RG Daily Quotes

July 20 - 26

2008-08-02T23:51:00.001-05:00

7/20 "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."
- Arthur Eddington

7/21 "This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove."
- The Buddha's Words on Kindness

7/22 “To get through the hardest journey we need take only one step at a time, but we must keep on stepping.”
- Chinese Proverb

7/23 “Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world besides the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?”
- Henry Miller

7/24 "The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man."
- Confucius

7/25 "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
- Muriel Strode

7/26 “Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.”
- Erich Fromm

July 13 - 19

2008-08-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

7/13 “Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.”
- Wayne Dyer

7/14 "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."
- Anais Nin

7/15 “Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.”
- Thomas Jefferson

7/16 "We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want."
- Lao Tzu

7/17 "An artist is his own audience."
- Sidian M. S. Jones

7/18 "In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all."
- Alan Watts

7/19 “People who love only once in their lives are. . . shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination.”
- Oscar Wilde

July 6 - 12

2008-08-02T23:49:00.000-05:00

7/6 "Take the relationship of love. I may be in love and my girlfriend may be a flawlessly beautiful and wonderful person, but if I can control her completely and become immersed in her perfection, I might as well fall in love with a mannequin. However, if she has a little mole on her cheek, or some kind of unpredictability of character, then the accidental has been introduced into the domain of the orderly, and I can enjoy her humanity more easily."
- Alan Watts

7/7 “The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.”
- Tom Bodett

7/8 "Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money."
- George Carlin

7/9 "We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There’s not much personal about the laws of physics."
- Stephen Hawking

7/10 "Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured."
- Mark Twain

7/11 “I would describe my spirituality as exactly the opposite of having a religious affiliation.”
- Bill Maher

7/12 "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
- Albert Einstein

June 29 - July 5

2008-08-02T23:44:00.000-05:00

6/29 "Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born of another time."
- Hebrew Proverb

6/30 "Underlying great doubt there is great satori, where there is thorough questioning there will be thoroughgoing experience of awakening."
- Zen Saying Quoted by Hakuin

7/1 "There is greater drama to be had."
- Sidian M. S. Jones

7/2 "It is necessary to be noble,
and yet take humility as a basis.
It is necessary to be exalted,
and yet take modesty as a foundation."
- Tao Te Ching

7/3 "I have discovered that all of mans unhappiness derives from only one source, not being able to sit quietly in a room."
- Blaise Pascal

7/4 “I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death”
- Robert Fulghum

7/5 "She alone does not compete,
And so the world can never overcome her."
- Lao Tzu

June 22 - 28

2008-08-02T23:43:00.002-05:00

6/22 "Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still."
- Chinese Proverb

6/23 "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."
- George Carlin

6/24 "A masterpiece is the most obvious thing."
- Sidian M. S. Jones

6/25 "Ethics cannot be based upon our obligations toward [people], but they are complete and natural only when we feel this Reverence for Life and the desire to have compassion for and to help all creatures insofar as it is in our power. I think that this ethic will become more and more recognized because of its great naturalness and because it is the foundation of a true humanism toward which we must strive if our culture is to become truly ethical."
- Albert Schweitzer

6/26 "...Once again we face a paradox, for it appears
that softening your heart and gently tending its wounds
will protect you from evil.
Building a fortress and defending yourself behind it will
only make you more vulnerable.
Healing your own heart is the single
most powerful thing you can do
to change the world.
Your own transformation will enable you to withdraw
so completely from evil
that you contribute to it by not one word, one thought, or one breath.
This healing process is like recovering your soul."
- Deepak Chopra

6/27 “The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms.”
- Lao Tzu

6/28 "And she spoke again saying
'Know, my child,
That there is no devil seeking
To cause guilt nor harm to men.

No evil, save blind faith, ignorance,
And the desire for the unprepared
To blame others for the devastation
Left in the wake of change

Change, my child
Change is in the heavens
Change is on this earth
Change is all around us

And if we
Are reflections of the divine
We must roll with these changes,
For we are these changes.

Eyes wide open,
We must look upon
The heavens as a mirror.
Wide awake, aware, deeply breathing

And when the shit comes down, my child,
You will be there,
A true and holy survivor
To inherit the kingdom of god.'"
- Maynard James Keenan, Sour Grapes

June 15 - 21

2008-08-02T23:43:00.001-05:00

6/15 "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
- Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

6/16 "Everything in moderation. Including moderation."
- Mr. Gloaming

6/17 "It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable."
- William Golding

6/18 "Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, Chaos is being yourself."
- Emile Cioran

6/19 "When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it."
- John Adams

6/20 "Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place."
- Mark Twain

6/21 "The shaman follows his own weird, or destiny, and is thus considered a "weird" fellow, in the sense of transcending social convention. He is "out of this world" or other-worldly, and is credited with magical powers because he represents the uncanny and gets along in life without going by the usual rules and traveling by the beaten path."
- Alan Watts, In My Own Way

June 8 - 14

2008-08-02T23:41:00.002-05:00

6/8 "I'll be the one to protect you from
Your enemies and all your demons
I'll be the one to protect you from
A will to survive and a voice of reason
I'll be the one to protect you from
Your enemies and your choices, son
They're one and the same
I must isolate you
Isolate and save you from yourself"
- Maynard James Keenan, Pet

6/9 “It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order.”
- Douglas Hostadter

6/10 "You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe."
-Carl Sagan

6/11 "The world is a sacred object.
Nothing is to be done to it.
To do anything to it, is to damage it.
To seize it, is to loose it."
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 29

6/12 "Quiet people often have the most to say."
- Sidian M. S. Jones

6/13 "People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar."
-Thich Nhat Hanh

6/14 "You have said it, but you have not understood."
- Jesus of Nazareth

June 1 - 7

2008-08-02T23:41:00.001-05:00

6/1 "There is no need for modesty where simple honesty will do."
- Sidian M. S. Jones

6/2 "This sounds an extraordinary statement to make, but in fact all truth is very ordinary. It is peoples' fantasies of what is true that is so extraordinary. That that we were born and that we face eternal extinction after death is an extraordinary fantasy."
- Brian Perkins

6/3 "She did not consciously think, 'Ah, today I learned this and that; I gained this much.' You do not do it step by step that way, by adding on coatings of varnish, or new paint. When learning becomes you, then it appears as you need it, when you are being you. Sometimes true learning surprises you when it emerges."
- Chungliang Al Huang

6/4 "Within a change process is a period of not having the old way of thinking, while not yet integrating the new way of thinking, which is the chaos of creativity at an important juncture."
- Jan Sheppard

6/5 Redefine God is "Atheism for Theists and Theism for Atheists."
- Sidian M. S. Jones

6/6 6/7"Express yourself completely,
then keep quiet.
Be like the forces of nature;
when it blows, there is only wind;
when it rains, there is only rain;
when the clounds pass, the sun shines through.

