Catalyst Quotes

“Life is Simple / Life is Delicious Ambiquity”

“Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road.  A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

‘Come on, girl,’ said Tanzan at once.  Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple.  Then he could no longer restrain himself.  ‘We monks don’t go near females,’ he told Tanzan, ‘especially not young and lovely ones.  It is dangerous.  Why did you do that?”

‘I left the girl there,’ said Tanzan.  ‘Are you still carrying her?’”   (Nyogen Senzaki, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:  A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings)

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“Guilt is a wasted emotion.  Look back on the past but don’t stare.”   (Wally Lamb, We Are Water)

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“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.  It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.”   (Paulo Coehlo)

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“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time.  This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.”   (Thomas Merton)

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“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.  Delicious Ambiguity.”   (Gilda Radner)

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“Hardest Battle to Fight – To Be Just You”

“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.”   (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

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“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.”   (Black Elk)

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“There is only one purpose for all of life, and that is for you and all that lives to experience fullest glory … everything else you say, think, or do is attendant to that function.  There is nothing else for your soul to do, and nothing else your soul wants to do.”   (Neal Donald Walsch)

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“From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know:  that we are here for the sake of each other – above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy.  Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.”   (Albert Einstein)

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“Don’t get too comfortable with who you are at any given time – you may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be.”   (Jon Bon Jovi)

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“The hardest battle you’re ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.”   (Leo Buscaglia)

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“You Are the Big Bang / One is Not in Bondage to the Past”

“It’s like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall.  Smash!  And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it’s dense, isn’t it?  And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread.  And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang.  We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it.  Very interesting.

But so we define ourselves as being only that.  If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlicue, way out on the edge of that explosion.  Way out in space and way out in time. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you’re a complicated human being.  And then we cut ourselves off, and don’t feel that we’re still the big bang.  But you are. Depends how you define yourself.  You are actually — if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning — you’re not something that’s a result of the big bang.  You’re not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process.  You are still the process.

You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are.  When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as – Mr. so-and- so, Ms. so-and-so, Mrs. so-and-so – I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way.  I know I’m that, too.  But we’ve learned to define ourselves as separate from it.”   (Alan Wilson Watts)

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“The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.  As you think, so shall you be.”   (William James)

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“Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.”   (Thomas Jefferson)

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“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered.  The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny.  One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background.  All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us.  We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.”  (Anaïs Nin)

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“Nobody But You is Responsible For Your Life / Don’t Wait”

“When you’re young – when I was young – you want your emotions to be like the ones you read about in books.  You want them to overturn your life, create and define a new reality. Later, I think, you want them to do something milder, something more practical:  you want them to tell you that things are OK.  And is there anything wrong with that?   (Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending)

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“We need to move away from this constant need of coming across as calm, cool and collected. We weren’t built to be calm, cool, and collected.  If we were, it wouldn’t feel so f***ing exhausting all the time.  It would, you know, come naturally to us.  You know what comes naturally to human beings though? Being open, being messy, being raw, being unfiltered, having lots of feelings. Why should we have to stifle our true nature?  Let’s go after the things we want, let’s love each other brutally and honestly, and not worry about the consequences. Let’s release the feelings inside of us and let them land somewhere special.  Otherwise, we might have a lifetime of longing in front of us.”   (Ryan O’Connell, You Need to Go After the Things You Want)

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“Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.”   (Myrna Loy)

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“What is the meaning of life?  That was all – a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the greatest revelation had never come.  The great revelation perhaps never did come.  Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”   (Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse)

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“There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are.  You want one and I want one, but there isn’t one.  It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough.  There is no other way.”   (Marya Hornbacher)

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“Nobody but you is responsible for your life.  It doesn’t matter what your mamma did, it doesn’t matter what your daddy didn’t do … you are responsible for your life.  And you are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself and you’re responsible for the energy you bring to others.”   (Oprah Winfrey)

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“Don’t wait.  Don’t wait to do the things you love, to tell someone how you feel, to express yourself fully.  Don’t wait.  Don’t wait to begin, to create, to live the life you dream.  Don’t wait.  Don’t wait to open your arms, to open your heart, to love.  Don’t wait another moment.  Don’t wait.”   (upliftedvibrations.com)

“An Approach to Immortality”

“Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.”   (T. S. Eliot)

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“Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well.  Experience new things.  Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.”   (David Nicholls, One Day)

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“If you announce what you want, if you are clear about what’s on offer, if you set goals … the chances of accomplishing your goal go up, and so does … the chance that you will be disappointed

For many people, apparently, it’s better to not get what you want than it is to be disappointed. The resistance is powerful indeed.

Every time you use waffle words, back off from a clear statement of values and priorities and most of all, think about what’s likely instead of what’s possible, you are selling yourself out.  Not just selling yourself out, but doing it too cheaply.

Own your dreams.  There is no better way to make them happen.”   (Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog, 10.30.13)

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“The hardest battle you will ever have to fight is between who you are now and who you want to be.”   (Anonymous)

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“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”   (Guillaume Apollinaire)

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“If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality.”   (Norman Cousins)

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