Author: admin

Quotations

booksandmocha.com

Quotations 

Reality…a thought-provoking subject indeed.

As we continue to work on and with this thing
we call “reality” we will 
 be better prepared
to grow as individuals and as a species.

Hopefully there will be something in these quotations
that actually makes your life better!

Philosophical Quotation

“We search for the code of the world…the secret of existence. Is it our ability to search that is the answer?”
– from Thoughts From Outside the Box copyright 2024

Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here involuntarily and uninvited for a short stay, without knowing the whys and the wherefore. In our daily lives we only feel that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own. I am often worried at the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.
— A. Einstein
“The genuine truth is the prodigious transfer of the inner into the outer, the building of reason into the real world, and this has been the task of the world during the whole course of its history.”
– G.W.F. Hegel
Re the “hill you die on.”  Know thyself in all your cosmic amplitude and splendor, and that hill – whatever and wherever it might be – can actually be a very good hill to live on!
– Thoughts From Outside The Box copyright 2024‰‰

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”
– Anais Nin

¨I was a philosophy student. I was looking for answers. My philosophy textbooks only took me so far. I needed to get drunk, too.¨
– Emily Jennings

” If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask. For once I knew the proper question I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes.”
–  Albert Einstein

Art is man added to nature.”
– Francis Bacon

¨The human being is not the lord of beings, but the shepherd of being.¨
– Martin Heidegger

“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.”
– Emil Cioran
“…who we are really, the truth about us that we really do need to know, is always caught up and confused by this idea that we need to fix ourselves in something determinate. We don’t have knowledge if it’s not fixed and defined, we incline to think. But that’s not true. Our essence is freedom, and until we know what that means, nothing else will work.”
– Carmen Elizaga

“When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily!”
– Gautama Buddha

Lawyers? Millionaires? Billionaires? Generals? Athletes? Celebrities? Who makes the best elected official? Maybe someone who has navigated through some rough seas and managed to bring the ship home to port, and in doing so has become the bearer of a heightened sense of humanity that he or she will gladly share with others. This includes those whose formal education never went beyond high school.
– from Thoughts From Outside the Box 

¨ We must learn to love the questions rather than focus on the answers.¨
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

” The past is a nice place to visit, but not the right place to stay.”
— Paulo Coelho

¨ El ser humano no es el caballero de la existencia, sino más bien su pastor.¨
– Martin Heidegger

¨I kept going not because I wanted to. Trust me, all of me wanted to stop. I kept going because I deserved to know what not giving up on myself felt like.¨
– Judy Collins

¨The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.¨
– Marcel Proust

“The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won’t get us very far.”
– Neils Bohr

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

¨Wisdom is born in the fall of every tear.¨
– ? 

“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.”
– Albert Camus

“The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.”
– Mikhail Bakunin

Don´t bend, don´t water it down, don’t try to make it logical, don´t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
-Franz Kafka

“Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

“And to make men, we must have ideals, broad, pure, and inspiring ends of living,—not sordid money-getting, not apples of gold.”
– W.E.B. DuBois

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
– Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, to allies’ offer to evacuate him and his family right after Russia invaded  his country.

“…for all that we have is our perception, and whatever we perceive to be reality is in fact our reality. You want to get into quantum physics and all that business where we start talking about the fact that we as observers in fact actually manipulate and manifest reality. We are intricately and subconsciously involved with the reality process. Once we know this, we can start to see what’s happening all around us. Those who are in control are using this information to manifest a reality that is most advantageous to them. They introduce a point of view which may or may not have anything to do with what is actually happening in the world and they reinforce it with a growing opinion through media. And what’s interesting, is that the more people who believe these lies, the more real these lies become…”
– Dr. Steele

Philosophical Quotations

“We search for the code of the world…the secret of existence. Is it our ability to search that is the answer?”
– from Thoughts From Outside the Box

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”
– Anais Nin

” If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask. For once I knew the proper question I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes.”
–  Albert Einstein

Art is man added to nature.”
– Francis Bacon

¨The human being is not the lord of beings, but the shepherd of being.¨
– Martin Heidegger

“We are afraid of the enormity of the possible.”
– Emil Cioran
“…who we are really, the truth about us that we really do need to know, is always caught up and confused by this idea that we need to fix ourselves in something determinate. We don’t have knowledge if it’s not fixed and defined, we incline to think. But that’s not true. Our essence is freedom, and until we know what that means, nothing else will work.”
– Carmen Elizaga

