“The whole of my teaching is simply making people recognize that what they mistake for conditions of health are really conditions of disease, that their virtues are really vices, that what they prize is really worthless.”

— Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Arthur Waley
(Lǎozǐ)
from The Way and its Power

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“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

— Buddha गौतम बुद्ध 563 – 483 BCE
(Siddhartha Shakyamuni Gautama)
Awakened Truth

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“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

— Socrates 469 – 399 BCE
One of the most powerful influences on Western Civilization

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“To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.”

— Democritus Dēmókritos 460 – 370 BCE
Father of modern science and greatest of ancient philosophers

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“Realizing that fully-convinced 'knowing' creates suffering and delusion begins the healing.”

— Wang Zhen 809 – 859 CE via Shan Dao
from Daodejing Lunbing Yaoyishu, The Tao of War

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“Talking about ‘attaining enlightenment’ is the one of the best ways to drive true realization far away.”

— Huangbo Xiyun 黄檗希运 1 via Shan Dao
(Huangbo Xiyun, Huángbò Xīyùn, Obaku)

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“Understanding depends on things. Hence, it involves fabrication. Not understanding returns to the origin. Hence, it approaches the truth.”

— Li Xizhai 1 via Red Pine
(Li Hsi-Chai)
from Tao-te-chen-ching yi-chieh

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“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?”

— Rumi مولانا جلال‌الدین محمد بلخی 1207 – 1283 CE
(Rumi Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī)
from Masnavi مثنوي معنوي‎‎) "Rhyming Couplets of Profound Spiritual Meaning”

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“Those who understand yet seem not to understand are the wisest of people… Those who don’t understand yet think they understand are, in fact, the stupidest of people.”

— Wu Cheng 吴澄 1249 – 1333 CE
"Mr. Grass Hut"
from Tao-te-chen-ching-chu

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“If you realize that you don’t understand… this is the door to all mystery. If you cling to understanding while trying to discover what you don’t understand… this is the door to all misfortune.”

— Deqing 1546 – 1623 CE
(Te-Ch’ing)

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“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.”

— Francis Bacon 1561 – 1626 CE

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“Do not believe, or like, lightly… Lying is the usual thing, so then let belief be unusual.”

— Balthasar Gracian 1601 – 1658 CE

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“Combine all the teachers you have met into one.”

— Karma Chagme Rinpoche I ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་རཱ་ག་ཨ་སྱས། 1613 – 1678 CE via Erik Pema Kunsang
from Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen

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“The supreme mystery of despotism, its prop and stay, is to keep men in a state of deception, and with the specious title of religion to cloak the fear by which they must be held in check, so that they will fight for their servitude as if for salvation.”

— Baruch Spinoza 1632 – 1677 CE

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“Each man must create his own system or else he is a slave to another mans.”

— William Blake 1757 – 1827 CE

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“Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE

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“vulgar minds who are swayed by all kinds of current opinions, authorities, and prejudices, are like the people which in silence obey the law and commands.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE

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“The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882 CE
Champion of individualism

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“It is never too late to give up your prejudices.”

— Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862 CE
Father of environmentalism and America's first yogi
from Walden or Life in the Woods

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“The universe is wider than our views of it.”

— Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862 CE
Father of environmentalism and America's first yogi
from Walden or Life in the Woods

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“A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.”

— Mark Twain 1835 – 1910 CE
(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
America’s most famous author

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“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

— Mark Twain 1835 – 1910 CE
(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
America’s most famous author

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“If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be – a Christian.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894 CE

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“You are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison. If you think you are free, you can't escape.”

— G. I. Gurdjieff 1866 – 1949 CE

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“Our blight is ideologies — they are the long-expected Antichrist!”

— Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 CE
Insightful shamanistic scientist

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“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

— Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955 CE

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“Belief is the systematic taking of unanalyzed words much too seriously. Paul's words, Mohammed's words, Marx's words, Hitler's words---people take them too seriously, and what happens?…sisters of charity selflessly tending the victims of their own church's inquisitors and crusaders.”

— Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE
from Island

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“Give us this day our daily Faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief.”

— Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE
from Island

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“People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.”

— James Hilton 1900 – 1954 CE
from Lost Horizon

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“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

— Erich Fromm 1900 – 1980 CE
One of the most powerful voices of his era promoting the true personal freedom beyond social, political, religious, and national belief systems
from The Sane Society

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“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.”

— Marshall McLuhan 1911 – 1980 CE

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“What you know without knowing you know it is the right kind of knowledge. Any other kind… you’ll lose the way.”

— Ursula Le Guin 1929 – 2018 CE

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“Thinking that our confusion is the understanding of knowledge creates mental illness.”

— Shan Dao 山道 1933 CE –

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“I love and treasure individuals as I meet them; I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to.”

— George Carlin 1937 – 2008 CE
One of the most influential social commentators of his time

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“Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display… we have simply created a shop, an antique shop.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism

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“Look into every situation and examine it, so that you won’t be fooling yourself by relying on belief alone. Instead, you want to make a personal discovery of reality through your own intelligence and ability.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

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“Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too”

— John Lennon 1940 – 1980 CE

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“While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States sometimes must have
To stand naked.”

— Bob Dylan 1941 CE –

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“Thus do Zen masters ask their students to show them their original face.”

— Red Pine 1943 CE –
( Bill Porter)
Exceptional translator, cultural diplomat

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