If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you can embody it completely.
If you open yourself to insight,
you are at one with insight
and you can use it completely.
If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.

Open yourself to the Tao,
then trust your natural responses;
and everything will fall into place."
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu as translated by Stephen Mitchell

May 25 - 31

2008-08-02T23:39:00.000-05:00

5/25 “There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.”
- Henry David Thoreau

5/26 "Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true."
- Demosthenes

5/27 “The paradox of reality is that no image is as compelling as the one which exists only in the mind's eye.”
- Shana Alexander

5/28 "Get yourself a car and drive it all alone. Get yourself a car and ride it on the wind."
- Chris Cornell, Getaway Car

5/29 "Problems arise because everyone wants to be different and unique, when the truth is, we're all the same...all parts of True God."
- Dr. Jordan Jones

5/30 "For Zen, man is the goal; man is the end unto himself. God is not something above humanity, God is something hidden within humanity. Man is carrying God in himself as a potentiality."
- Osho

5/31 "Why is the tao so valuable?
Because it is everywhere,
and everyone can use it.
This is why those who seek
will find,
And those who reform
will be forgiven;
Why the good
will be rewarded,
And the thief who is cunning
will escape."
- Lao Tzu

May 17 - 24

2008-05-31T17:25:00.000-05:00

5/17 “God’s most cherished secrets are hidden inside the human skull.”
- Deepak Chopra, How To Know God

5/18 "A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."
- Carl Sagan

5/19 "The secret is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams, cause if you can do that you can do anything."
-Waking Life

5/20 "In this moment there is nothing which comes to be. In this moment there is nothing which ceases to be. Thus there is no birth-and-death to be brought to an end. Wherefore the absolute tranquility is this present moment. Though it is at this moment, there is no limit to this moment, and herein is eternal delight."
- T'an-ching

5/21 "Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water."
- Albert Schweitzer

5/22 "I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.”
- Walter Anderson

5/23 “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.”
- Alan Alda

5/24 "Life in its manifestations is vibration. Electricity is vibration. But vibration that is creative is one thing. Vibration that is destructive is another. Yet they may be from the same source. As in the electrical forces in the form or nature prepared even for use in the body."
- Unknown

May 10 - 16

2008-05-31T17:24:00.000-05:00

5/10 "And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment."
- Alan Watts

5/11 "There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them."
- Denis Waitley

5/12 "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."
- Alfred D. Souza

5/13 "You have to stop competeing, justifying yourself, and just be/not be. This requires you to stop, look, and listen, abandon thoughts and theories, and feel directly whatever it is that is going on without asking questions - i.e., for translations into words of what is going on."
- Alan Watts, In My Own Way

5/14 "This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember. We are eternal.
All this pain is an illusion."
- Maynard James Keenan, Parabola

5/15 "Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money."
- George Carlin

5/16 "We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society."
-Thomas Jefferson

May 3 - 9

2008-05-31T17:19:00.001-05:00

5/3 “Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
- Albert Einstein

5/4 "Notions of God, of the ultimate reality or the ground of being, must necessarily be vague - for the simple reason that, just as we cannot bite our own teeth, we cannot make the energy that we ourselves ARE a precisely defined object. Verbal definitions of God in the forms of creeds, dogmas, and doctrines are far more dangerous idols than statues made of wood, stone, or gold, because they have the deceptive appearence of being more "spiritual," and because a creedally formulated God has been REDUCED to words, and is no longer experienced immediately, like clear water or blue sky."
- Alan Watts, In My Own Way

5/5 "You've claimed all this time that you would die for me.
Why then are you so surprised to hear your own eulogy?

You had a lot to say.
You had a lot of nothing to say.

Come down.
Get off your fuckin' cross.
We need the fuckin' space to nail the next fool martyr.

To ascend you must die.
You must be crucified
For your sins and your lies. [sic]
Goodbye..."
-Maynard James Keenan, Eulogy

5/6 "You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act."
- Barbara Hall

5/7 "The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

5/8 “The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms”
- Lao Tzu quotes

5/9 "How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god."
- Alan Watts

April 26 - May 2

2008-05-31T17:18:00.000-05:00

4/26 "The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has."
- Confucius

4/27 “And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
- Kahlil Gibran

4/28 "The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it."
-Francis Bacon

4/29 "Be patient.
I must keep reminding myself of this.
And if there were no rewards to reap,
No loving embrace to see me through
This tedious path I've chosen here,
I certainly would've walked away by now.
And I still may.
Gonna wait it out."
- Maynard James Keenan

4/30 "...For to be and not to be is not the question, since the two states manifest each other. How would you know that you are alive unless you had once been dead?"
- Alan Watts, In My Own Way

5/1 "A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter."
- Alan Watts, In My Own Way

5/2 “All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
- Jalal ad-Din Rumi

April 19 - 25

2008-05-31T17:17:00.000-05:00

4/19 "The pain passes, but the beauty remains."
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

4/20 "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."
- Carl Jung

4/21 Ex-Leper: Okay, sir, my final offer: half a shekel for an old ex-leper?
Brian: Did you say "ex-leper"?
Ex-Leper: That's right, sir, 16 years behind a veil and proud of it, sir.
Brian: Well, what happened?
Ex-Leper: Oh, cured, sir.
Brian: Cured?
Ex-Leper: Yes sir, bloody miracle, sir. Bless you!
Brian: Who cured you?
Ex-Leper: Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me! One minute I'm a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood's gone. Not so much as a by-your-leave! "You're cured, mate." Bloody do-gooder.
- Monty Python's The Life of Brian