“When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily!”
— Gautama Buddha

Lawyers? Millionaires? Billionaires? Generals? Athletes? Celebrities? Who makes the best elected official? Maybe someone who has navigated through some rough seas and managed to bring the ship home to port …so to speak; with high school dropouts being welcome if their head and heart are in the right place?!
– from Thoughts From Outside the Box

¨ We must learn to love the questions rather than focus on the answers.¨
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

” The past is a nice place to visit, but not the right place to stay.”
— Paulo Coelho

¨ El ser humano no es el caballero de la existencia, sino más bien su pastor.¨
– Martin Heidegger

“The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won’t get us very far.”
– Neils Bohr

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

¨Wisdom is born in the fall of every tear.¨
– ? 

“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.”
– Albert Camus

“The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual.”
– Mikhail Bakunin

“Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

“And to make men, we must have ideals, broad, pure, and inspiring ends of living,—not sordid money-getting, not apples of gold.”
– W.E.B. DuBois

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
– Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, to allies’ offer to evacuate him and his family right after Russia invaded  his country.

“…for all that we have is our perception, and whatever we perceive to be reality is in fact our reality. You want to get into quantum physics and all that business where we start talking about the fact that we as observers in fact actually manipulate and manifest reality. We are intricately and subconsciously involved with the reality process. Once we know this, we can start to see what’s happening all around us. Those who are in control are using this information to manifest a reality that is most advantageous to them. They introduce a point of view which may or may not have anything to do with what is actually happening in the world and they reinforce it with a growing opinion through media. And what’s interesting, is that the more people who believe these lies, the more real these lies become…”
– Dr. Steele

“The centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain, a curious, wild pain, a searching for something beyond what the world contains. Something transfigured and infinite. The beatific vision – God, I do not find it, I do not think it is to be found – but the love of it is my life. It the actual spring of life within me.”
– Bertrand Russell

¨Looking for someone/something to worship? Be aware of the infinite nature of consciousness and then you can worship infinity infinitely!¨
– David Klein

̈Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.̈
– Samuel Johnson

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Cats live for the sensation of life, not for something they might achieve or not achieve. “If we attach ourselves too heavily to some overarching purpose we’re losing the joy of life. Leave all those ideologies and religions to one side and what’s left? What’s left is a sensation of life – which is a wonderful thing.¨
– John Gray

“It’s crazy how quickly you can get used to the supremely weird.”
– Dexter (television series)

“Seek the ones who never stop caring; the ones who break down your walls and help you come back to yourself.”
– Yasmin Mogahed

¨Science takes things apart to see how they work and theology puts them together to see what they mean.¨
– Karl Broberg

“A nation is a multitude of rational beings united by the common objects of their love.”
– St. Augustine

¨A soul is but the last bubble of a long fermentation in the world.¨
– George Santayana

“One needs a particular kind of freedom to connect with a higher power. The only thing that ever gets in the way of that connection is our thoughts. The way to break out beyond the boundaries of yourself and appreciate something bigger, is to stop thinking about yourself. Once free of overwhelming self concern, a much bigger picture gradually comes into view.”
– Stuart Bohrer

“To live happily is an inward power of the soul.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
– Lao Tzu

¨In other words, your soul knows who you are, and where you belong, and will find a way to get you there.¨
– Lebo Diseko

“If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think energy, frequency and vibrations.”
– Nikola Tesla

“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 on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”
– T. E. Lawrence

 Is it kind of ironic that it is in this current age of Space exploration that ´developed´ nations are finally beginning to love the earth instead of exploiting it?¨
– David Klein

¨To the degree in which the science of mind, understood as an all-encompassing science of the world of the spirit, possesses as its theme all persons, all types of persons and personal endowments, all types of personal configurations, which we call here cultural configurations, it consequently encompasses as well the science of nature and the nature at the heart of such science, which is nature as reality itself.¨
– Edmund Husserl

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”
– Steve Jobs

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.”
– G. W. F. Hegel

“Philosophy is the science of estimating values. The superiority of any state or substance over another is determined by philosophy. By assigning a position of primary importance to what remains when all that is secondary has been removed, philosophy thus becomes the true index of priority or emphasis in the realm of speculative thought.”
– Manly P. Hall

“The more crazy the project is, the better off you are just working on it — rather than talking about it.”|
– Jonathan  Yaney

“He who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied may be justly termed as a philosopher.”
– Plato

