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    “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

    Carl Sagan, via Sunbeams (Page 63)

      “Sometimes it seems to me that in this absurdly random life there is some inherent justice in the outcome of personal relationships. In the long run, we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving.”

      Sheldon Kopp, via Sunbeams (Page 61)

        “To some extent, each of us marries to make up for his own deficiencies. As a child, no one can stand alone against his family and the community, and in all but the most extreme instances, he is in no position to leave and to set up a life elsewhere. In order to survive as children, we have all had to exaggerate those aspects of ourselves that pleased those on whom we depended, and to disown those attitudes and behaviors that were unacceptable to them. As a result, to varying degrees, we have each grown into disproportionate configurations of what we could be as human beings. What we lack, we seek out and then struggle against in those whom we select as mates. We marry the other because he (or she) is different from us, and then we complain, ‘Why can’t he (she) be more like me?'”

        Sheldon Kopp, via Sunbeams (Page 61)

          “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the ‘universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

          Albert Einstein, via Sunbeams (Page 60)

            “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things. To us what matters is the individual. To get to love the person we must come in close contact with him. If we wait till we get the numbers, then we will be lost in the numbers. And we will never be able to show that love and respect for the person. I believe in person to person; every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is the one person in the world at that moment.”

            Mother Teresa, via Sunbeams (Page 60)

              “Don Juan assured me that in order to accomplish the feat of making myself miserable I had to work in a most intense fashion, and that it was absurd. I had now realized I could work just the same in making myself complete and strong. ‘The trick is in what one emphasizes,’ he said. ‘We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.'”

              Carlos Casaneda, Journey To Ixtlan, via Sunbeams (Page 60) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

                “You want to be loved because you do not love; but the moment you love, it is finished, you are no longer inquiring whether or not somebody loves you.”

                J. Krishnamurit, via Sunbeams (Page 60)

                  “Actualization of self cannot be sought as a goal in its own right… Rather, it seems to be a by-product of active commitment of one’s talents to some cause, outside the self, such as the quest for beauty, truth, or justice.”

                  Sidney M. Jourard, via Sunbeams (Page 59) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

                    “Go with the pain, let it take you… Open your palms and your body to the pain. It comes in waves like a tide, and you must be open as a vessel lying on the beach, letting it fill you up and then, retreating, leaving you empty and clear… With a deep breath—it has to be as deep as the pain—one reaches a kind of inner freedom from pain, as though the pain were not yours but your body’s. The spirit lays the body on the alter.”

                    Anne Morrow Lindbergh, War Within And Without, via Sunbeams (Page 57)

                      “I remembered one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree, just as the butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited a while, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out, and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath. In vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings needed to be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear, all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand. That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the greatest laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.”

                      Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba The Greek, via Sunbeams (Page 57) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

                        “There is no use in one person attempting to tell another what the meaning of life is. It involves too intimate an awareness. A major part of the meaning of life is contained in the very discovering of it. It is an ongoing experience of growth that involves a deepening contact with reality. To speak as though it were an objective knowledge, like the date of the war of 1812, misses the point altogether. The meaning of life is indeed objective when it is reached, but the way to it is by a path of subjectivities… The meaning of life cannot be told; it has to happen to a person.”

                        Ira Progoff, via Sunbeams (Page 56)

                          “Problems are not problems at all, but results that are dissatisfying.”

                          Jerry Gillies, via Sunbeams (Page 55)

                            “Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the Light?”

                            Maurice Freehill, via Sunbeams (Page 55)

                              “Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.”

                              Hebrew proverb, via Sunbeams (Page 54)

                                “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.”

                                Richard Bach, via Sunbeams (Page 54) (Read Matt’s Blog on this quote)

                                  “Poverty is not the absence of goods, but rather the overabundance of desire.”

                                  Plato, via Sunbeams (Page 53)

                                    “They are so concerned for their life that their anxiety makes life unbearable, even when they have the things they think they want. Their very concern for enjoyment makes them unhappy… I will hold to the saying that: ‘Perfect joy is to be without joy. Perfect praise is to be without praise.’ If you ask ‘what ought to be done’ and ‘what ought not to be done’ on earth in order to produce happiness, I answer that these questions do not have an answer. There is no way of determining such things…”

                                    Thomas Merton, The Way Of Chuang Tzu, via Sunbeams (Page 53)

                                      “Sport is where an entire life can be compressed into a few hours, where the emotions of a lifetime can be felt on an acre or two of ground, where a person can suffer and die and rise again on six miles of trails through a New York City park. Sport is a theater where sinner can turn saint and a common man become an uncommon hero, where the past and future can fuse with the present. Sport is singularly able to give us peak experiences where we feel completely one with the world and transcend all conflicts as we finally become our own potential.”

                                      George A. Sheehan, via Sunbeams (Page 52)

                                        “You are here to aid in the great expansion of consciousness. You are not here to cry about the miseries of the human condition but to change them when you do not find them to your liking through the joy, strength, and vitality that is within you; to create the spirit as faithfully and beautifully as you can in flesh.”

                                        Jane Roberts, The Nature Of Personal Reality, via Sunbeams (Page 52)