4/22 "Few, if any, seemed to have grasped the truest principle of reality. New knowledge leads always to yet more awesome mysteries. Greater physiological knowledge of the brain makes the existance of the soul less possible, yet more probable by the nature of the search."
- The man in black to Roland in The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

4/23 "I think real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitutude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds."
- from The Eyes of the Dragon, by Steven King

4/24 "Truth: the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death."
- John Gilmore

4/25 "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew."
- Abraham Lincoln

April 12 - 18

2008-05-31T17:16:00.000-05:00

4/12 "We have two eyes to see two sides of things, but there must be a third eye which will see everything at the same time and yet not see anything. That is to understand Zen."
- D. T. Suzuki

4/13 "Each of us is here to discover our true Self… that essentially we are spiritual beings who have taken manifestation in physical form… that we‘re not human beings that have occasional spiritual experience... that we’re spiritual beings that have occasional human experiences."
- Deepak Chopra

4/14 "I have an existential map. It has 'You are here" written all over it."
- Steven Wright
"I may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others."
- Steven Wright

4/15 "When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When the body's intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born."
Tao Te Ching

4/16 "He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery."
- Harold Wilson

4/17 "The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes."
- Mark Twain

4/18 "I shut my eyes in order to see."
- Paul Gauguin

April 5 - 11

2008-05-31T17:15:00.000-05:00

4/5 "Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing."
- Thomas Huxley

4/6 "You can live in this illusion
You can't choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the words
Now you're hiding in your dreams
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream.
An' If you look at your reflection
Is that all you want to be
what if you could look right through the cracks
would you find yourself... find yourself afraid to see"
- NIN, Right Where it Belongs, With Teeth

4/7 "But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?"
- Mark Twain

4/8 "The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised. I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater princple."
- Andrew Carnegie

4/9 "Underlying great doubt there is great satori, where there is thorough questioning there will be thoroughgoing experience of awakening."
- Zen saying quoted by Hakuin

4/10 "Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
- H. Jackson Brown

4/11 Brian: Please, please, please listen! I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Sch!

-Monty Python's The Life of Brian

March 29 - April 4

2008-04-25T00:20:00.002-05:00

3/29 "I believe that the moment is near when by a procedure of active paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality."
- Salvador Dali

3/30 "I read the graffiti in the bathroom stall
Like the holy scriptures in a shopping mall
And so it seemed to confess it didn't say much
But it only confrimed that
The center of the earth is the end of the world
And I could really care less."
- Billie Joe Armstrong

3/31 "I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder."
- Bill Maher

4/1 "We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think religion stops people from thinking. I think it justified crazies."
- Bill Maher

4/2 "People in the world cannot identify their own mind. They believe that what they see, or hear, or feel, or know, is mind. They are blocked, and so cannot see the brilliant spirit of their original mind."
- Huang-po.

4/3 "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice."
- Albert Einstein

4/4 "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

March 22 - 28

2008-04-25T00:20:00.001-05:00

3/22 "Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning."
- Gloria Steinem

3/23 "She wondered why everything had to be so damned hard, so damned (riddle-dee-dum) mysterious, and knew that that was a question to which she would never find a satisfactory answer. Except it was the human condition, wasn't it? The answers that mattered never came easy."
- Susannah from Steven King's Dark Tower VII - The Dark Tower

3/24 "The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything."
- Abraham Maslow

3/25 "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."
- Gautama Buddha

3/26 "I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case."
-Christopher Hitchens

3/27 "I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected
enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
of our divinity and still be a human."

- Maynard James Keenan

3/28 "Conceive of God in terms of universal Nature--a nature God in whom we really live and move and have our being, with who our relation is as intimate and constant as that of the babe in its mother’s womb, or the apple upon the bough. This is the God that science and reason reveal to us--the God we touch with our hands, see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and from whom there is no escape, who is, indeed, from everlasting to everlasting."
- John Burroughs

March 15 - 21

2008-04-25T00:19:00.002-05:00

3/15 "The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."
- M. Scott Peck

3/16 "I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most."
- Bob Dylan

3/17 "It is important to do what you don't know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos."
- Carlos Castaneda

3/18 “Our real discoveries come from chaos, from going to the place that looks wrong and stupid and foolish.”
- Chuck Palahniuk

3/19 "Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes, and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is 432,000 years. When he dies, the lotus goes back, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each a lotus, with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes."
- Joseph Campbell

3/20 One day Mal-2 asked the messenger spirit Saint Gulik to approach the
Goddess and request Her presence for some desperate advice. Shortly
afterwards the radio came on by itself, and an ethereal female Voice said
YES?
"O! Eris! Blessed Mother of Man! Queen of Chaos! Daughter of
Discord! Concubine of Confusion! O! Exquisite Lady, I beseech You to lift
a heavy burden from my heart!"
WHAT BOTHERS YOU, MAL? YOU DON’T SOUND WELL.
"I am filled with fear and tormented with terrible visions of pain.
Everywhere people are hurting one another, the planet is rampant with
injustices, whole societies plunder groups of their own people, mothers
imprison sons, children perish while brothers war. O, woe."
WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THAT, IF IT IS WHAT YOU WANT
TO DO?
"But nobody wants it! Everybody hates it!"
OH. WELL, THEN STOP.
At which moment She turned Herself into an aspirin commercial and
left the Polyfather stranded alone with his species.
Malaclypse the Younger
Principia Discordia

3/21 "All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, ture and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense. - A public service clarification by the Sri Syadasti School of Spiritual Wisdom, Wilmette."
- Principia Discordia

March 8 - 14

2008-04-25T00:18:00.000-05:00

3/8 "Let your own presence be something that influences the world."
- Ken Wilber

3/9 "The universe must be experienced as the Great Self. Each is fulfilled in the other: the Great Self is fulfilled in the individual self, the individual self is fulfilled in the Great Self. Alienation is overcome as soon as we experience this surge of energy from the source that has brought the universe through the centuries. New fields of energy become available to support the human venture. These new energies find expression and support in celebration. For in the end the universe can only be explained in terms of celebration. It is all an exuberant expression of existence itself."
- Thomas Berry

3/10 "Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries."
- Carl Sagan

3/11 "Three rules of work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
- Albert Einstein

3/12 "I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

My shadow
Change is coming.
Now is my time.
Listen to my muscle memory.
Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
Forty-six and two ahead of me.