Since its inception in antiquity, pretty much the entire edifice of Western thought, along with the world that has grown out of it, has been without any real foundation in the reality of our existential condition. People are sometimes  mystified by the fact that our technological world – which aims at increasing human happiness – has also given birth to the specter of nuclear annihilation, technologically engineered genocide and the ongoing destruction of our natural environment. ”
– from “Heidegger in Twelve Minutes,” Eric Dodson’s  YouTube tutorial on Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time 

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”
– Anatole France

“We’re about five Einsteins away from answering where the mystery of where the universe came from.”
– Martin Amis

” People are thinking that teaching is handing someone information to replace information that they had that is false. That’s an aspect of teaching. but it’s not the fundamental dimension of it. It’s getting a person to understand why their thoughts are wrong to begin with.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

¨The arrival of the railroad took some 40 years to achieve. Automobiles, a novelty in the late 19th century, began clogging the streets in the years after 1913. But the triumph of the digital—the transformation of digital technologies from a marginal aspect of everyday life to the central aspect—will have taken place in a matter of months in 2020. When the pandemic is thought to have been defeated and the word finally goes out for normal life to resume, the normal that resumes will be unrecognizable.¨
– Paul Berman

“But once we look beyond our lifespans, we get just a touch of that God’s-eye view and can see that the ultimate results of our actions and experiences are far beyond what we can possibly imagine. It’s also very humbling.”
– Rebecca Klempner

“You’ll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. I don’t care how much money you make…you can’t take it with you. The Egyptians tried it. They got robbed.”
– Denzel Washington

“History,as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of human history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”
– James Baldwin

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”
– Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.” Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.” For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
~Kahlil Gibran

“Every day is a gift! It’s just…it doesn’t have to be a pair of socks.”
– Tony Soprano, HBO’s “The Sopranos”

“The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our web-like existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner.”
– Tim Berners Lee, Weaving the Web

“We have to get a world where it’s a fair world for all 7 billion people on earth, all of them. We have to learn to live together, to work together in some shape or form. Despair is the fuel of terrorism, hope is the fuel of civilization. We’ve got to be constantly putting more hope into the world than despair.”
– Eddie

” Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed. ”
– Bertrand Russell

“My own conscience tells me that when I disappear off to the end of the dunes on Cape Cod in the summer, and I’ve had a little bit of joint, and I sit and I pray and meditate, and observe beauty, that this is an avenue towards understanding God, not a path away,” he says, “and that’s the only thing that should matter for a Christian.”
– Andrew Sullivan

” The reason we can’t solve this or that problem is often this: we just haven’t hit it from  the right angle. At that point what is needed – perhaps more than a Herculean struggle against the awesome power of our own ignorance  – is a willingness to suspend all negative thinking and open our minds to a fresh take on the problem. In other words, we need to click on the reset button. Once we do that, a solution is often not long in coming. When it does come it often seems as if we had nothing to do with it, as if it’s a case of serendipity and something that really didn’t need our help at all. And so we have yet another magical example of the incredible powers of the human mind!”
– David Klein

“I cannot too strongly reiterate the constant necessity for you to think in terms of energies and forces, of lines of force, and energy relationships…the whole story of astrology is, in reality, one of magnetic and magical interplay for the production or externalization of the inner reality.”
-Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Astrology

More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.
-Saint Teresa of Avila

Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
– Confucius

Do not let your hearts be troubled. trust in God, trust also in me.
-Jesus of Nazareth

There is a great difference between one who can feel ashamed before his own soul and one who is only ashamed before his fellow men.
– The Talmud

A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this super-personal content … regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being…
– Albert Einstein

Promises only obligate those who believe them.
– French politician

You are not stuck in time like a fly in a closed bottle, whose wings are therefore useless. You cannot trust your physical senses to give you a true picture of reality. They are lovely liars, with such a fantastic tale to tell that you believe it without question. You are sometimes wiser, more creative, and far more knowledgeable when you are dreaming than when you are awake.
– Jane Roberts, “Seth Speaks.”

