To Be Or Not To Be Quotes (page 21)
Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.
So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead...
Rumi
Not to dampen any parade, but if one asks if there is a single thing about Mr. Obama's Senate record, or state legislature record, or current program, that could possibly justify his claim to the presidency one gets ... what? Not much. Similarly lightweight unqualified 'white' candidates have overcome this objection, to be sure, but what kind of standard is that?
Christopher Hitchens
Being a woman is a fate Sabina did not choose. What we have not chosen we cannot consider either to our merit or our failure. Sabina believed that she had to assume to correct attitude to her unchosen faith. To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as taking pride in it.
Milan Kundera
To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this, a great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it you have established another authority, a...
Jiddu Krishnamurti
To be "in charge" is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures yourself but to see that every one else does so too; to see that no one either willfully or ignorantly thwarts or prevents such measures. It is neither to do everything yourself nor to appoint a number of people to each duty, but to ensure that each does that duty to which he is appointed.
Florence Nightingale
To the Hesitating Purchaser:"If sailor tales to sailor tunes, Storm and adventure, heat and cold, If schooners, islands, and maroons And Buccaneers and buried Gold. And all the old romance, retold, Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, The wiser youngsters of to-day:-So be it, and fall on! If not, If studious youth no longer crave, His ancient appetites forgot, Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, Or Cooper of the wood and wave: So be it, also! And may IAnd all my...
Robert Louis Stevenson
To speak pidgin to a Negro makes him angry, because he himself is a pidgin-nigger-talker. But, I will be told, there is no wish, no intention to anger him. I grant this; but it is just this absence of wish, this lack of interest, this indifference, this automatic manner of classifying him, imprisoning him, primitivizing him, decivilizing him, that makes him angry. If a man who speaks pidgin to a man of color or an Arab does not see anything wrong or evil in such behavior, it is because he has...
Frantz Fanon
To transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to understand ourselves and not to leave it to others to transform themselves or to bring about a modified change through revolution, either of the left or of the right. It is important to understand that this is our responsibility, yours and mine...
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Be blessed. And just as you are transforming your own life, may you transform the lives of those around you. When they ask, do not forget to give. When they knock at your door, be sure to open it. When they lose something and come to you, do whatever you can to help them find what they have lost. First, though, ask; knock at the door and find what is missing in your life. A hunter always knows what to expect - eat or be eaten.
Paulo Coelho