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through."
- Maynard James Keenan
Forty-six & 2

3/13 "If I were a tree among trees, a cat among animals, this life would have a meaning, or rather this problem would not arise, for I should belong to this world. I should be this world to which I am now opposed by my whole consciousness and my whole insistence upon familiarity. This ridiculous reason is what sets me in opposition to all creation. I cannot cross it out with a stroke of a pen."
- Albert Camus.

3/14 "We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations."
- Anais Nin

March 1 - 7

2008-04-25T00:16:00.000-05:00

3/1 "People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."
- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

3/2 "It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."
- Alan Cohen

3/3 "If God kills, lies, cheats, discriminates, and otherwise behaves in a manner that puts the Mafia to shame, that's okay, he's God. He can do whatever he wants. Anyone who adheres to this philosophy has had his sense of morality, decency, justice and humaneness warped beyond recognition by the very book that is supposedly preaching the opposite."
- Dennis McKinsey

3/4 "Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that ..."
- George Carlin

3/5 “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

3/6 "The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it."
- Voltaire

3/7 "Who are you to wave your finger?
You must have been outta your head
Eye hole deep in muddy waters
You practically raised the dead

Rob the grave to snow the cradle
Then burn the evidence down
Soapbox house of cards and glass so
Don't go tossin' your stones around"

- Maynard James Keenan

February 23 - 29

2008-03-05T13:51:00.000-06:00

2/23 "When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide’ll turn."
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

2/24 "All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible."
- T.E. Lawrence

2/25 "No longer forward nor behind
I look in hope and fear;
But grateful take the good I find,
The best of now and here."
- John G. Whittier

2/26 "Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration … that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves."
- Bill Hicks

2/27 "The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others."
- Solomon Ibn Gabriol

2/28 "A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie."
- Robert Green Ingersoll

2/29 "You know, I rather like this God fellow. Very theatrical, you know. Pestilence here, a plague there. Omnipotence ... gotta get me some of that."
- Stewie from Family Guy

February 16 - 22

2008-03-05T13:50:00.000-06:00

2/16 "Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true."
- Leon J. Suenes

2/17 "Imagine every day to be the last of a life surrounded with hopes, cares, anger, and fear. The hours that come unexpectedly will be so much more the grateful."
- Horace

2/18 "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
- Harold R. McAlindon

2/19 "The searching-out and thorough investigation of truth ought to be the primary study of man."
- Cicero

2/20 "Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress."
- Epictetus

2/21 "The real leader has no need to lead -- he is content to point the way."
- Henry Miller

2/22 "Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."
- Louisa May Alcott

February 9 - 15

2008-03-05T13:49:00.001-06:00

2/9 “In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”
- Tao Te Ching quote

2/10 "Whoever relies on the Tao in governing men doesn't try to force issues or defeat enemies by force or arms. For every force there is a counterforce. Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself…."
- Tao Te Ching

2/11 "Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity."

- Tao Te Ching

2/12 "Know the strength of man,
But keep a woman's care!
Be the stream of the universe!
Being the stream of the universe,
Ever true and unswerving,
Become as a little child once more.

Know honour,
Yet keep humility.
Be the valley of the universe!
Being the valley of the universe,
Ever true and resourceful,
Return to the state of the uncarved block."

- Tao Te Ching

2/13 "The mind that does not understand is the Buddha. There is no other."
- Ma-tsu

2/14 "Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."
- Langston Hughes

2/15 "A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time."
- Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle

February 2 - 8

2008-03-05T13:48:00.000-06:00

2/2 "Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."
- Mark Twain

2/3 Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED"
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
-- Douglas Adams

2/4 "Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still."
- Chinese Proverb

2/5 "Think for yourself
Question authority
Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, the religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness; chaotic, confused, vulnerability to inform yourself."
- Timothy Leary

2/6 "You can't just sit down and talk about the truth. It doesn't work that way. You have to live it and be part of it and you might get to know it."
- Rolling Thunder

2/7 "And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am very happy with it."
- Ernest Hemingway

2/8 "Happy in the morning
I open my cottage door;
A clear breeze blowing
Comes straight in.
The first sun
Lights the leafy trees;
The shadows it casts
Are crystal clear.
Serene,
In accord with my heart,
Everything merges
In one harmony.
Gain and loss
Are not my concern;
This way is enough
To the end of my days."
- Wen siang

January 26 - February 1

2008-02-23T18:51:00.001-06:00

1/26 "The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes."
- John Adams

1/27 "The greatest achievement is selflessness.
The greatest worth is self-mastery.
The greatest quality is seeking to serve others.
The greatest precept is continual awareness.
The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.
The greatest action is not conforming with the worlds ways.
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions.
The greatest generosity is non-attachment.
The greatest goodness is a peaceful mind.
The greatest patience is humility.
The greatest effort is not concerned with results.
The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go.
The greatest wisdom is seeing through appearances."
- Atisha

1/28 "Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend -- or a meaningful day."
- Dahli Lama

1/29 "For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."
- Alfred D. Souza

1/30 "I don't have a happy life, but I'm happy."
- Kenneth Herman

1/31 "At any given moment, I open my eyes and exist. And before that, during all eternity, what was there? Nothing."
- Ugo Betti

2/1 "Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink."
- Shunryu Suzuki

January 18 - 24

2008-02-23T18:50:00.003-06:00

1/18 "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
- Albert Einstein

1/19 "You are a child of the Universe, no less than the moon and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should."
- Max Ehrmann

1/20 "It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates."
- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

1/21 "Be careful how you interpret the world: it is like that."
- Erich Heller

1/22 "During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."
- James Madison

1/23 "To what shall I compare this life of ours?
Even before I can say
it is like a lightning flash or a dewdrop
it is no more."
- Sengai

1/24 "It is better to be hurt by a truth than it is to be comforted by a lie."
- Khaled Hosseini

January 11 - 17

2008-02-23T18:50:00.002-06:00

1/11 Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains,
and waters as waters.
When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point
where I saw that mountains are not mountains,
and waters are not waters.
But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest.
For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters.

