SPIRITUAL
THOUGHTS
&
famous quotes

compiled by
F. Joseph Montagna

Belief Systems!

We all have them.

But what is the abbreviation for
Belief System?

B.S.??

"How difficult can it be
to be kind to someone?"

"Great men & women
are like meteors that consume themselves
in order to light the world."

"Eventually,
everything merges into the One,
And a river runs through it."

"We accept the reality of the world
with which we are presented."

"If you can’t accept anything on faith,
then you’re doomed to a lifetime of doubt."

"It’s not that I’m afraid to die,
I just don’t want to be there
when it happens!"

— Woody Allen

"We can love completely,
Without complete understanding."

"The Constitution did not give us rights,
It just put on paper what we already knew!"

"Get the world to sing your song,
And they will want to know who you are."

"The future that you envision
Begins with the thoughts you occupy
In the present moment."

"Always be diplomatic
Before inserting a knife
In your enemy’s back!"

"Whoever you are
Some evening
take a step outside of your house,
Which you know so well.

Enormous space is near—"

— Rainer Maria Rilke

"People you don’t expect to love,
Are the ones you never forget."

"To be forgiven,
we must first believe in sin."

— Jewel

"What doesn’t kill you
Defines you."

"Passion is the enemy of precision."

"Beware!
The toes you step on today,
Might be connected to the ass
you’ll kiss tomorrow."

"If you’ve got one foot in yesterday
And the other foot in tomorrow,
Then you’re pissing all over today!"

"Live each day as if it were your last,
And one day you’ll be right!"

"You’re a psychopathic personality
With schizophrenic delusions
Suffering from recurring amnesia
Based on traumatic repression
Leading to outbursts
Of anti-social and violent behavior."

"How about remembering your divinity?"

—Alanis Morrisette

Strife!

Quit striving.

You already are what you long to be.

Love.

--- Carole McAffee

"The wisest thing in life is to enjoy it!"

"Since all matter and living forms
Are manifestations of God,

We are immersed
within one version of Heaven
And everything should be revered."

"The road to enlightenment
is always under construction."

"Did poverty steal your golden shoes?
It didn’t steal your hopes and dreams.

Gather yourself around your faith
That lights the darkness most fear."

"How ‘bout getting off of these antibiotics?

How ‘bout stopping eating when I’m full up?

How ‘bout them transparent dangling carrots?

How ‘bout me blaming you for everything?

How ‘bout me enjoying the moment for once?

How ‘bout how good it feels to finally forgive you?"

--- Alanis Morrisette

"There is more to life than grabbing a tit!"

— Ascended Master Ramtha

"We will all be Christed
when we hear ourselves say
‘We are that to which we pray’ "

—Jewel

"In the end,
only kindness matters."

I am forever connected
to the source of all that is . . .

is Love.

So be it!

"There is no room in my soul
for negative thought."

"History teaches us
that men behave wisely,
Once they have exhausted
all other alternatives."

"The voyage of discovery
Consists not in seeking new landscapes,
But in finding new eyes."

"If you believe that you
have to defend your
belief against attack,

Know that it is but an illusion.

The truth will not be overcome and therefore needs no defense."

"In this world,
everybody believes
All that they believe they should.

And everybody wants everybody to believe
That what they believe
is what everybody should believe in..."

"Befriend yourself
and you will never be alone."

"Time is what keeps everything
From happening at once."

"One ship sails east and another sails west
With the self-same winds that blow.

Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.

As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life,

Tis the act of the soul
that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife."

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The stages of the Noble Path are:

Right Behavior,

Right Speech,

Right Concentration,

Right Effort,

Right Livelihood,

Right Action,

Right Mindfulness,

Right Thought.

— Buddha

"A circle is a line
That has become one with itself."

"Can you imagine
the wisp of majik and fairy dust
Contained within a llama hum,
An eagle scream
and the breeze that slides down
An Orca fin?"

"If I take the wings of the morning
And dwell in the uppermost parts of the sea

Even there shall thy hand lead me
Thou has covered me in my mother’s womb

I will praise thee
for I am fearfully, beautifully made."