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
– Joseph Campbell

Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.
– Max Muller

Where there is love there is life
– Mahatma Gandhi

Don’t forget to love yourself.
– Soren Kierkegaard

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
– Aristotle

Maya Angelou Quotations

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.Nothing will work unless you do

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.
– Maya Angelou

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes

Quotations from the Buddha

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

Political Quotations

…for it may easily turn out that they [intolerant philosophies] …may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument…and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder as criminal, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
– Karl Popper

A nation is a multitude of rational beings united by the common object of their love.
– St. Augustine

“The centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain, a curious, wild pain, a searching for something beyond what the world contains. Something transfigured and infinite. The beatific vision – God, I do not find it, I do not think it is to be found – but the love of it is my life. It the actual spring of life within me.”
– Bertrand Russell

¨Looking for someone/something to worship? Be aware of the infinite nature of consciousness and then you can worship infinity infinitely!¨
– David Klein

̈Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.̈
– Samuel Johnson

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Cats live for the sensation of life, not for something they might achieve or not achieve. “If we attach ourselves too heavily to some overarching purpose we’re losing the joy of life. Leave all those ideologies and religions to one side and what’s left? What’s left is a sensation of life – which is a wonderful thing.¨
– John Gray

“It’s crazy how quickly you can get used to the supremely weird.”
– Dexter (television series)

“Seek the ones who never stop caring; the ones who break down your walls and help you come back to yourself.”
– Yasmin Mogahed

¨Science takes things apart to see how they work and theology puts them together to see what they mean.¨
– Karl Broberg

“A nation is a multitude of rational beings united by the common objects of their love.”

– St. Augustine

 

¨A soul is but the last bubble of a long fermentation in the world.¨
– George Santayana

“One needs a particular kind of freedom to connect with a higher power. The only thing that ever gets in the way of that connection is our thoughts. The way to break out beyond the boundaries of yourself and appreciate something bigger, is to stop thinking about yourself. Once free of overwhelming self concern, a much bigger picture gradually comes into view.”
– Stuart Bohrer

“To live happily is an inward power of the soul.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
– Lao Tzu

¨In other words, your soul knows who you are, and where you belong, and will find a way to get you there.¨
– Lebo Diseko

“If you want to know the secrets of the universe, think energy, frequency and vibrations.”
– Nikola Tesla

“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 on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.”
– T. E. Lawrence

 Is it kind of ironic that it is only, finally in this current age of Space exploration that ´developed´ nations are finally beginning to love the earth instead of exploiting it?¨
– David Klein

¨To the degree in which the science of mind, understood as an all-encompassing science of the world of the spirit, possesses as its theme all persons, all types of persons and personal endowments, all types of personal configurations, which we call here cultural configurations, it consequently encompasses as well the science of nature and the nature at the heart of such science, which is nature as reality itself.¨
– Edmund Husserl

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”
– Steve Jobs

“To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.”
– G. W. F. Hegel

“Philosophy is the science of estimating values. The superiority of any state or substance over another is determined by philosophy. By assigning a position of primary importance to what remains when all that is secondary has been removed, philosophy thus becomes the true index of priority or emphasis in the realm of speculative thought.”
– Manly P. Hall

“The more crazy the project is, the better off you are just working on it — rather than talking about it.”
– Jonathan  Yaney

“He who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied may be justly termed as a philosopher.”
– Plato

Since its inception in Antiquity pretty much the entire edifice of Western thought, along with the world that has grown out of it, has been without any real foundation in the reality of our existential condition. People are sometimes  mystified by the fact that our technological world – which aims at increasing human happiness – has also given birth to the specter of nuclear annihilation, technologically engineered genocide and the ongoing destruction of our natural environment. ”
– from “Heidegger in Twelve Minutes,” Eric Dodson’s  YouTube tutorial on Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time 

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”
– Anatole France

“We’re about five Einsteins away from answering where the mystery of where the universe came from.”
– Martin Amis

” People are thinking that teaching is handing someone information to replace information that they had that is false. That’s an aspect of teaching. but it’s not the fundamental dimension of it. It’s getting a person to understand why their thoughts are wrong to begin with.”
– Neil deGrasse Tyson

¨The arrival of the railroad took some 40 years to achieve. Automobiles, a novelty in the late 19th century, began clogging the streets in the years after 1913. But the triumph of the digital—the transformation of digital technologies from a marginal aspect of everyday life to the central aspect—will have taken place in a matter of months in 2020. When the pandemic is thought to have been defeated and the word finally goes out for normal life to resume, the normal that resumes will be unrecognizable.¨
– Paul Berman

“But once we look beyond our lifespans, we get just a touch of that God’s-eye view and can see that the ultimate results of our actions and experiences are far beyond what we can possibly imagine. It’s also very humbling.”
– Rebecca Klempner

“You’ll never see a U-Haul behind a hearse. I don’t care how much money you make…you can’t take it with you. The Egyptians tried it. They got robbed.”
– Denzel Washington

“History,as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of human history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”
– James Baldwin

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge.”
– Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.” Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.” For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
~Kahlil Gibran