- Ching-yuan

1/12 "How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him."
Frank Herbert

1/13 “I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress. No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured anyone.”
- Daniel J. Boorstin

1/14 "Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity."
- Christopher Morley

1/15 "The thing I treasure most in life
Cannot be taken away
There will never be a reason why
I will surrender to your advice
To change myself, I'd rather die
Though they will not understand
I won't make the greatest sacrifice
You can't predict where the outcome lies
You'll never take me alive"
- David Draiman

1/16 "Truth suffers from too much analysis."
Frank Herbert

1/17 "The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life."
- Richard Bach

January 4 - 10

2008-02-23T18:47:00.001-06:00

1/4 "The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand."
- Frank Herbert

1/5 "...Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echos fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Sill she hauts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes...

...In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifing down the stream-
Lingering in the golden gleam-
Life, what is it but a dream?"

- Lewis Carroll

1/6 "So we seem to have come full circle. We complicate our life with machines, then struggle to make it as simple as it was before we had them. Have we gained anything, Ms. Sulaweyo?"
Renie felt obscurely attacked. "Our powers are greater- We can do many more things..."
"Can we talk to the gods or hear their voices more clearly? Or have we now, with all these powers, become gods?"

!Xabbu to Renie, Tad Williams' Otherland: City of Golden Shadow

1/7 "The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there."
- Yasutani Roshi

1/8 "Twirling round with this familiar parable.
Spinning, weaving round each new experience.
Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.

This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. Remember. We are eternal.
All this pain is an illusion."
- Maynard James Keenan, Parabola

1/9 "With my feet upon the ground I lose myself
between the sounds and open wide to suck it in,
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up and reaching out,
I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been."
- Maynard James Keenan, Lateralus

1/10 "But there are patterns to things. Both science and religion agree on that. So what is left is the honorable but difficult task of trying to decide which patterns are real and what they mean."
- !Xabbu to Renie, Tad Williams' Otherland I

December 28 - January 3

2008-02-23T18:46:00.000-06:00

12/28 "One single still light shines bright: if you intentionally pursue it, after all it’s hard to see. Suddenly encountering it, people’s hearts are opened up, and the great matter is clear and done. This is really living, without any fetters — no amount of money could replace it. Even if a thousand sages should come, they would all appear in it’s shadow."
- Chuzhen

12/29 "Man is a marvelous curiosity ... he thinks he is the Creator's pet ... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea."
- Mark Twain

12/30 "A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing."
- Robert Ingersoll

12/31 "One single still light shines bright: if you intentionally pursue it, after all it's hard to see. Suddenly encountering it, people's hearts are opened up, and the great matter is clear and done. This is really living, without any fetters -- no amount of money could replace it. Even if a thousand sages should come, they would all appear in it's shadow."
- Chuzhen

1/1/08 Jesus answered, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods" ' ?"
- John 10:34

1/2 "When we find the true God Experience, the fight over whose religion is best, fades....."
James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy

1/3 "Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."
- Mark Twain

December 21 - 27

2008-02-23T18:45:00.000-06:00

12/21"Those who have no compassion have no wisdom. Knowledge, yes; cleverness, maybe; wisdom, no. A clever mind is not a heart.Knowledge doesn't really care. Wisdom does."
- Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

12/22 "Study is to study what cannot be studied. Undertaking means undertaking what cannot be undertaken. Philosophizing is to philosophize about what cannot be philosophized about. Knowing that knowing is unknowable is true perfection."
- Chuang Tzu

12/23 "People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy."
- Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin

12/24 "Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind."
- Leonardo Da Vinci

12/25 "First, . . . to want to affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world and only turns on itself without moving from east to west, and the earth . . . revolves with great speed around the sun . . .is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false. Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since if it is not a matter of faith "as regards the topic," it is a matter of faith "as regards the speaker"; and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles."
- Cardinal Bellarmine, in a Letter to Foscarinin, April 12, 1615

12/26 "Do not conquer the world with force,
For force only causes resistance.
Thorns spring up when an army passes.
Years of misery follow a great victory.
Do only what needs to be done.
Without using violence."
- Tao Te Ching

12/27 "The legitimate powers of government extend to only such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods, or no God."
- Thomas Jefferson

December 14 - 20

2008-01-09T19:25:00.002-06:00

12/14 “The infinite is in the finite of every instant."
- Zen proverb

12/15 "When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much."
- Fen-Yang

12/16 “We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.”
- Alan Watts

12/17 "I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world."
- Georges Duhamel (1884 - 1966)

12/18 "Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?"
- Arthur C. Clarke

12/19 “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.”
- Tao Te Ching

12/20 "A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who . . . utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church."
- The Catholic Church's Canon Law 1369

December 7 - 13

2008-01-09T19:25:00.001-06:00

12/7 "The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded for ever; but is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light among the thorns."
- George Santayana

12/8 "To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand."
- Galileo Galilei

12/9 "Then the Buddha denounces ritualism as a vain waste of time bound to lead to disappointment."
- Silabbata - paramasa

12/10 "Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."
- Bertrand Russell

12/11 “The existentialist... thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men. Dostoievsky said, ‘If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible.’ That is the very starting point of existentialism. Indeed, everything is permissible if God does not exist, and as a result man is forlorn, because neither within him nor without does he find anything to cling to. He can’t start making excuses for himself.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre

12/12 "A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence. Whether the meaning of existence is only what we put into life by our own individual fortitude, as Sartre would hold, or whether there is a meaning we need to discover, as Kierkegaard would state, the result is the same: myths are our way of finding this meaning and significance."
- Rollo May, The Cry for Myth

12/13 "To stand still on the summit of perfection is difficult, and in the natural course of things, what cannot go forward - slips back."
- Gaius V. Paterculus

November 30 - December 6

2008-01-09T19:23:00.000-06:00

11/30 "Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's."
- Billy Wilder

12/1 "Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame."
Erica Jong

12/2 "If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization."
- Robert Green Ingersoll

12/3 "The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust

12/4 "Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness."
Chuang-Tzu

12/5 "The only service a friend can really render to keep up your courage is to hold up a mirror for you to see a noble image of yourself."
- George Bernard Shaw