"Find peace in the ebb and flow
Of time and space."

"Rely on neither advice nor reason,
But remember that
great straightness often seems twisted."

What did the Buddhist monk say
To the hot dog vender?

"Make me one with everything!"

"My Akashic record is scratched,
Life keeps repeating itself."

"To love oneself is the beginning
Of a lifelong romance."

"The lucky ones are those who do
What they were meant to do."

"Ambition is the ice on the lake of emotion."

"If people knew the real truth about things,
they’d never get up in the morning."

"Never allow success to go to your head,
And never allow failure
to go to your heart!"

"Your medical people
will have more lives to answer for
in the other world
than even we generals."

--- Napoleon Bonaparte

"There are a thousand
hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root."

--- Henry David Thoreau

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which
you stop to look fear in the face."

--- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Mythology is what grown-ups believe,
folklore is what they tell their children,
and religion is both."

--- Cedric Whitman

"If people simply realized
that most major religions
(including Christianity)
are based on astrology and sun worship,
Mankind would be a lot better off..."

"Of all the tyrannies that affect Mankind,
tyranny in religion is the worst;

every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in;

but religious tyranny attempts to stride beyond the grave,
and seeks to pursue us into eternity."

--- Thomas Paine

"The exact contrary
of what is generally believed
is often the truth."

--- Jean de la Bruyere

"There was a time
when religion ruled the world.

It is known as The Dark Ages."

"If all records told the same tale —
then the lie passed into history
and became truth.

Who controls the past,
controls the future.
Who controls the present,
controls the past."

--- George Orwell, 1984

"The idea that religion and politics don’t mix
was invented by the Devil
to keep Christians from
running their own country."

--- Rev. Jerry Falwell

"Toward no crimes have men
shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel
as in punishing differences in belief."

--- James Russell Lowell

"Within one century
after the "discovery" of America,

50 million non-Christian natives were killed
by Catholic and Christian soldiers, explorers and missionaries."

"They came with a Bible and their religion —
stole our land and crushed our spirit...
And now tell us we should be thankful
to the "Lord" for being saved."

--- Chief Pontiac

"Missionaries are perfect nuisances,
and leave every place
worse than they found it."

--- Charles Dickens

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing,
it is still a foolish thing."

--- Anatole France

"Jesus has now been reduced to a mantra...
chanted mindlessly by followers,
who have no idea of the relationship
of doctrine to history and mythology..."

--- A. A. Snow

"Since 1985,
the Catholic Church has paid out
over $350 million in damages
related to sexual abuse."

--- Jason Berry

"The bible and the church
have been the greatest stumbling blocks
in the way of women’s emancipation."

--- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"The most violent element in our society
is ignorance."

--- Emma Goldman

"Fear paints pictures of ghosts
and hangs them in the gallery of ignorance."

"A believer is a bird in a cage;
a freethinker is an eagle
parting the clouds with tireless wing."

--- Robert G. Ingersoll

"And when the dew that lay was gone up,
behold, upon the face of the wilderness
there lay a small round thing (mushroom?),
as small as the hoar frost on the ground.

"And when the children of Israel saw it,
they said one to another, It is manna;
for they wist not what it was.

And Moses said unto them,
This is the bread which the Lord
hath given you to eat."

--- Exodus 16:14 & 15

"Hope is a feather that perches in the soul."

--- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"A liar will fall on their face
faster than a person with one leg."

"It takes a smart woman
to fall in love with a good man."

"The love that we withhold
is the pain that we carry,
from lifetime to lifetime."

"Place one foot in front of the other,
and soon you'll be miles down the road."

"Those who must take things apart
in order to see how they work,
have left the path of wisdom."

"Don't look for this year's birds
in last year's nests."

--- Don Quioxte

"I became a fabulous opera,

I saw that all creatures
are condemned to happiness,

I have researched the magic shapes
of the happiness no one escapes."

"The wind from one door slamming ---
opens another."

"The only unbearable thing is
that nothing is unbearable."

"My greatest fear is that other people
will see me as I see them."

