Tao Te Ching
Perseverance
As the I Ching frequently mentions, "perseverance furthers" but this becomes more and more difficult as technology takes over more and more of our lives. Most people part of the new “iGen” have never known a time without the internet, smart phones, and constant digital input. The distractions are omnipresent and increasingly seductive. Even at a stoplight there are no gaps, no time for contemplation, for thinking about things and being creative instead of only passively taking things in. At first glance, the internet with it’s almost immediate access to almost all of the world’s knowledge, philosophy, music, and art represents a magnificent, cultural evolution… and that remains a possibility. The more immediate effect though seems to be be a trivialization of culture, a spreading, superficial understanding on a wide spectrum with a quickly shrinking in-depth realization and appreciation for everything just a little deeper than the surface. One of the first casualties may be perseverance.
Quotes (80)
“‘Perseverance furthers,’ for it is perseverance that make the difference between seduction and courtship.”
“The road to virtue is long and goes steep up hill, hard climbing at first, but the last of it, when you get to the summit (if you get there) is easy going after the hard part.”
“Salvation means deliverance from all saviors. This is the supreme freedom, the highest, where a man breathes only with difficulty. Do you have the endurance?”
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising up every time we fall.”
“To persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage in a man. The coward despairs.”
“love is built up bit by bit by mere usage. Nothing can resist the continually repeated impact of a blow, however light, as you see drops of water falling on one spot at long last wear through a stone.”
“Endure the hardships of your present statel Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate... Endure the hardships of your present state, live, and reserve yourselves for better fate... Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them.”
“If someone admires the great but does not emulate them, they are anything but great.”
“Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.”
“Only after one hundred days of consistent work, only then is the light genuine; only then can one begin to work with the spirit-fire.”
“The jewel-casket of original mind—free from selfish passions—shines like the infinite sky.”
“For their minds are dry as a piece of rock;
If you do not carve its hard surface with a chisel,
Even if you soak it in a stream, it will not give way.”
“Don’t stop in a run-down shack in an isolated village. Go through the mountain pass of the buddhas and ancestors.”
“When the bottom is filled with rubbish, just walk through the sludge.”
“Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth.”
“Read, persevere, sit up nights, inquire, exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to understanding, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; persist until you find clarity in what at first looked dark.”
“Those who interrupt their spiritual practices are like those who let a bird escape from their hand, it’s very difficult to catch again.”
“To recognize the Way is hard. Once you recognize it, holding on to it is even harder.”
“The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure... you are above everything distressing.”
“If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.”
“No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.”
“There is no place for rulers to rest, and no resting place to which they can retreat… I tried to emulate the wise rulers of the Three Dynasties, and desired to bring lasting peace to the whole earth, and make all men happy in their work. For decades I have exhausted all my strength, day after day working with unceasing diligence and intense watchfulness, never resting, never idle.”
“Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.”
“These are the times that try men's souls... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”
“The first step toward wisdom is to question everything - and the last is to accept everything.”
“He only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew.”
“You must rise above
The gloomy clouds
Covering the mountaintop
Otherwise, how will you
Ever see the brightness?”
“The principles of war are the same as those of a siege. Fire must be concentrated on a single point and as soon as the breach is made, the equilibrium is broken and the rest is nothing.”
“Spirit cannot be compared with matter. You are free, they are slaves. Fight, and you shall win. For God grants victory to perseverance.”
“If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one ... he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.”
“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”
“There is hardly a single point of excellence belonging to human character, which is not decidedly repugnant to the untutored feelings of human nature.”
“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules.”
“we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor… No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert.”
“God keep me from ever completing anything… For small creations may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity.”
“A man vows, and yet will not cast away the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break it? Not at all, but the desires which tend to break it are at work in him dimly and make their way into his imagination and relax his muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the reasons for his vow.”
“Permanent success cannot be achieved except by incessant intellectual labor, always inspired by the ideal.”
“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
“When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.”
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained”
“When heat, moisture, and fertile soil come together, you do whatever you can to sow grain. When the crops are ready in autumn, you do whatever you can to harvest them... Now that you have a precious human life free of all impediments and endowed with all favorable conditions, apply yourself unrelentingly to spiritual practice!”
“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.”
“Today the two hundred million men in our country are entering into a civilized new world...but we, the two hundred million women, are still kept down in the dungeon... With all my heart I beseech and beg my two hundred million female compatriots to assume their responsibility as citizens. Arise! Arise! Chinese women, arise!”
“In resigning ourselves to our fate without a struggle, we are guilty of inhumanity.”
“No one succeeds without effort. Mind control is not your birthright. Those who succeed owe their liberation to perseverance.”
“From youth right to old age every word or deed which diverted me from my destiny I considered a sin... I pushed away the refreshing face of every young girl”
“Perhaps the basic skill that we should ask a teacher to impart to his pupil is the ability to discipline himself; for in this stormy age every individual, like every people, has in the long run only two choices—effective self-government, or practical subjection”
“Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don't freeze up.”
“Rigor alone is paralytic death, but imagination alone is insanity.”
“When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't go. I'm too worried to go. I don't want to interrupt my worrying to go.”
“I don't want you to go away with the impression that there're any—you know—inconveniences in the religious life. I mean a lot of people don't take it up just because they think it's going to involve a certain amount of nasty application and perseverance”
“To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever-increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that need discipline –training… So train your mind”
“You keep going. That is the bodhisattva’s way. As long as it benefits even one being you have to, without any sense of discouragement, go on.”
“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
“the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline”
“To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.”
“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”
“The false god of finishing... how many times do we force ourselves to do something we really don't want to do because of a compulsion to finish?”
“Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival...”
“Curiosity can bring guts out of hiding but curiosity evaporates. We need guts to go for the long haul. Like an amusing friend you can’t really trust, curiosity turns you on but then leaves you to make it on your own—with whatever courage you can muster”
“I must be in love with this woman... I don't have any choice... Danger may be lurking there, I might end up losing everything but there's no turning back even if it means I'll be burned up and gone forever.”
“The importance of choice as a route to a life of meaning was central to the thought of Viktor Frankl, one of the founders of existential psychotherapy in the 1940's. 'What is man?' he asked. 'He is being who continually decides what he is.'”
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