Catalyst Quotes

“This Is What You Shall Do”

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”  (Walt Whitman)

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“Don’t say you don’t have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”    (H. Jackson Brown Jr.)

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“Some people claim there is no life after death,” said a disciple.

“Do they now?” replied the Master.

“Wouldn’t it be awful to die,” said the disciple, “and never again see or hear or love or move?”

“You find that awful?” the Master inquired.  “But that’s how most people are even before they die.”     (Anthony de Mello, SJ)

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“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but … life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”   (Gabriel García Márquez)

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“Never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly.”    (Mother Teresa)

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“Know Thyself”

“When I do good, I feel good.  When I do bad, I feel bad.  That’s my religion.”    (Abraham Lincoln)

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“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”    (Lao Tzu)

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“People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace.  They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them.  The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.”    (Romana L. Anderson)

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“Peace comes from within.  Do not seek it without.”    (Buddha)

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“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”    (Lao Tzu)

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“Life is change.  Growth is optional.  Choose wisely.”    (Unknown)

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“Know thyself.”    (Plato)

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“A Simple, Childlike and Mysterious Secret”

“Today make a list of all the things you would do if you started to really take care of yourself.

Include the things that you already do, the things that, instinctively or habitually, you have been doing for years.  Then add some things you’d like to do, that you’ve often intended to do for yourself.

Make your list, then paste it up on your bathroom mirror or hide it in your underwear drawer, and do at least one new thing on the list today.  Let yourself love yourself.”    (365 Days of Love, Daphne Rose Kingma, Conari Press)

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“What is the recipe for successful achievement?  To my mind there are just four essential ingredients:   1) Choose a career you love….  2) Give it the best there is in you….  3) Seize your opportunities….  and, 4) be a member of the team.”    (Benjamin F. Fairless)

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“Through working in harmony with life’s circumstances, Taoist understanding changes what others may perceive as negative into something positive.

When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.”    (Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh)  [Uncarved Block refers to a state of pure potential which is the primordial condition of the mind before the arising of experience.  It is perception without prejudice; a state of mental unity which places the Taoist practitioner into alignment with the Tao.]

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“Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away.  Most of this “something” cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted.  It’s what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours.  Memory.  The census doesn’t count it.  Nothing counts without it.”   (Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)

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“Nature gave men two ends — one to sit on, and one to think with.  Ever since then man’s success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most.”    (George R. Kirkpatrick)

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“It’s The Way You Carry It”

“I am sometimes amazed at what we did not fully grasp in kindergarten.  In the years I was a parish minister I was always taken aback when someone came to me and said, ‘I’ve just come from the doctor and he told me I have only a limited time to live’.  I was always tempted to shout ‘WHAT?  You didn’t know?  You had to pay a doctor to tell you – at your age?  Where were you the week in kindergarten when you got the little cup with the cotton and water and seed?  Life happened – remember?  A plant grew up and the roots grew down.  A miracle. And then a few days later the plant was dead.  DEAD.  Life is short.  Were you asleep that week or home sick or what?”     (Robert Fulghum)

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“Time to Die –

 A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.

One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.

Hearing the footsteps of his teacher, the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.

When the master appeared, he asked: ‘Why do people have to die?’  ‘This is natural,’ explained the teacher.

‘Everything has to die and has just so long to live.’

The student showed the shattered cup, saying,

‘It was time for your cup to die.’”   (Traditional Zen Koan)

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“There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human – in not having to be just happy or just sad – in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.”     (C. JoyBell C.)

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“Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, “Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?” …  Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, ‘We hate to tell you this but life is a thousand word essay.’    (Charles M. Schulz)

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“Others may argue about whether the world ends with a bang or a whimper.  I just want to make sure mine doesn’t end with a whine.”    (Barbara Gordon)

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“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”    (Lena Horne)

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