Gems of Wisdom

[Skull]

“Nor is a myth simply a work of fancy: true myth is only represented, never created, by a poet. Prometheus and Pandora were not invented by the solitary imagination of Hesiod. Real myths are the product of the moral experience of a people, groping toward divine love and wisdom—implanted in a people’s consciousness, before the dawn of history, by a power and a means we never have been able to describe in terms of mundane knowledge.”

The Essential Russell Kirk, p. 23

 

[Skull]

"They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good."

T.S. Eliot, The Rock (1934)

 

[Skull]

12 Wisdom is radiant and unfading,
and she is easily discerned by those who love her,
and is found by those who seek her.

13 She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.

14 One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty,
for she will be found sitting at the gate.

15 To fix one's thought on her is perfect understanding,
and one who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care,
16 because she goes about seeking those worthy of her,
and she graciously appears to them in their paths,
and meets them in every thought.

17 The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction,
and concern for instruction is love of her,
18 and love of her is the keeping of her laws,
and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality,
19 and immortality brings one near to God;
20 so the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom.

Wisdom of Solomon, ch. 6

 

[Skull]

“Philosophy," says Hierocles, "is the purification and perfection of human life. It is the purification, indeed, from material irrationality, and the mortal body; but the perfection, in consequence of being the resumption of our proper felicity, and a reascent to the divine likeness. To effect these two is the province of Virtue and Truth; the former exterminating the immoderation of the passions; and the latter introducing the divine form to those who are naturally adapted to its reception.”

Excerpt From: Thomas Taylor, Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato.

 

[Skull]

For a dying person who does not have a specific religion like Buddhism, we can advise them to think, “May everybody be happy, may all living beings please be happy, may every living being please somehow be freed from their misery.” These sorts of ideas, general ideas of wishing well to others, are very helpful.

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche

 

[Skull]

Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

There are two laws discrete
Not reconciled,
Law for man, and law for thing;
The last builds town and fleet,
But it runs wild,
And doth the man unking.

Emerson, "Ode to William H. Channing"

 

[Skull]

Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain
be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect
and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the
object of the love and esteem of men, and sees that his faults
merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment
wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust
and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal
hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces
him of his faults.

—Pascal, Pensées

 

[Skull]

The idea of the good is the greatest discipline.

Socrates, The Republic

 

[Skull]

For if we are temperate, we shall still continue to be so, though these calamities may befall us, and if we are contemplators of true beings, neither shall we be plundered of this habit; but all these dreadful events taking place, we shall still persevere in celebrating the rulers of all things, and in investigating the causes of effects.

- Proclus, On Providence, Fate, and that which is in our Power, 22, 20

 

[Skull]

If powers fail, there shall be praise for daring; and in great undertaking, to have willed is enough.

Propertius II, 10, 5-6

 

[Skull]

Indeed it is ignoble, as Seneca says, to know only by way of
commentary, and, as if the discoveries of the ancients had closed
the road for our industry, as if the force of nature in us were
exhausted, to give birth to nothing from ourselves, which, if it
does not demonstrate truth, at least points to it as from a
distance. But if a farmer hates sterility in a field,
certainly a barren soul is hated by the divine
mind woven into it and allied with it, the more a far nobler
offspring is desired from it.

Oration, Willis trans.

 

[Skull]

The ethics of the Vedanta is dependent on its metaphysics. According to the Vedanta metaphysics, the Brahman is the sole reality, and the individuals are only modifications of it. The Vedanta postulates the absolute oneness of all things. “In a Brahmana endowed with wisdom and humility, in a cow, in an elephant, as also in a dog and a dog-eater, the wise see the same” (Bhagavadgita, Chap. V, 18). This metaphysical monism requires us to look upon all creation as one, upon all thinking beings and the objects of all thought as non-different. In morals, the individual is enjoined to cultivate a spirit of abheda, or non-difference. Thus, the metaphysics of the Vedanta naturally leads to the ethics of love and brotherhood. Every other individual is to be regarded as your coequal, and treated as an end and not a means. In the Mahabharata, Parasara says to Janaka: “Let no man, however unhappy his lot, despise himself; man as such, though a chandala, is a noble creature in every way.” The Vedanta requires us to respect human dignity and demands the recognition of man as man.

S. Radhakrishnan. "The Ethics of Vedanta"

 

[Skull]

Do not seek for truth in any place except in the faculty which cognizes truth which is your inmost self, for it alone can cognize truth.

It is the active brain-mind, filled with thoughts of the day, filled with desires of the hour, filled with the prejudices and opinions which are so transitory — and which more than anything else this active brain-mind is afflicted with — which prevent your visioning of the truth, prevent your obtaining the vision sublime.

Purucker, Golden Precepts

 

[BreezeWood]

.

Do not seek for truth in any place except in the faculty which cognizes truth which is your inmost self, for it alone can cognize truth.

It is the active brain-mind, filled with thoughts of the day ...

which is your inmost self ...


feel lonely Skull, persistence pays off ... isn't there suppose to be a comment included in your post ?


that quote makes no sense is redundant and to reach the Everlasting would seem more tuned to an outerself without physiology .... the "brain".

.

 

[HenryBHough]

"It's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide."

St. Margery (not St. Alfred as so many wrongly believe)

Margery Allingham - Wikiquote

 

[Skull]

Such is the nature of true social justice, [Orestes] Brownson declares: not the selfish loneliness of the Benthamite philosophy, nor the mean equality of the Socialists, but a liberation of every man, under God, to do the best that is in him. Poverty is no evil, in itself; obscurity is no evil; labor is no evil; even physical pain may be no evil, as it was no evil to the martyrs. This world is a place of trial and struggle, so that we may find our higher nature in right response to challenge.
To the Socialist, says Brownson, poverty, obscurity, and physical suffering are positive evils, because the Socialist does not perceive that these challenges are put into the world to save us from apathy and sloth and indifference. The Socialist would condemn humanity to a condition of permanent injustice, in which no man could hope for what is his due, the right to exercise his talents given him by God; the Socialist would keep us all in perpetual childhood.

Excerpt From: The Essential Russell Kirk.

 

[Skull]

Do not be afraid to correct your faults,
If you can correct your faults, the will cease to exist.
Inferior people say they have no faults,
But the superior person changes his faults.

Confucius

 

[Skull]

The scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the media of his own age.

C.S. Lewis

 

[ding]

Confront reality. Die to self.

 

[Mudda]

Time is money, sell your watch today.