“Every day is a gift! It’s just…it doesn’t have to be a pair of socks.”
– Tony Soprano, HBO’s “The Sopranos”

“The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our web-like existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner.”
– Tim Berners Lee, Weaving the Web

“We have to get a world where it’s a fair world for all 7 billion people on earth, all of them. We have to learn to live together, to work together in some shape or form. Despair is the fuel of terrorism, hope is the fuel of civilization. We’ve got to be constantly putting more hope into the world than despair.”
– Eddie

” Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed. ”
– Bertrand Russell

“My own conscience tells me that when I disappear off to the end of the dunes on Cape Cod in the summer, and I’ve had a little bit of joint, and I sit and I pray and meditate, and observe beauty, that this is an avenue towards understanding God, not a path away,” he says, “and that’s the only thing that should matter for a Christian.”
– Andrew Sullivan

” The reason we can’t solve this or that problem is often this: we just haven’t hit it from  the right angle. At that point what is needed – perhaps more than a Herculean struggle against the awesome power of our own ignorance – is a willingness to suspend all negative thinking and open our minds to a fresh take on the problem. In other words, we need to click the reset button. Once we do that, a solution is often not long in coming. When it does come it often seems as if we had nothing to do with it; as if it’s a case of serendipity and something that really didn’t need our help at all. And so we have yet another magical example of the incredible powers of the human mind.”
– David Klein

“I cannot too strongly reiterate the constant necessity for you to think in terms of energies and forces, of lines of force, and energy relationships…the whole story of astrology is, in reality, one of magnetic and magical interplay for the production or externalization of the inner reality.”
-Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric Astrology

More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.
-Saint Teresa of Avila

Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
– Confucius

Do not let your hearts be troubled. trust in God, trust also in me.
-Jesus of Nazareth

There is a great difference between one who can feel ashamed before his own soul and one who is only ashamed before his fellow men.
– The Talmud

A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value. It seems to me that what is important is the force of this super-personal content … regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being…
– Albert Einstein

Promises only obligate those who believe them.
– French politician

You are not stuck in time like a fly in a closed bottle, whose wings are therefore useless. You cannot trust your physical senses to give you a true picture of reality. They are lovely liars, with such a fantastic tale to tell that you believe it without question. You are sometimes wiser, more creative, and far more knowledgeable when you are dreaming than when you are awake.
– Jane Roberts, “Seth Speaks.”

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.
– Joseph Campbell

Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.
– Max Muller

Where there is love there is life
– Mahatma Gandhi

Don’t forget to love yourself.
– Soren Kierkegaard

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
– Aristotle

Maya Angelou Quotations

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

Nothing will work unless you do

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.
– Maya Angelou

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes

Quotations from the Buddha

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

“It is because we don’t know who we are, because we are unaware that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, that we behave in the generally silly, the often insane, the sometimes criminal ways that are so characteristically human. We are saved, liberated and enlightened by perceiving the hitherto unperceived good that is already within us, by returning to our eternal ground and remaining where, without knowing it, we have always been.” – Aldous Huxley

Political Quotations

…for it may easily turn out that they [intolerant philosophies] …may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument…and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder as criminal, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
– Karl Popper

A nation is a multitude of rational beings united by the common object of their love.
– St. Augustine

Categories: Quotations

Philosophers Feast

Philosophers" Feast

Philosophers Feast

Philosophers Feast

 

If Hegel brought some bagels

And Descartes brought some toast

If Socrates brought a salad

Which would they like most?

If Aristotle brought a bottle  

Of really fine champagne

They’d all be making merry

And surely raising Cain

 

If Hobbes brought the lobster

And Voltaire brought some veal

Wouldn’t that be scrumptious

Now I’d call that a meal

 

If Plato brought tomatoes

That came straight off the vine

And Leibniz brought a case

Of chilled Riesling wine

 

If Pythagoras some pears

And Nietzsche brought some peaches

That he got from who knows where

If Avicenna brought some apricots

And Ibn Gabirol brought some grapes

To make a full fruit basket

What a dish that would make!

 

If Emerson brought some barbecue

And Krishnamurti brought some Coke

And Kierkegaard brought the lime juice

And also told the jokes

If Confucious brought some juices

And Lao Tzu brought some lox

And Ram Dass brought some donuts

That filled a great big box…

 

What a feast would be forthcoming 

With those of mental might

Sharing stellar thoughts

While eating their fill

Well into that blessed night!

