Quotes About Balance

intellections have a use, don't think they don't: if the vine couldn't find a natural tree, what would become of it? if structure without life is meaningless, so is life without structure: we're going to make a dense, tangled trellis so lovely & complicated that every kind of variety will find a place in it or on it: you just be surprised: & forgive us: who mean song direct & fierce:

Sometimes a place to work, or a place to relax--even if only for an hour--is all you need. That, and good friends. Without those things, the city will break you into a million tiny pieces. But what in the world could be harder to find?

Egocentricity is a problem, however, when it becomes exaggerated and is not balanced by such social traits as love, empathy, and altruism, the capacity for which is probably also represented in our genome. Interestingly, very few of us think to look for egocentricity in ourselves, although we are dazzled by it in others.

Being cautious is new territory; my specialty was leaping, not looking. These days I pay attention. You can stumble uphill as easily as down. Ice comes in smooth and corrugated. Plastic bags are slippery underfoot. A big dog can knock you to your knees.

An unexamined life may not be worth living, but the overexamined life is hell. We talk too much.

Tai Chi experts, like figures on a marvelous clock, who seem in their slow-motion way to be untelling time.

The solution of mankind's most vexing problem will not be found in renouncing technical civilization, but in attaining some degree of independence of it.

Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work.

The Sabbath is the day on which we learn the art of surpassing civilization.

The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

The Sabbath is a reminder of the two worlds—this world and the world to come; it is an example of both worlds. For the Sabbath is joy, holiness, and rest; joy is part of this world; holiness and rest are something of the world to come."16

Just as we are commanded to keep the Sabbath, we are commanded to labor.

Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but our soul belongs to Someone Else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh day we try to dominate the self.

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.

Yet our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but rather how to remain human in the skyscrapers. NOTES 1 Portions of this section are based on Heschel, Man Is Not Alone (New York: Farrar, Straus, 1951).

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays for the sake of the Sabbath. It is not an interlude but a climax of living.

The body without the spirit is a corpse; the spirit without the body is a ghost.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

You can't make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak

Gentlemen, why do you not laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die.

People who have no vices, have very few virtues.