12/6 "Reality is seldom a thing of black and white, I think, of is and isn't, be and not be."
- Roland to Susannah from Steven King's Dark Tower VII - The Dark Tower

November 23 - 29

2008-01-09T19:22:00.000-06:00

11/23 "Emptiness is in fact form when we forget the self. There's nothing in the universe *other* than ourself. Nothing to compare, name, or identify. When it's the only thing there is, how can we talk about it??"
- Taizan Maezumi

11/24 "Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules--this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live."
- D. T. Suzuki

11/25 "Following the Noble Path is like entering a dark room with a light in the hand; the darkness will all be cleared away, and the room will be filled with light."
- Buddha

11/26 "She wondered why everything had to be so damned hard, so damned (riddle-dee-dum) mysterious, and knew that that was a question to which she would never find a satisfactory answer. Except it was the human condition, wasn't it? The answers that mattered never came easy."
- Susannah from Steven King's Dark Tower VII - The Dark Tower

11/27 "While men are gazing up to Heaven, imagining after a happiness, or fearing a Hell after they are dead, their eyes are put out, that they see not what is their birthright."
- Gerrard Winstanley (The Law of Freedom, 1652)

11/28 "If you must argue, remember that it is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument."
William Gibbs McAdoo

11/29 "To be yourself is all that you can do."
- Chris Cornell

November 16 - 22

2007-12-02T19:52:00.001-06:00

11/16 "There is seldom any rational reason for having regrets about past deeds or events. Because the past does not exist in any way other than in your memory."
- Paul Wilson

11/17 "Reason, Observation and Experience the Holy Trinity of Science have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us stand erect."
- Robert Green Ingersoll

11/18 "We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us."
- Einstein

11/19 "If God kills, lies, cheats, discriminates, and otherwise behaves in a manner that puts the Mafia to shame, that's okay, he's God. He can do whatever he wants. Anyone who adheres to this philosophy has had his sense of morality, decency, justice and humaneness warped beyond recognition by the very book that is supposedly preaching the opposite."
- Dennis McKinsey

11/20 "When you know for sure that your separate ego is a fiction, you actually feel yourself as the whole process and pattern of life. Experience and experiencer become one experiencing, known and knower one knowing."
- Alan Watts

11/21 "The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad."
- Friederich Nietzsche

11/22 "The being we call god is merely a pawn working for a powerful and rational force in some far-off galaxy. This force is trying to weed out people who are irrational by seeing who would be stupid enough to believe in his god illusion so easily. Those that believe in this illusion, he will send to eternal damnation and he will deliver the rational beings, those who stoically refused to believe in a god, to heaven."
- Nicholas Yee

November 9 - 15

2007-12-02T19:49:00.001-06:00

11/9 "Atheism is a way of humility. It's to think oneself to be an animal, as we are actually and to allow oneself to become human."
- André Comte-Sponville

11/10 "You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible - not only did He order His chosen people to carry out literal genocide - I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert - not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That's the story of Noah. I mean, that's beyond genocide - you don't know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive - that's supposed to be gentle and wonderful."
- Noam Chomsky
Interview by Wallace Shawn, October 19, 2004

11/11 "Civilisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest."
- Emile Zola

11/12 "The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact he drives you from the realm of reason he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact."
- Robert Green Ingersoll

11/13 "There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom."
- Robert Green Ingersoll

11/14 "The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church."
--Ferdinand Magellan, (1480–1521)

11/15 "Why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?"
- Homer Simpson

November 2 - 8

2007-12-02T19:46:00.000-06:00

11/2 "No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition then Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus."
- George Bernard Shaw

11/3 "There is nothing in either savage or civilized history that is more utterly complete, more remorselessly sweeping than the Father of Mercy's campaign among the Midianites. The official report deals only in masses, all the virgins, all the men, all the babies. All 'creatures that breathe,' all houses. All cities. It gives you just one vast picture ...as far as the eye can reach, of charred ruins and storm-swept desolation... Would you expect this same conscienceless God, this moral bankrupt, to become a teacher of morals, of gentleness, of meekness, of righteousness, of purity?"
- "Letters from the Earth" by Mark Twain

11/4 "The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow."
- Bertrand Russell

11/5 "I do not believe in any religion. I will have nothing to do with immortality. We are miserable enough in this life without speculating upon another."
- Lord Byron

11/6 "Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give."
"The Truth" by Robert Ingersoll 1897

11/7 "In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
- Galileo Galilei

October 26 - November 1

2007-12-02T19:45:00.000-06:00

10/26 "Today the god hypothesis has ceased to be scientifically tenable ... and its abandonment often brings a deep sense of relief. Many people assert that this abandonment of the god hypothesis means the abandonment of all religion and all moral sanctions. This is simply not true. But it does mean, once our relief at jettisoning an outdated piece of ideological furniture is over, that we must construct some thing to take its place."
- Sir Julian Huxley

10/27 "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

10/28 "Who is more irrational? A man who believes in a God he doesn't see,
or a man who is offended by a God he doesn't believe in."
- Christian Comedian Brad Stine

10/29 "In the Beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
- Douglas Adams

10/30 "All the Western theology are based on the concept of God as a senile deliquent."
-Tennessee Williams

10/31 "A disturbing fact continues to surface in sex abuse research. The first best predictor of abuse is alcohol or drug addiction in the father. But the second best predictor is conservative religiosity, accompanied by parental belief in traditional male-female roles. This means that if you want to know which children are most likely to be sexually abused by their father, the second most significant clue is *whether or not the parents belong to a conservative religious group with traditional role beliefs and rigid sexual attitudes*. (Brown and Bohn, 1989; Finkelhor, 1986; Fortune, 1983; Goldstein et al, 1973; Van Leeuwen, 1990). (emphasis in original)"
.........."Sexual Abuse in Christian Homes and Churches", by Carolyn Holderread Heggen, Herald Press, Scotdale, PA, 1993 p. 73

11/1"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H. Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history."
..........Robert A. Heinlein

October 19 - 25

2007-12-02T19:43:00.000-06:00

10/19 "The art of teaching is clarity and the art of learning is to listen."
- Vanda Scaravelli

10/20 Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
- Annie Dillard, 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'

