Quotes Tagged "simplicity"

I woke up early and took the first train to take me away from the city. The noise and all its people. I was alone on the train and had no idea where I was going, and that’s why I went there. Two hours later we arrived in a small town, one of those towns with one single coffee shop and where everyone knows each other’s name. I walked for a while until I found the water, the most peaceful place I know. There I sat and stayed the whole day, with nothing and everything on my mind, cleaning my head. Silence, I learned, is some times the most beautiful sound.

There is a prison that holds us within it. It is a prison of the mind and yet not truly of the mind for it is an illusion. Lest we not forget that consciousness and not the mind is the true architect of our existence.

Sometimes it only takes a simple thought to help us remember what it took us years to forget.

Ask a true scientist a very profound question on his science, and he will be silent. Ask a true religious person a very simple question on his religion, and he will be frenzied.

Because . . . most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.' 'Too stupid.' 'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?' 'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.' 'Exactly.' 'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought. 'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food.

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury - to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind.

Do not let your grand ambitions stand in the way of small but meaningful accomplishments.

You can't build the road without walking it.

You can turn every ugly and damaging drama into a genuine blessing by seeing it differently. No one is suffering on purpose. We learn to give up the pleasure we feel in self-righteously blaming others. Healing happens when we see things differently. The question is: do you want suffering or peace? It's that simple.

I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.

It takes a long time to learn how to do something simple.

The meditative mind sees disagreeable or agreeable things with equanimity, patience, and good-will. Transcendent knowledge is seeing reality in utter simplicity. (146)

Ignorance often makes a complicated thing seem simple, or vice versa.

Transforming the complex to the simple is pure genius.

The best way to determine the Values you will enforce in your business is to clarify your personal values.

Your mission or purpose is like a magnet that keeps you moving is a well established direction

Life is naturally going to have ups and downs, comings and goings, pleasures and hardships, joy and pain. Let us be kind to ourselves, understanding that we are here to learn. And let us be kind to others, knowing that peace is the ultimate prize of life and nothing is worth more. Simply to side with peace is to disempower the ego's hold. In so doing, the natural, beautiful, and healing rhythms of life have a chance to start singing their sweet song in our listening ear.

Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves.

But I should not have to explain to you how important it is for science and simplicity to coexist. One must not fear to be a little child again, when times of wonder are at hand.

You can create something strong in art with a few notes. It is like how Aboriginal drawings have a simplicity that is incredibly rich.