“If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I’m neurotic as hell. I’ll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.”
~ Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer who is known for her confessional style of writing. Her work often explores themes of mental illness, female identity, and the struggles of women. Plath’s poems are known for their technical brilliance, fierce honesty, and striking imagery. Her most famous poems include “Lady Lazarus” and “Daddy”. (Wikipedia.org)
“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”
~ Thomas More
Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as a martyr and saint, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian and Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to May 1532. Wikipedia
“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry, known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Source: Wikipedia
“If you desire healing, let yourself fall ill let yourself fall ill.”
~ Rumi
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, commonly known as Rumi, was a Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order. His family hailed from Balkh. Rumi is an influential figure in Sufism, and his thought and works loom large both in Persian literature and mystic poetry in general. Wikipedia
“Neurosis is the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being.”
~ Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich was a German and American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran theologian who was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Wikipedia
“Love isn’t something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn’t a feeling, it is a practice.”
~ Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm (March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States.
“If God invited you to a party and said, ‘Everyone in the ballroom tonight will be my special guest’, how would you treat them when they arriv? Indeed, indeed! And Hafiz knows there is no one in this world who is not upon his jewelled dance floor.”
~ Hafiz
Khājeh Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī (Persian: خواجه شمسالدین محمد حافظ شیرازی), known by his pen name Hafez (حافظ Ḥāfeẓ lit. ’the memorizer’ or ‘the keeper’; 1325–1390) or Hafiz,[1] also known by his nickname lesān-al-ḡayb (‘the tongue of the unseen’),[2] was a Persianlyric poet[3][4] whose collected works are regarded by many Iranians as one of the highest pinnacles of Persian literature. His works are often found in the homes of Persian speakers, who learn his poems by heart and use them as everyday proverbs and sayings. His life and poems have become the subjects of much analysis, commentary, and interpretation, influencing post-14th century Persian writing more than any other Persian author.[5][6] (Wikipedia.org)
“There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved. And a voice answered and said, ‘Who is there?’ The lover replied, ‘It is I.’ ‘Go hence,’ returned the voice; ‘there is no room within for thee and me.’ Then came the lover a second time and knocked and again the voice demanded, ‘Who is there?’ He answered, ‘It is thou.’ ‘Enter,’ said the voice, ‘for I am within.”
~ Rumi
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, commonly known as Rumi, was a Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order. His family hailed from Balkh. Rumi is an influential figure in Sufism, and his thought and works loom large both in Persian literature and mystic poetry in general. Wikipedia
“When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.” ― John Maynard Keynes, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, was an English economist whose writings are considered the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, as well as its various offshoots. Originally trained in mathematics, he built on and refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles. Wikipedia
Vivekananda in Chicago, September 1893. In note on the left Vivekananda wrote: “One infinite pure and holy – beyond thought beyond qualities I bow down to thee”.[1]
“The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature; then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence. After desire takes possession comes the sting of the scorpion of jealousy at the success of others, and last of all the demon of pride enters the mind, making it think itself of all importance.”
~ Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda, born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Wikipedia