10/21 "The rest of our inquiry is made easier because this God-creator is openly called 'Father.' The psychoanalysis of individual human beings teaches that the god of Egyptim (?) is nothing other than an exulted father."
- Sigmund Freud

10/22 "All religions have this in common: that they are an outrage to common sense, for they are pieced together out of a variety of elements, some of which seem so unworthy, sordid, and at odds with man's reason that any strong and vigorous intelligence laughs at them."
- Pierre Charron, Catholic theologian

10/23 "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."
-Thomas Paine, American revolutionary

10/24 "My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation have become clearer and stronger with advancing years."
- Abraham Lincoln

10/25 "While men are gazing up to Heaven, imagining after a happiness, or fearing a Hell after they are dead, their eyes are put out, that they see not what is their birthright."
- Gerrard Winstanley (The Law of Freedom, 1652)

October 12 - 18

2007-12-02T19:39:00.000-06:00

10/12 “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
- Epicurus

10/13 "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.
- Douglas Adams

10/14 "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence, from Jerusalem, of a lunatic asylum."
-Havelock Ellis

10/15 “If you want to make a little money, write a book. If you want to make a lot of money, create a religion.”
-L. Ron Hubbard

10/16 "There is in every village a torch: the schoolteacher. And an extinguisher: the priest."
- Victor Hugo

10/17 "I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion."
- James Buchanan

10/18 "Why is the tao so valuable? Because it is everywhere, and everyone can use it. This is why those who seek will find, and those who reform will be forgiven; why the good will be rewarded, and the thief who is cunning will escape."
- Lao Tzu

October 5 - 11

2007-12-02T19:38:00.001-06:00

10/5 "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
-Charles Darwin (Introduction to The Descent of Man, 1871)

10/6 "In the subject of the nature of the gods,the first question is do the gods exist or do they not. It is difficult, you will say, to deny that they exist. I would agree, if we were arguing the matter in a public assembly. But in a private discussion of this kind it is perfectly easy to do so."
- Cicero

10/7 "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress. Religion is the sycthe of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The demand to give up the illusion is the demand to give up the condition which needs illusions."
- Karl Marx

10/8 "The clergy believe that any power confided in me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly."
- Thomas Jefferson

10/9 "While men are gazing up to Heaven, imagining after a happiness, or fearing a Hell after they are dead, their eyes are put out, that they see not what is their birthright."
- Gerrard Winstanley (The Law of Freedom, 1652)

10/10 "A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty… The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."
-Albert Einstein, 1954

10/11 "A tyrant must put on the appearence of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less aprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider godfearing and pious. On the other hand they do less easily move against him believing that he has the gods on his side."
- Aristotle

September 28 - October 4

2007-12-02T19:37:00.001-06:00

9/28 "You cannot describe it or draw it. You cannot praise it enough or perceive it. No place can be found in which to put the Original Face; it will not disappear even when the universe is destroyed."
- Mumon

9/29 "Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky."
- Dogen Zenji (Japanese Zen Buddhist Grand Master)

9/30 "I do think the Roman Catholic religion is a disease of the mind which has a particular epidemiology similar to that of a virus... Religion is a terrific meme. That's right. But that doesn't make it true and I care about what's true. Smallpox virus is a terrific virus. It does its job magnificently well. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see it stamped out."
- Richard Dawkins (Interviewed in: Sceptic vol 3, no 4, 1995)

10/1"In your hopelessness is the only hope, and in your desirelessness is your only fulfillment, and in your tremendous helplessness suddenly the whole existence starts helping you."
- Osho

10/2 "Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions."
- Frater Ravus

10/3 "God is an essence we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there will never be any liberal science in the world."
- John Adams

10/4 "Believe, when you lie
You will never need to recognize the source
Of deceit
To renew your faith in God
You must believe, in your lie
The redemption is complete when you conceive
And decline
To release your lives
Sacrificed to me
Penance can't absolve your sin
All your belief cannot absolve your sin"

-David Draiman, Believe by Disturbed

Sept. 21 - 27

2007-12-02T19:36:00.001-06:00

9/21 "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.
- Douglas Adams

9/22 "Discovery consists in seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought."
- Albert Szent-Gy-rgi

9/23 "Zen is the game of insight, the game of discovering who you are beneath the social masks."
- R. H. Blyth

9/24 "You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe."
-Carl Sagan

9/25 "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."
- Seneca

9/26 "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
- Lao Tzu

9/27 "Fear is the mother of all gods. Nature does all things spontaneously by herself, without their meddling."
- Lucretius

Sept. 14 - 20

2007-12-02T19:25:00.000-06:00

9/14 "Why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?"
- Homer Simpson

9/15 "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."
-Gene Roddenberry

9/16 "If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?"
- Dogen Zenji

9/17 "Why should I fear death? If I am, then death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?"
- Epicurus

9/18 "What is real is not real. What is not real is real. Flesh is a dream, and dreams have flesh."
- Hopper to Perrin in The Dragon Reborn, by Robert Jordan

9/19 "The Vedas compare creation to a spider's web, that the spider creates and then lies within. God is both the container of the universe and what is contained in it."
- Ramakrishna

9/20 "The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on."
- Frank Zappa

Sept. 7 - 13

2007-10-06T21:37:00.000-05:00

9/7 "You're such an inspiration for the ways
That I'll never ever choose to be
Oh so many ways for me to show you
How the savior has abandoned you
Fuck your God
Your Lord and your Christ
He did this
Took all you had and
Left you this way
Still you pray, you never stray
Never taste of the fruit
You never thought to question why"

- Maynard James Keenan, Judith by A Perfect Circle

9/8 "The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see."
- Huang Po

9/9 "A tyrant must put on the appearence of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less aprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider godfearing and pious. On the other hand they do less easily move against him believing that he has the gods on his side."
- Aristotle

9/10 "Every situation, every moment is of infinite worth for it is representative of a whole eternity."
- John Wolfgang von Goethe

9/11 "I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world."
- Robert Ingersoll (Why Am I an Agnostic?, North American Review, December, 1889)