 

 

Seeing…a poem

“Seeing”…a poem

Do I see you as you see me seeing you see me?
Am I seeing what I want to see or just
What needs to be seen?
And if so, as you see it or as I see it
And what does it mean to me to
See you, and do I only see you in the
First place because I believe I can see
You (as in seeing is believing) or do you
Only see what you believe
And the hell with the rest?
Do you see what I mean?

What Makes a Novel Great

“…the sign of a great novel is that the author creates a world and when she moves her hands away, the world is still in motion.”

Categories: Uncategorized

Eternity…a Poem

 

Eternity visits in different ways;
to some in a cloud of incense
to others with a distant gaze;

To some it comes while eating a peach
to lovers while strolling on a sun-kissed beach
poets may meet
in their imagination
and lovers of nature
while drinking in the beauty of a forest reborn
in the heart-clutching palette
that comes with each dawn

Workaholic types might meet it
on an overdue vacation
and sometimes it even winks
at a whole generation

All in all it’s an awesome thing
these sweet, sweet moments
that eternity brings
while whispering the promise
of a life made whole

And the hope of refreshment ‘
with a tall cool glass
of Gatorade
for the soul

– by David Klein
Copyright 2022
Booksandmocha.com

Categories: Poetry

Tags: ,

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley…a place where frost is rare and snow a once-in-a-lifetime  occurrence; a place once celebrated for the fragrance given off by clouds of fruit petals from the orchards that dotted the region—a fragrance so sweet that the region was known as “Valley of Heart’s Delight.”

And then they came – investors and engineers and visionaries intoxicated with the idea of creating a brave new world based on technology. They arrived in the wake of World War II, a world-changing event that marked the San Francisco Bay Area’s emergence  as an epicenter of enterprise and technology. Despite its many charms, however, the fabled City by the Bay, known for its world-famous Golden Gate Bridge and for its status as a magnet for free spirits from all over the world, was largely bypassed in favor of its rustic neighbor to the south – Santa Clara County.

For it was that place; a dreamy little valley famous for its forests of plum and prune trees, that drew this most recent kind of immigrant. These newcomers were known for their—as often as not— iron-hard egos, limitless self-confidence and an almost messianic  faith in the future of technology. Charged with and by the internal combustion of their own ambition to do something new and (just as often) staggeringly rewarding in terms of profit, these new pioneers bypassed the office-lined canyons of San Francisco’s financial district for the leafy environs of Stanford University and the orchards that ringed it. This area would soon become known all over the world as the virtual offspring of an element – silicon – that was inexpensive, abundant, and used in the manufacture of integrated circuits.

It was an invention that was about to change the world.

On the surface, to be sure, there was a difference between this boom and previous booms. This one rested as much on the backs of math and science majors as on the spunk of its salespeople. Among the former group were many with advanced degrees in electrical engineering and the brand new science of computing. Many of those who were part of this entrepreneurial explosion were—unlike Rockefeller and Carnegie and the fabled “robber barons” of their grandparents’ generation—the offspring of tree-lined suburban streets rather than the products of hardscrabble farms or Old World poverty. 

Before he ascendance of this area manufacturing and much else rested on the exploitation and marketing of natural resources such as oil, rubber, and industrial metals.. This development, however, was something new; for in this one intelligence was not merely an important element in the exploitation of raw materials, but rather the main raw material itself. It was, in fact, the collaboration of the region’s educational and research institutions, such as Stanford University and the NASA Ames Research Center, that marked Silicon Valley as a unique incubator of IQ-driven profitability.

  It should be pointed out, though, that this new IQ-based era had much in common with previous ones in one respect, for these new lords of enterprise were no less motivated to win than their 18th and 19th century counterparts. These electronics and digital pioneers, driven by the love of the (business) game, a hunger for recognition for their derring-do,  were “in it to win it” (or a little bit of all three) just as much as were yesterday’s oil or steel barons. Silicon Valley promised – and continues to promise – to test their mettle in their attempt to climb their personal Everest.

This ongoing saga of ambition and enterprise is not over yet, and as with all historical happenings, todayś news is liable to be outdated by tomorrow. What if Silicon Valley had spends the next 40 years churning out vaccines and medical breakthroughs, and other life-sustaining technology as doggedly as it has spent the last 40 years churning out ever more powerful computers, ipods, iphones, ipads, video games and other such devices?  We have the 25th century right here in Northern California. Hopefully it will meet us in the 21st century and spend the next 40 years — if we have that long  — to help us prevent future pandemics from wiping us off the map.

