Quotes About Reflection

When men do not forget what can be forgotten but forget what cannot be forgotten - that may be called true forgetting.

When a hideous man becomes a father And a son is born to him In the middle of the night He trembles and lights a lamp And runs to look in anguish On that child's face To see who he resembles.

Si tu veux trouver la paix, immerge-toi dans la bienveillance, éteins tous les désirs dans ton coeur, retire-toi dans la solitude

How do I know that the dead don't regret the way they used to cling to life?

Emptiness is the fasting of the mind.

Now you, Sir, have a large tree, and you don't know how to use it, so why not plant it in the middle of nowhere, where you can go to wander or fall asleep under its shade? No axe under Heaven will attack it, nor shorten its days, for something which is useless will never be disturbed.

I'm going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to listen recklessly.

To use a finger as a metaphor for the nonfingerness of a finger is not as good as using nonfingerness as a metaphor for the nonfingerness of a finger.

You will always find an answer in the sound of water.

The Book of Chuang Tzu is like a travelogue. As such, it meanders between continents, pauses to discuss diet, gives exchange rates, breaks off to speculate, offers a bus timetable, tells an amusing incident, quotes from poetry, relates a story, cites scripture. To try and make it read like a novel or a philosophical handbook is simply to ask it, this travelogue of life, to do something it was never designed to do. And always listen out for the mocking laughter of Chuang Tzu.

I know the joy of fishes In the river Through my own joy, as I go walking Along the same river.

Ja sinulla on iso puu, etkä tiedä, mitä sillä tekisit! Mikset siirrä sitä tyhjälle kentälle tai asumattomaan metsään? Siellä voisit rauhassa kuljeskella sen ympärillä tai levätä sen siimeksessä. Se olisi turvassa kirveeltä, eikä kukaan vahingoittaisi sitä, sillä ellei siitä olisi hyötyä muille, mikä sitä silloin vahingoittaisi?

Everyone knows how useful usefulness is, but no one (4:20) seems to know how useful uselessness is.

Whoever focuses on externals will be clumsy inside. (p. 177)

Thinking these things made space and time around her, the way saying 'only June' had when she was a child hoarding summer.

Christmas was always the worst… What's the point of Christmas without any kids to share it with?

So, this is retirement? This feeling of emptiness?

Words could never express the infinite sadness of a used condom, removed from your already half-limp dick by an expert hand, which then strangles it with a precise, automatic gesture.

The body gives up faster than the soul. Time wrinkles it, wounds it, debases it. Varicose veins, menopause… Time makes it a caricature… The body plays along, a good sport. The soul, though, is a sore loser. It needs more time to blow out the candles. It only concedes in fits and starts… through painful revelations… through a series of frights.

To all the fish, big or small. May a wave carry you to the top of a tree some day. And from that summit, may you contemplate the immensity of the ocean.

You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.

If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.

Ask yourself a question: Is my attitude worth catching?

Life is an echo. What you send out comes back. What you sow you reap. What you give you get. What you see in others exists in you.