"Big Medi$in"

"The attitude of gratitude brings altitude."

"When you're skating on thin ice,
speed is your only safety."

"The only true currency
in this bankrupt world
is what we share with our friends
when we're uncool."

"Death ends a life, not a relationship."

"Principles only mean something
when you stick by them
when they're inconvenient."

"The fear of aging reflects a life
that has not found meaning."

"How can you spare someone's feelings
by denying them?"

"Love is the only rational act
Let it come in."

"We must love one another ---
or die."

"I forgive everyone ---
for everything."

"Be dumb enough to fall in love,
and smart enough to know better."

"Love is a command to rise
to one's highest potential.

The best and noblest vision of ourselves.

Love is a reward --- the greatest we can earn
granted to us for the moral qualities
we have achieved in our lives."

"Part of your success in life
is to eat the food you like
and let the food fight it out inside you."

--- Mark Twain

It's OK to fail,
but it's not OK to give up.

"Don't be afraid your life will end ---
Be afraid that it will never begin"

---Grace Hansen

"There are two ways of spreading light ---
to be the candle
or the mirror that reflects it"

---Edith Wharton

"Ridicule is the tribute
That mediocrity pays to genius"

--- Anon

"All truth goes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.
Then it is violently opposed.
Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."

--- Schoepenhouer

"Man will occasionally stumble
over the truth,

But most of the time,
he will pick himself up and continue on."

--- Winston Churchill

"When they think they know the answers,
People are difficult to guide.

When they know they don't know,
People can find their own way."

---Tao Te Ching

"There are none so enslaved
as those who falsely believe they are free."

--- Goethe

"History is the lie commonly agreed upon."

--- Voltaire

"Condemnation without investigation
is the height of ignorance."

--- Albert Einstein

"Even if you're on the right track,
You'll get run over if you just sit there."

--- Will Rogers

"Wisdom is knowing how little we know."

--- Socrates

"Anyone who thinks they know it all
Is just confirming they do not."

--- David Icke

"If you tell the truth,
You don't have to remember anything."

--- Mark Twain

"It has served us well, this myth of Christ."

--- Pope Leo X

"In war,
the truth must be guarded
by a bodyguard of lies."

--- Winston Churchill

"We are here to learn to love each other,
I don't know what the others are here for."

--- Auden

"Nothing would be what it is,
Because everything would be what it isn't.

And contrary-wise,
What it is, it wouldn't be

And what it wouldn't be,
It would.

You see?"

--- Lewis Carroll
Alice in Wonderland

"It can't happen here"
is number one on the list of
famous last words.

--- David Crosby

"Tell a lie loud enough and long enough,
And people will believe it."

--- Adolph Hitler

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up
as a judge of Truth and Knowledge
is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods."

--- Albert Einstein

The Matrix is everywhere.

It is all around us.
Even now, in this very room.

You can see it
when you look out your window,
or when you turn on your television.

You can feel it when you go to work,
when you go to church,
when you pay your taxes.

It is the world
that has been pulled over your eyes
to blind you from the truth.

--- Morpheus
From the movie "The Matrix"

The Matrix is a system,
and that system is our enemy.

When you are inside,
you look around,
what do you see?

Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters,
the very minds of the people
we are trying to save.

But until we do,
these people are part of that system
and that makes them our enemies.

You have to understand
most of these people
are not ready to be unplugged.

And many are so...
hopelessly dependent on the system
that they will fight to protect it."

--- Morpeheus
From the movie "The Matrix"

"We are not humans on a spiritual journey.

We are spiritual beings on a human journey."

--- Stephen Covey

"We are all faced with a series
of great opportunities
brilliantly disguised
as impossible situations."

--- Charles Swindoll

"Only two things are infinite,
the Universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former."

--- Albert Einstein

"Please provide the date of your death."

--- From an IRS letter

"There is only one happiness in life,
to love and be loved."

--- George Sand

"Our main business is not to see
what lies dimly at a distance,
but what lies clearly at hand."

--- Thomas Carlyle

"I have always believed
that all things depended upon Fortune,
and nothing upon ourselves."