Rescue Your Money

Financial Reserves

  

    Rescue Your Money
         by Ric Edelman

 It’s really simple. 

Isn’t it?

 Step #1:
  Work hard your entire adult life, save $100,000 or more and invest it wisely in a variety of sectors: CD’s, bonds, real estate, the stock market (hopefully mostly blue-chip stocks) 

 Step #2:
Wait to reap the rewards of your patience and hard work.

Now let’s cut to a scene where an elderly couple looks at their online balance sheet and realizes that the 100k they invested in 5-year CD’s is now worth about 65 thousand dollars.

 What happened?!

 Didn’t take inflation into account?
      Transaction costs?
      Bought too late, sold too soon?
      OR, and this may be one of the main roots of portfolio failure, you just didn’t know what you were doing? 

  On November 14th 2012, a headline in Forbes Magazine warned: ‘ market sell-off after Obama’s re-election no accident; recession coming’. The article stated: ‘Now that the election is over stocks are dropping with no bottom in sight. This is no accident, given investors’ fears of higher taxes and continued big-spending…we are headed for a recession.’

 …the very next day after that article appeared…November 15th, 2012, a post-election stock rally began. As you may recall, stocks rose throughout 2013, with the S&P 500 posting again nearly 30% for the year—it’s best in 18 years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 2013 of 26.5%, and the tech-focused NASDAQ a whopping 38%. The increases continued, though to a lesser extent, through 2014.”

  • Rescue Your Money, ch. 3

 Author Ric Edelman doesn’t make you wait until the end of the book to let you in on the Big Secret to making a profit on your investments, rather than seeing them fall prey to the ravages of time and taxes (like the couple just mentioned). Instead, he shares his knowledge about wise investing right from the git-go, in the first few pages of this book. 

 That’s the beauty of Rescue Your Money. We are not called on to wrap our heads around the outermost reaches of economic theory or grasp the innermost workings of financial markets so well that we would be quite capable of holding our own in a discussion with hedge fund managers or high-earning MBAs.

 Instead, the author offers clear, simple and practical suggestions about how to navigate the market and see your investments prosper. Rescue Your Money,  with its emphasis on a smart, steady and patient approach to investing, may be particularly useful for younger investors, since they have plenty of time to work out their investment learning curve.

 The fact of the matter is:

If you´re a Millennial or member of Gen Z, thereś a good chance youŕe an investor.

If you are a Millennial woman, there is a good chance youŕe doing better in the market(s) than your male contemporaries:

¨…73% of Gen Z investors, 66% of millennial investors and 67% of investors ages 18 to 40 overall own stocks.¨
– ¨Millennials and Gen Zers Are More Invested in the Stock Market Than Other Financial Assets, Including Crypto¨
–Yaёl Bizouati-Kennedy on Yahoo.com..11/04/21

¨There’s good news for the growing share of women pursuing investing: Despite their lack of confidence, women investors tend to outperform men. 

Just over two-thirds of women now invest outside of retirement, up from 44% in 2018, according to Fidelity Investments’ 2021 Women and Investing Study, which polled 1,200 women. Broken down by generation, that share is even greater among Millennials, at 71%. Among Gen Xers, it’s 67%, and among Baby Boomers, it’s 62%.¨
– ¨With more money saved, Millennial women show greater interest in investing¨
– Caitlin Mullen, Bizwomen contributor (https://www.bizjournals.com/bizwomen).

Sound interesting?
Get that cup of cold brew coffee going and read on.

Edelman lets us know right away what the Iron Law of Investing is:

Buy Low and Sell High. 

    Okay. Now we know what to aim for…optimize every penny and look for the right opportunity. But to do that, you have to be ahead of the game. The first step—and this is where the author really earns his keep, in letting us know which assumptions and preconceptions are keeping us from making our stock picks work—is to get rid of those attitudes that are keeping us down. Most importantly, we need to:

 Get Real!

 That means don´t get carried away with useless KPIś (key performance indicators).Youŕe not trading percentages. You’re trading money! As the author reminds us, if you think your investments are successful because they’ve lost only 30% of their value while the market as a whole has lost 35%—even though you lost money—you really need to consider (or at least auditing a class in ) Investing 101. And that’s what this book is; a return to basics and an invitation to act from a place of patience,  persistence and a willingness to do your due diligence rather than succumb to the gambling fever that leads so many investors to lose their hard-earned cash in financial markets.

