursory consultation may leave the reader questioning or confused.
The sections on Questioning and Uncertainty could prove helpful here or
may lead the reader from Conflict and Struggle through Acceptance of
Change and Paradox to a Decision or Solution arrived at with Determination
while maintaining the Integrity of Self.
As with holistic therapies, we will discover that we may have to treat the
whole person rather than deal with isolated symptoms. Resonating with ideas
from different classifications, we make out our own prescriptions, individually
and specifically suited to our condition and temperament. Ultimately, we each
have to listen to our own inner voice, follow our own innate wisdom, but
in this we can be guided and reminded by the voices of prophets and
ordinary folk alike.
All verbal teachings are just to cure diseases. Because
diseases are not the same, the remedies are also different — True words
are those that actually cure sickness; if the cure manages to heal, then
all are true words. If they can't effectively cure sickness, all are
false words. True words are false words when they give rise to views.
False words are true words when they cut off the delusions of sentient
beings. Because disease is unreal, there is only unreal medicine to cure
it.
~ Baizhang Huaihai ~
It will do no good, however, to arrive at the most accurate and
percipient diagnosis and to prescribe the most efficacious remedy,
if we do not apply it. Some change of thought and behavior has to be
initiated. As with everything else, the more we put into it is the
more we will get out of it.
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced — even
a Proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it.
~ John Keats ~
Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally
experienced the truth of them.
~ Aldous Huxley ~
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A third way is to use this selection of readings as a guide to contemplation
and meditation. As with other inspirational texts, a selection could be chosen
each day, at random or in any order, and used as a focus of attention. No
particular religion, belief system or practice is required or is here being
recommended. Care has been taken to avoid quotations that favor any particular
religious tradition over any other. In keeping with the self-empowering focus
of the collection, deistic, transcendent and devotional readings have been
excluded.
The only way to read a book of aphorisms without being bored is
to open it at random and, having found something that interests you, close the
book and meditate.
~ Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne ~
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The random selection of a quotation from the collection by each member of
a workshop or focus group could become a means of introduction, an ice-breaker,
as that member shares with the rest of the group what that quotation means to
her or him, and how it relates to them personally – a wisdom circle, if you will.
In this way, encapsulated wisdom becomes disseminated, amplified and experienced
in application.
It is my fervent hope that surfers will derive as much enlightenment and
enjoyment out of this anthology as I have had in compiling it. I trust that it
will be found to reflect more closely, not Chesterton's, but rather Evans'
observation:
You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of
selected passages from the best writers in the world.
~ G. K. Chesterton ~
Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it
meaning - and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.
~ Bergen Evans ~
If nothing else, sit back, click away, and enjoy. I've had so much enrichment
— and fun. I hope you do too.
Like your body your mind also gets tired so refresh it by wise sayings.
~ Hazrat Ali ~
One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared
wisdom of mankind.
~ Ishmael Reed ~
After all,
Life itself is a quotation.
~ Jorge Luis Borges ~
Your support enables this work to continue
Namasté
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