9/12 "...any belief in supernatural creators, rulers, or influencers of natural or human process introduces an irreparable split into the universe, and prevents us from grasping its real unity. Any belief in Absolutes, whether the absolute validity of moral commandments, of authority of revelation, of inner certitudes, or of divine inspiration, erects a formidable barrier against progress and the responsibility of improvement, moral, rational, and religious."
- Sir Julian Huxley

9/13 “I am not a Hindu,
Nor a Muslim am I!
I am this body, a play
Of five elements; a drama
Of the spirit dancing
With joy and sorrow.”
- Kabir

August 31 - Sept 6

2007-09-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

8/31 "There is a theory that states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable...
There is another theory that states that this has already happened."
- Douglas Adams

9/1 "Civilisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest."
- Emile Zola

9/2 "Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear. Religion's tyranny did domineer. At length the mighty one of Greece began to assert the liberty of man."
- Lucretius in "Ode to Epicurus

9/3 "I don't see any God up here."
- Yuri Gagarin (speaking from orbit)

9/4 "Religious teachings are neurotic relics. The time has probably come for replacing them with the results of the rational operation of the intellect."
- Sigmund Freud

9/5 "And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
- T.S. Eliot

9/6 "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."
- George Bernard Shaw

Week of August 24 - 30

2007-09-06T11:50:00.000-05:00

8/24 Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
- Annie Dillard, 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'

8/25 "But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
- Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to S. Kercheval, 1810)

8/26 "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
-Charles Darwin (Introduction to The Descent of Man, 1871)

8/27 "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."
- Basho

8/28 "There is nothing left to you at this moment but to have a good laugh."
- Zen Master

8/29 "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
- Albert Einstein

8/30 "If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?"
- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Week of August 18 - 24

2007-08-26T15:33:00.000-05:00

8/18 "Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
- Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787)

8/20 "My spell-checker lacks the word 'creationism' in its dictionary, so each time that word is encountered, an alternative pops up at the bottom of my screen, 'cretinism'"
- E.T. Babinski

8/21 "While men are gazing up to Heaven, imagining after a happiness, or fearing a Hell after they are dead, their eyes are put out, that they see not what is their birthright."
- Gerrard Winstanley (The Law of Freedom, 1652)

8/22 "One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield."
- The Buddha

8/23 “Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth.”
- Daisaku Ikeda

8/24 Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"
- Annie Dillard, 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek'

Week of August 11 - 17

2007-08-19T11:07:00.000-05:00

8/11 "We spend all of our lives
Going out of our minds
Looking back to our birth
Forward to our demise
Even scientists say
Everything is just light
Not created destroyed
But eternally bright."
- Live from The Distance to Here

8/12
"In your hopelessness is the only hope, and in your desirelessness is your only fulfillment, and in your tremendous helplessness suddenly the whole existence starts helping you."
- Osho

8/13 “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
- Epicurus

8/14 "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
-Seneca the Younger 4 b.c.- 65 a.d.

8/15 "I cannot tell if what the world considers 'happiness' is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness."
- Chuang-tzu

8/16 "Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it's dark."
- Zen Proverb

8/17 "I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected
enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
of our divinity and still be a human."
- Maynard James Keenan

Week of August 4 - 10

2007-08-12T09:49:00.000-05:00

8/4 "All conditioned things are impermanent. Work out your own salvation with diligence."
- Buddha's last words

8/5 "The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it."
- Terry Pratchett

8/6 "One of my favorite Zen puzzles, otherwise known as koans, is: 'Things are not as they seem, nor are they otherwise.'
"It’s a reminder that life always has two sides. The side of personal perception is the way things seem to us from the position we’re looking from. Every vantage point has its built in biases and is never the whole picture. The other side is the whole picture that includes everything beyond what we see - beyond what they seem.
"The answer to this and most koans is that there is no way out. Our view is always limited by the point in time and space we’re in. This view is always real, valid, and accurate for what it is. And there is always more. This explains why we are smarter together; that truth lives in the intersection of curiosity and conversation.
"Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise."
- Jack Ricchiuto

8/7 "The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself."
- Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)

&

"Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions."
- Frater Ravus

8/8 “We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.”
- Kalu Rinpoche

8/9 "The light of consciousness has no mind to change or alter anything. When you start to see the light that you really are, the light waking up in you, the radiance, you realize it has no intention to change you. It has no intention to harmonize. It has no agenda. It just happens. The Truth is the only thing you'll ever run into that has no agenda. Everything else will have an agenda."
- Adyashanti

8/10 "The Government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion."
- John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

Week of July 28 - August 3

2007-08-07T20:24:00.000-05:00

7/28 "The religious community is essential, for alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen. Together, our vision widens and strength is renewed."
-Mark Morrison-Reed

7/29 "I have discovered that all of mans unhappiness derives from only one source, not being able to sit quietly in a room."
- Blaise Pascal

7/30 Missing

7/31 "We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us."
- Einstein

8/1 "Smaller than a grain of rice, smaller than a grain of barley, smaller than a mustard seed, smaller than a grain of millet, smaller even than the kernel of a grain of millet is the Self. This is the Self dwelling in my heart, greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than all the worlds."
- Chandogya Upanishad

8/2 "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
- Douglas Adams

8/3 "You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe."
-Carl Sagan

Week of July 21 - 27

2007-08-07T20:23:00.001-05:00

7/21 Missing

7/22 Missing

7/23 The Self cannot be pierced by weapons or burned by fire; water cannot wet it, nor can the wind dry it. The Self cannot be pierced or burned, made wet or dry. It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundations of eternity. The Self is unmanifested, beyond all thought, beyond all change. Knowing this, you should not grieve.
- Bhagavad Gita 2 23-25

7/24 "A person has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it, and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification."
-D.H. Lawrence

7/25 "I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-Galileo Galilei

7/26 "Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters. "
New York Times, December 3, 1978
-Isaac Bashevis Singer

7/27 "The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next."
-Helen Keller

Week of July 17 - 20

2007-08-07T20:21:00.000-05:00

7/17 "Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
-Benjamin Franklin

7/18 "A person has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it, and one's religion is never complete and final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification."
-D.H. Lawrence

7/19 The Vedas compare creation to a spider's web, that the spider creates and then lies within. God is both the container of the universe and what is contained in it.
- Ramakrishna

7/20 If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
- Dogen Zenji