 The problem is, according to the author, that so many of the millions of people who have become investors—thanks to the ease and availability of online trading —allow themselves to be seduced by the twin devils of fear and greed. Instead of buying when the price is right, they wait till the investment becomes front page news. Then they jump on the bandwagon after the price has gone way up. Then, when the price starts to seriously dip, they sell—at a loss—in a fit of panic

  Rescue Your Money stresses fundamentals, What makes this book stand out is its insistence on the need for discipline and the willingness to constantly learn for anyone who wants to succeed as an investor. His starting point seems to be this: if your perspective on something’s not quite right, then everything you do will be subject to failure—no matter how wisely you intend to act. Underlying his take on what it takes to be a successful investor is this: for little fish to reap a profit from their investments, they have to think and act like big fish as much as possible. The brave heart of the warrior has its place in all things that involve risk. Still,  it is  the cold, clear head of the well-trained and highly disciplined soldier that you want to guide you through the rough and tumble of the financial market. Or, as someone said about what it takes to make it as an online trader: “Whatever else you have going for you, when it comes time to execute a trade, you have to be able to click on that key(s) or that mouse button without hesitating or letting your emotions get the best of you.”

 The wise old (and in some cases not-so-old) owls of the market  are just waiting in the wings with cash in hand to gobble up those severely depreciated bargain stocks that will return a great big profit after they’ve recovered from the downturn. They are able to spot those buy-in opportunities because they’ve done their homework. If their stocks look like they’re tanking or going to tank they will have an exit strategy in place that will spare them losses beyond what they’re ready to bear.

 His success as an investor is not based on a rare and uncanny ability to guess better than most when the top of a bull market or a bear market’s low point. In fact he goes deep by giving us some useful advice on something that is basic to investing This is where he mentions the two “truths”— as these fallacies are so often regarded by unwary investors— that keep people from investing successfully.

False) Truth #1:

Stock Prices Rise and Fall

In order to make this work for you, you have to be able to time the market. To do so investors “follow fads, trust the media, rely on so-called experts, or make  big bets on blue chip stocks or hot sectors.” (Ch. 4 {mention title of ch. 4})

 Actual Truth #1: 

 Over the course of a 66 year period (1956-2015) and 11 downturns, the market swung back boldly into the black, gaining somewhere between 56 and 229% of its value after losing somewhere between 14 and 52% of it. The market is not the roulette table at Bellagio’s. In fact, looking at your portfolio every day (or even worse, several times a day) is a big mistake says Mr. Edelman. In fact, according to research, people who do so tend to do worse than those who do not! 

The solution?

Don’t panic and sell. Instead, how about working with the 15 year cycle as analyzed by Ibbotson Associates?  

 False Truth #2: 

The stock market is risky, volatile and unpredictable.

 Actual Truth #2: 

Yes it is (risky, volatile and unpredictable), if you want a quick return. On the other hand, the NYSE’s value today is 100 x greater than it was 100 years ago.

 Rescue Your Money is too deep and too chock full of information to present it all here, but there is one thing that is basic and involves a very interesting suggestion meant to guide us into the right “take” on buying and selling:

Now author Edelman has something interesting to say about making your portfolio grow (in Rescue Your Money ch.  )

Sell High

Buy Low

 What’s going on here?!

 Right in the first chapter of the book he tells us to buy low and sell high. Is he now telling us to do the same thing but different? Has the author decided to forsake the serious business of market analysis for the lols of the brain-teaser market?

 No. Not at all. 

 What he means (ch. ) is. Just as you would do well to consider the cost of your most basic raw material for your backyard garden – seeds, fertilizer etc. – you would likewise do well to consider the source of your investment income. As in all things, planning ahead in a systematic way will get you a lot farther than acting on the spur of the moment. 

 Selling high and buying low are two sides of the same coin; or, if you prefer, the x and the y  of a mathematical equation. If you treat selling high as a means of raising capital for further investment, then you are helping to solve one of the biggest problems that individual investors face—having a steady and reliable source of income that will enable you to be ready to buy right at the right time with income that comes from  your investment rather than from your pocket (just like the biggest institutional investors…aka big fish)!   

 Like fellow investor and investment consultant Robert Kiyosaki,  Ric Edelman is that rarest of combinations: a thinker, a doer and a teacher. Heś helped to make billions for his clients, has the ability to take something that is hardly an exact science and explain it as clearly as possible, and emphasizes the need to correct wrong attitudes and assumptions, since they underlie much of the failure of your average investor to see his or her investments return a profit. 

 

 

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)