The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
Socrates
The wisdom of the wise. the experience of the ages, are perpetuated by quotations.
Disraeli
This is Volume 7 of Golden Moments, the condensed wisdom and folly of humankind from around the world and over the centuries. There are many illustrations among the 100 quotations, and a few funny fillers to give your brain a rest.
Each golden moment is an essence, a completeness, and great brain food. Read them in order if you like, or go Zen---quickly look at the possibilities and pick what grabs you. The interconnections emerge organically.
I’ve carefully mined these golden moments over my long life. If your judgment, taste, sense of humor, and belief systems are similar to mine you will love them. If not, read them anyway and expand what you can think, feel, become. I’m a cynical, free speech libertarian who laughs a lot and is a little crazy.
Old Man and a Young Woman wish to remain anonymous: He has lived a full life and tried hard to be honest and open-minded. Sometimes he succeeded. He’s not much for political correctness, or the warm, self-righteous comfort of a Noble Cause. Too many Noble Lies.
She is a super-smart, foul-mouthed brat and a student at UC Berkeley majoring in philosophy and psychology. She says what she thinks and couldn’t care less if that bothers you.
1 The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies everything placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.
Leonardo da Vinci
2 A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
its loveliness increases;
it will never pass into nothingness.
John Keats
3 I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.
Vincent van Gogh
4 They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Edgar Allan Poe
5 Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
William James
6 Those who score poorly on IQ tests are often able to experience in their reality a freer, more generous, more faithful flow of emotional states, unhampered by reason’s sometimes stern dictates. There are others who are highly intellectually proficient, whose reasoning abilities are undisputed, and yet their considerable lack of emotional development remains largely invisible as far as your assessments are concerned. Such people are not considered retarded, of course.
Seth
7 Out beyond the ideas of good and evil there is a field.
I will meet you there.
Rumi
8 If there are two ways of comprehending reality, which one is “better”? If one has two different choices as to how to do something, we ask which one should we choose. The answer to this question is clearly that each is better for different things. It depends upon what you are trying to do. Both are equally valid even though they are quite different. Which one is chosen at a particular time does not depend on which is more true, but on what you are trying to accomplish at that particular moment. Each has assets and liabilities.
Seth
9 Yes. Yes. I know reality is not like that, but let me have some fun while I can.
Old Man
10 When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.
Alfred North Whitehead
George Bernard Shaw
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
Socrates
The wisdom of the wise. the experience of the ages, are perpetuated by quotations.
Disraeli
This is Volume 7 of Golden Moments, the condensed wisdom and folly of humankind from around the world and over the centuries. There are many illustrations among the 100 quotations, and a few funny fillers to give your brain a rest.
Each golden moment is an essence, a completeness, and great brain food. Read them in order if you like, or go Zen---quickly look at the possibilities and pick what grabs you. The interconnections emerge organically.
I’ve carefully mined these golden moments over my long life. If your judgment, taste, sense of humor, and belief systems are similar to mine you will love them. If not, read them anyway and expand what you can think, feel, become. I’m a cynical, free speech libertarian who laughs a lot and is a little crazy.
Old Man and a Young Woman wish to remain anonymous: He has lived a full life and tried hard to be honest and open-minded. Sometimes he succeeded. He’s not much for political correctness, or the warm, self-righteous comfort of a Noble Cause. Too many Noble Lies.
She is a super-smart, foul-mouthed brat and a student at UC Berkeley majoring in philosophy and psychology. She says what she thinks and couldn’t care less if that bothers you.
1 The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies everything placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.
Leonardo da Vinci
2 A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
its loveliness increases;
it will never pass into nothingness.
John Keats
3 I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.
Vincent van Gogh
4 They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
Edgar Allan Poe
5 Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
William James
6 Those who score poorly on IQ tests are often able to experience in their reality a freer, more generous, more faithful flow of emotional states, unhampered by reason’s sometimes stern dictates. There are others who are highly intellectually proficient, whose reasoning abilities are undisputed, and yet their considerable lack of emotional development remains largely invisible as far as your assessments are concerned. Such people are not considered retarded, of course.
Seth
7 Out beyond the ideas of good and evil there is a field.
I will meet you there.
Rumi
8 If there are two ways of comprehending reality, which one is “better”? If one has two different choices as to how to do something, we ask which one should we choose. The answer to this question is clearly that each is better for different things. It depends upon what you are trying to do. Both are equally valid even though they are quite different. Which one is chosen at a particular time does not depend on which is more true, but on what you are trying to accomplish at that particular moment. Each has assets and liabilities.
Seth
9 Yes. Yes. I know reality is not like that, but let me have some fun while I can.
Old Man
10 When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.
Alfred North Whitehead
