Inspirational Quotations

You must be the change
you wish to see in the world.
-Mahatma Gandhi

What you are looking for
is what is looking.
-St. Francis of Assisi

Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny--he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally--you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.
-Osho

This we know: All things are connected
like the blood that unites us.
We did not weave the web of life,
We are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
-Chief Seattle

Man emulates earth
Earth emulates heaven
Heaven emulates the Way
The way emulates nature.
-Henry David Thoreau

You've been walking in circles, searching. Don't drink by the water's edge. Throw yourself in. Become the water. Only then will your thirst end.
-Jeanette Berson

Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from
finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.
-Eckhart Tolle

Wherever I go, I meet myself.
-Tozan

You can outdistance that which is running after you,
but not what is running inside you.
-Rwandan Proverb

You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, a single power, a single salvation...and that is called loving.
Well then, love your suffering.
Do not resist it, do not flee from it.
It is only your aversion to it that hurts, nothing else.
-Hermann Hesse

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
Bashô, Narrow Road to the Interior

The intuituive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
-Albert Einstein

You cannot transcend
what you do not know. To go beyond
yourself, you must know yourself.
-Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of their meaning. Once you've got the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?
-Chuang Tzu

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life, is when men are afraid of the Light.
-Plato

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; It is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
-Seneca

To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance of others, by expressing in the world of forms- truth, love, purity and beauty - this is the sole game which has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.
-Meher Baba

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
-Gilbert Keith Chesterton

You need not do anything.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
You need not even listen, just wait.
You need not even wait, just learn to be quiet, still and solitary.
And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked.
It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
-Franz Kafka

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.
-Bob Marley

What is in one is in the whole, and therefore, ultimately,
Each soul is responsible for the whole world.
-Gary Zukav

When you know that you are eternal you can play your
true role in time. When you know you are divine you can become completely human. When you know you are one with God you are free to become absolutely yourself ...
-Mother Meera

A ship is safe in harbor-- but that's not what ships are for.
-John A. Shedd

Seeking
Why run around sprinkling holy water?
There's an ocean inside you, and when you're
ready you'll drink.
-Kabir

The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.
-The Upanishads

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.
-Lewis Carroll

Bring into play the almighty power within you, so that on the stage of life you can fulfill your high destined role.
-Paramahansa Yogananda

It is eternity now; I am in the midst of it. It is about me in the sunshine; I am in it, as the butterfly in the light-laden air. Nothing has to come; it is now. Now is eternity; now is immortal life.
-Richard Jefferies

Without going out of my door, I can know all things on earth. Without looking out of my window I could know the ways of heaven. The farther one travels, The less one knows, the less one really knows.
-George Harrison The Inner Light

I shut my eyes in order to see.
-Paul Gaugin

Be a lamp unto your self. Be your own confidence. Hold to the truth within yourself as to the only Truth.
-Buddha

The true vocation of man is to find his way to
himself.
-Hermann Hesse

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
-Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
-Ursula Le Guin

Truly it is in the darkness
that one finds the light, so
when we are in sorrow,
then this light is nearest of
all to us.
-Meister Eckhart

Truth does not become error just because nobody believes it.
-Gandhi

Peace originates with the flow of
things-- its heart is like the movement of
the wind and waves. The Way is like the
veins that circulate blood through our
bodies, following the natural flow of the
life force. If you are separated in the
slightest from that divine essence, you
are far off the path.
-Morihei Ueshiba

Life is a daring adventure or it is
nothing at all.
-Helen Keller

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.
-Benjamin Disreali

I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time.
-Anna Freud

The unexamined life is not worth living.
-Socrates

We either make ourselves miserable or we
make ourselves strong. The amount of work
is the same.
-don Juan Matus
as quoted by Carlos Castaneda

Heaven on Earth is a choice you must make, not a place you must find.
-Dr. Wayne Dyer

Our own heart,
and not others'opinions of us,
forms our true honor.
-Friedrich von Schiller

One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
-Kahlil Gibran

There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
-Richard Bach

The ego will not go with laughter or caresses.
It must be chased in sorrow and drowned in tears.
-Persian saying

The attainment of wholeness requires one to stake one's whole being. Nothing less will do; there can be no easier conditions, no substitutes, no compromises.
-Carl Jung

Only the dead can die, not the living. That which is alive in you is immortal.
In reality there is only the source, dark in itself, making everything shine. Unperceived, it causes perception. Unfelt, it causes feeling. Unthinkable, it causes thought. Non-being, it gives birth to being. It is the immovable background of motion. Once you are there, you are at home everywhere.
-Nisargadatta Mahraj

Only those who partake of the harmony within their souls know the harmony that runs through nature.
-Paramahansa Yogananda

Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it. Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing, where something might be planted, a seed, possibly from the Absolute."
-Rumi

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
-Marcus Aurelius

He who knows others
is clever; He who
knows himself is enlightened.
-Lao Tzu

Sound when stretched is music.
Movement when stretched is dance.
Mind when stretched is meditation.
Life when stretched is celebration.
-Ravi Shankar

The soul is a breath of living spirit, that with excellent sensitivity, permeates the entire body to give it life. Just so, the breath of the air makes the earth fruitful. Thus the air is the soul of the earth, moistening it, greening it.
-Hildegarde of Bingen

There is nothing permanent except change.
-Heraclitus