Don't Reject Wise Thoughts Based on Who Speaks Them

 

Important ideas can come from unexpected places. We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot, Socialist, Right Wingnut, Freedom Fighter, Terrorist. But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open to good ideas - whatever their source. It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea merely because we respect that person's other ideas or accomplishments. A further complication is that many quotes are falsely attributed - Thomas Jefferson, for example, didn't say half of what he is quoted as saying.

Here are some unexpected quotes - both important insights from infamous mouths and off-the-wall ideas from honored people...

Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights, because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt (creator and publisher of Hustler magazine)

What the Larry Flynn quote means to me...
A democratically-elected government is probably necessary to protect Human Rights, but it is not sufficient. Majorities protect their own rights, but not necessarily the rights of minorities.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Not only do wise words come from unexpected mouths, but those people who we consider wise don't always live up to our expectations...

I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.
- Isaac Newton (discoverer of the laws of gravitation and motion, famous mathematician, and perhaps the greatest scientist ever)

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
- attributed to Joseph Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany)

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
- Karl Marx (German philosopher and political economist whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism)

Spurious Quotations: Here are a couple of great quotes - except that they weren't said by who everybody thinks they were...

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
- Josh Billings (not Mark Twain)

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; ... Forgive them anyway.
- Kent Keith (Mother Teresa kept a copy on the wall of her orphanage)

Further reading: Mother Teresa quotes: Love begins at home

YOU Control Your Attitude

 

The greatest discovery of any generation
is that a human being
can alter his life by
altering his attitude
- William James

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Attitude is Everything.
- Charles Swindoll

Whatever happens to you, your attitude determines the quality of your life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Further reading: What One Emphasizes

How To Be Happy In Life

Choosing a Joyful Life
       

Life Offers No Guarantees

 

Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
- Helen Keller

There are no guarantees.
From the viewpoint of fear, none are strong enough.
From the viewpoint of love, none are necessary.
- Emmanuel (Pat Rodegast)

Our only security is our ability to change.
- John Lilly

There is no security on this Earth,
there is only opportunity.
- Douglas MacArthur

Security is not the absence of danger,
but the presence of God,
no matter what the danger.
- Anonymous

Unexpected events can set you back or set you up. It's all a matter of - perspective.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Those of true faith don't require guaranteed security.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is magnificent - just as it comes. Life has no need for fancy clothes, or lipstick. Life is no pig. Our life is the greatest gift of all creation. When we are unhappy with life - when we are shocked by the actions of politicians, or corporations, or our "enemies," or our "friends," or even by natural forces, - let us not lash out in anger. But also, let us not try to pretty up life with some lipstick and some party clothes. See life clearly - no rose colored glasses - and then CHOOSE to love life. CHOOSE to be happy, be joyful, be grateful, be forgiving of everyone and of every act we believe has hurt us. Life just "IS." We get to CHOOSE our relationship with life.
Life is all in the perspective we take on it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let today be a day to look at your life from different and broader perspectives - perhaps a perspective of thankfulness for what you have and a perspective of wonder at your very existence and the magnificence of the world we live in.

Further reading: All Life is a Risk

Courage to Take Action

Risk a Little

Thrown Out of the Nest
           

Find out what you don't want to know about yourself

 

 You can't know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself.
- Bodhidharma

He who knows others is wise.
He who knows himself is enlightened.
- Lao Tzu

Find out what you don't want to know about yourself,
what you're afraid of.
- Linda Evans

How strange that, although we dwell within ourselves,
we seldom know what we truly want
or what we truly believe about important matters.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
- Benjamin Spock

Further reading: At the center of your being you have the answer

Be Simply Yourself

Know Thyself

Follow Your Bliss
      

Be Kind! Have Compassion for ALL

 

Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Compassion is the ultimate value in life.
Service is the ultimate action.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Love is the foundation from which your decisions about
your life should be made.
- Darren L. Johnson

I can do no other than be reverent
before everything that is called life.
I can do no other than to have compassion
for all that is called life.
That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.
- Albert Schweitzer

Further reading: Keep the Golden Rule

Feed the Hungry

The Universal Sacrament of Compassion

True Measure of a Successful Life
   

The Nature of Life is Seldom Obvious, Look Deeper

There are trivial truths and there are great truths.
The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false.
The opposite of a great truth is also true.
- Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of atomic structure and quantum mechanics, is making a point that is very Zen - or very Taoist if one prefers.

An example of a "great truth" for which the opposite is also true is the statement, "You are not your body; you are not your mind." While it is very true, if one so believes, that the "real you" is neither physical nor mental, it is simultaneously true that your body and your mind are very real, and ignoring their reality is likely to cause great suffering.

Another example of a "great truth" is the Golden Rule. It is true that we should treat others as we wish to be treated in the sense of being kind and compassionate to everyone. Yet the opposite of the Golden Rule is also true in the sense that it is kind and compassionate to recognize that everyone is called to a different life path and to honor those differences.

[As always, the purpose of these daily messages to provide something to think about, rather than to attempt to dictate conclusions.]

No statement should be believed [solely] because it is made by an authority.
- Robert A. Heinlein

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past,
threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.
- Maya Angelou

The more opinions you have, the less you see.
- Wim Wenders

The words of truth are always paradoxical.
- Lao Tzu

Further reading: What is "The Truth?"

To Keep the Golden Rule

What You're Sure You Know, But Don't

The Golden Rule is Not Always Golden
    

Your Anger Costs You YOUR Joy

 

Anger is a killing thing:
it kills the man who angers,
for each rage leaves him less than he had been before -
it takes something from him.
- Louis L'Amour

Being angry is as close as a human being
can come to experiencing hell on earth.
Pause. Breathe deeply. Step back and look at the issue from a new perspective.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Anger is like a thorn in the heart.
- Yiddish Proverb

When you are offended at any man's fault,
turn to yourself and study your own failings.
Then you will forget your anger.
- Epictetus

There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust.
- Saint Francis de Sales

Further reading: Stop Anger Before It Stops You

De-Stress Your Life

Anger is a Killing Thing

Never Speak while Angry

Overcoming Anger