Why do we laugh at insecurity in other people? Why do you get a kick out of someone feeling insecure? Do you not have your own insecurities to battle with? Do you not have your own battles to fight? So where is the honor in finding amusement in the insecurity of another? If someone stepped in just in time to soothe your own struggling mind, wouldn’t that have made a world of a difference? Then why wouldn’t you do just that, for another? Don’t laugh at the insecurities of another person; because that could very well be you. Soothe the minds of others, because that’s exactly what you know you are in such need of.

You can't put your heart into everything; you've just got to show up. And if your heart is worn all over you, then so be it, but you can't pull it out of you and put it in places, or put it in people's hands. Because you are like this wild and quiet and laughing thing and people are like things that stand there and don't understand what's going on; so when you put your heart into things like that, you're going to feel either stupid, or very hurt, or both. And it's not people's faults that they are just standing there. I mean, you're the different one; they're not different; they're all the same.

Am I still writing? Unthinkable not to. In the very darkest night the words were like shiny pebbles. They caught the light of the moon and stars and reflected it back. One word among them that shone especially brightly. Simplicity. I would approach it, stepping softly, regard it from all sides, finally pick it up, enchanted by it, recognize that its enchantment lay in its shine, its pure meaning. Simplicity. To simply be there. Simply keep going. The longer I kept going, the easier it was to see how beautiful, simply beautiful, it is to be here. I would like to write about how this word shines. I'd like to write about the simplest things.

I agree with yours of the 22d that a professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution. but we cannot always do what is absolutely best. those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. truth advances, & error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step.[Comment on establishing Jefferson's University of Virginia, a secular college, in a letter to Thomas Cooper 7 October 1814]

For Equilibrium, a Blessing:Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.As the wind loves to call things to dance,May your gravity by lightened by grace.Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.As water takes whatever shape it is in,So free may you be about who you become.As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,May your sense of irony bring perspective.As time remains free of all that it frames,May your mind stay clear of all it names.May your prayer of listening deepen enoughto hear in the depths the laughter of god.

Ninguém é morto ou está morto. Ser ou estar implica existência. A morte é a ausência, já não está, já não é.Só no domínio do pensamento será ou viverá o ausente. Da vida só a própria faz parte. Na morte, choramos sempre o futuro, o devir que não nos permite ouvir mais aquele ser, o "nunca mais" que nos impede a dádiva da partilha, que nos faz caminhar sem um dos nossos membros. As pessoas são as nossas testemunhas e, quando uma delas parte, é como se levasse esse pedaço de vivência.

Many of us are slaves to our minds. Our own mind is our worst enemy. We try to focus, and our mind wanders off. We try to keep stress at bay, but anxiety keeps us awake at night. We try to be good to the people we love, but then we forget them and put ourselves first. And when we want to change our life, we dive into spiritual practice and expect quick results, only to lose focus after the honeymoon has worn off. We return to our state of bewilderment. We're left feeling helpless and discouraged. It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our minds?

The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.

L'amore della tua vita non è la persona che ti intrappola in se stesso; l'amore della tua vita è la persona che ti rende libero da così tante delle trappole in cui sei già caduto! L' amore della tua vita non è la persona che ti acceca verso qualsiasi altra persona; l'amore della tua vita è la persona che rimuove le tante bende che si sono accumulate su di te durante la tua vita. L'innamorato (giusto) per te è quello che ti rende libero in se stesso. Sei stato liberato dalla schiavitù e dentro quella libertà risiede quella persona! QUELLO è l'innamorato per te!

The nights you fight best arewhen all the weapons are pointed at you,when all the voices hurl their insultswhile the dream is being strangled.The nights you fight best arewhen reason gets kicked in the gut,when the chariots of gloom encircle you.The nights you fight best arewhen the laughter of fools fills the air,when the kiss of death is mistaken for love.The nights you fight best arewhen the game is fixed,when the crowd screams for your blood.The nights you fight best areon a night like thisas you chase a thousand dark rats from your brain,as you rise up against the impossible,as you become a brother to the tender sister of joyand move on regardless.

You can carry around with you a basket full of magical apples; but when people do not recognize magic, they will ask you to go and pick earthly apples and then they will laugh at you when you are unable to pick the apples of the earth; but what they don't know is that you were given hands that are made to pick the magical apples from the ancient trees and what an opportunity they have missed in not asking you for the magic ones! But this is the downfall of mankind, in that they cannot recognize magic even when it is right under their noses! Blessed are the few who can, and who ask for it. Ask me for magic, because that is what I am capable of giving.

The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitol's rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. And if I really could save Peeta... in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal. Because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.

Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary was beheaded, the people who were watching saw her skirts moving about and they thought her headless body was trying to get itself to its feet. But the movement turned out to be her dog, which she had carried to the block with her, hidden in her skirts. Mary Stuart is supposed to have faced her execution with grace and courage (she wore a scarlet chemise to suggest she was being martyred), but I don’t think she could have been so brave if she had not secretly been holding tight to her Skye terrier, feeling his warm, silky fur against her trembling skin.

اكتب ما شئت، واقرأ ما شئت، فلن ينفعك ذلك إلا بالعمل. فإن كتابة أو قراءة الواو والراء والدال لا تشم منها رائحة الورد

One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others. There was a time when I felt lousy about my over-forty body, saw myself as too fat, too this, or too that. Yet I fantasized about finding a lover who would give me the gift of being loved as I am. It is silly, isn't it, that I would dream of someone else offering to me the acceptance and affirmation I was withholding from myself. This was a moment when the maxim "You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself" made clear sense. And I add, "Do not expect to receive the love from someone else you do not give yourself.