--- Lord Byron

"Pay less attention to what men say.
Just watch what they do."

--- Dale Carnegie

"The work of the individual
still remains the spark
that moves Mankind forward."

--- Igor Sikorsky

"When words become unclear,
I shall focus on photographs.
When images become inadequate,
I shall be content with silence."

--- Ansel Adams

"Education is learning
what you didn't even know
you didn't know."

--- Daniel J. Boorstin

"Our greatest glory
is not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall."

--- Confucious

"It is so pleasant
to come across people
more stupid than ourselves.

We love them at once for being so."

--- Jerome K. Jerome

"The aim of Sadism is
to transform a man into a thing,
something animate into something inanimate,
since by complete and absolute control,
the living loses one essential quality of life --
Freedom."

--- Erich Fromm

"Success is how high you bounce
when you hit bottom."

--- George Patton

"Wisdom begins in wonder."

--- Socrates

"Try not to become a man of success,
but rather try to become a man of value."

--- Albert Einstein

"We act as though comfort and luxury
were the chief requirements of life,
when all that we need to make us really happy
is something to be enthusiastic about."

--- Charles Kingsley

"Sarcasm should not be like a saw,
but a sword;
it should cut, and not mangle."

--- Lord Francis Jeffrey

"My great concern
is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content
with your failure."

--- Abraham Lincoln

"Truly great friends are hard to find,
difficult to leave,
and impossible to forget."

--- G. Randolf

"You can observe a lot by just watching."

--- Yogi Berra

"Acting is merely the art of keeping
a large group of people from coughing."

--- Ralph Richardson

"To escape criticism;
do nothing,
say nothing,
be nothing."

--- Elbert Hubbard

"If you can't live without me,
why aren't you dead already?"

--- Cynthia Heimel

"It's not enough that I should succeed;
others should fail."

--- David Merricky

"Education is the passport to the future,
for tomorrow belongs to those
who prepare for it today."

--- Malcolm X

"Silence is one of the hardest
arguments to refute."

--- Josh Billings

"Always hold your head up,
but be careful to keep your nose
at a friendly level."

--- Max L. Forman

"Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds."

--- Albert Einstein

"We have to dare to be ourselves,
however frightening or strange
that Self may prove to be."

--- Mary Sarton

"Suppose you were an idiot,
and suppose you were a member of Congress;
but I repeat myself."

--- Mark Twain

"Believe that life is worth living
and your belief will help create the fact."

--- William James

"Nothing is so admirable in politics
as a short memory."

--- John Kenneth Galbraith

"He that always gives way to others
will end in having no principles of his own."

--- Aesop

"The road of good intentions
is paved with Hell."

--- Spencer Ante

"Insane people are always sure
that they are fine.

It is only the sane people
who are willing to admit
that they are crazy."

--- Nora Ephron

"No bird soars too high
if he soars with his own wings."

--- William Blake

Let the meek inherit the Earth --
they have it coming to them."

--- James Thurber

"we can try to avoid making choice
by doing nothing,
but even that is a decision."

--- Gary Collins

"Your attitude
determines your action.
Your action
determines your accomplishment."

--- John Maxwell

"Happiness is the interval
between periods of unhappiness."

--- Don Marquis

"The future belongs to those
who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

--- Eleanor Roosevelt

"To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."

---- Marilyn vos Savant

"Those who stand for nothing,
fall for anything."

--- Alexander Hamilton

"Cheer up, the worst is yet to come."

--- Philander Johnson

"You always smile,
but in your eyes your sorrow shows."

--- William Peter Horn

"Failure is the only opportunity
to begin again more intelligently."

--- Henry Ford

"If at first you don't succeed . . .
skydiving is not for you."

"Take away love
and our Earth is a tomb."

--- Robert Browning

"Few things can help an individual more
than to place responsibility on him,
and to let him know that you trust him."

--- Booker T. Washington

"Home is a place where
when you have to go there,
they have to take you in."

--- Stephen Hawking

"Fame is a vapor;
popularity an accident;
the only earthly certainty
is oblivion."

--- Mark Twain

"The last of the human freedoms
is to choose one's attitudes."

--- Victor Frankl

"If only I had a little humility,
I'd be perfect."

--- Ted Turner

"As flowers grow
in more tropical luxuriance
in a hothouse,
so do wild and frenzied ideas
flourish in the darkness."

--- Stefan Zweig

"We make a living by what we get,
but we make a life by what we give."

--- Winston Churchill

"Nothing is more terrible
than activity without insight."

--- Thomas Carlyle

"Facts do not cease to exist
just because they are ignored."

--- Aldous Huxley

"If you smile when no one else is around,
you really mean it."

--- Andy Rooney

"Ability is the art of getting credit
for all the home runs somebody else hits."

--- Casey Stengel

"In spite of everything,
I still believe people are good at heart."

--- Anne Frank

"Anytime four New Yorkers
get into a cab together without arguing,
a bank robbery has just taken place."

--- Johnny Carson

"The best way to get most husbands
to do something
is to suggest that perhaps
they are too old to do it."

--- Anne Bancroft

"Principles have no real force
except when one is well-fed."

--- Mark Twain

"Thinking --

The talking of the soul
with itself."

--- Plato

"Experience is not what happens to a man;
it is what a man does
with what happens to him."

--- Aldous Huxley

"Things may come to those who wait,
but only the things left
by those who hustle."

--- Abraham Lincoln

"In a conversation,
keep in mind that you are more interested
in what you have to say
than anyone else is."

--- Andy Rooney

"The universe is full of magical things,
patiently waiting for our wits
to grow sharper."

--- Eden Phillpotts

"There is one thing more exasperating
than a wife who can cook and won't,
and that's a wife who can't cook and will."

--- Robert Frost

"As scarce as truth is,
the supply has always been
in excess of the demand."

--- Josh Billings

"Shoot for the moon.

Even if you miss,
you'll land among the stars."

--- Les Brown

"God cannot alter the past,
but historians can."

--- Samuel Butler

"The true measure of a man
is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good."

--- Ann Landers

"To do what others cannot do
is talent;
to do what talent cannot do
is genius."

--- Will Henry

"Chasing a dream,
a dream no one else
can see or understand,
is extremely difficult.

It is like running after a butterfly
across an endless meadow."

--- W. P. Kinsella

"Tell me who admires you
and loves you,
and I will tell you who you are."

--- Charles Augustin Sainte-Beauve

"Character is like a tree,
and reputation like its shadow.

The shadow is what we think of it;
the tree is the real thing."

--- Abraham Lincoln

"You can't shake hands
with a clenched fist."

--- Indira Gandhi

"Its no exaggeration to say
that the undecideds
could go one way or another."

"Man's mind
stretched by a new idea
never goes back to its original dimensions."

--- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Dogs come when they're called;
cats take a message,
and get back to you later."

--- Mary Bly

"How do you put on
a meaningful drama or documentary
that is adult, incisive and probing,
when every fifteen minutes
the proceedings are interrupted
by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper?"

--- Rod Serling

"The holiest of all holidays
are those kept by ourselves
in silence and apart:

The secret anniversaries of the heart."

--- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Live out of your imagination,
not your history."

--- Stephen Covey

"I love to lose myself
in other men's minds."

--- Charles Lamb

"I'm not smart enough
to lie."

--- Ronald Reagan

"To confine our attention
to terrestrial matters
would be to limit the human spirit."

--- Stephen Hawking

"Scratching
is one of Nature's sweetest gratifications,
and nearest at hand."

--- Michel de Montaigne

"Man proposes,
but God disposes."

--- Thomas 'a Kempis

"He has the right to criticize
who has the heart to help."

--- Abraham Lincoln

"Forever is a long time,
but not as long as it was yesterday."

--- Dennis H'Orgnies

"Common sense
is the collection of prejudices
acquired by age eighteen."

--- Albert Einstein

"Dreaming permits each and every one of us
to be quietly and safely insane
every night of our lives."

--- Charles Fisher

"When you come to a fork in the road,
take it."

--- Yogi Berra