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The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
by Zen Koan

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan

What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan

The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan

Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan

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The Sweetest Strawberry:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice,
he caught hold of the root of a wild vine
and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above.
Trembling, the man looked down to where,
far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.
Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black,
little by little started to gnaw away the vine.
The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him.
Grasping the vine with one hand,
he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
- Zen Koan

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

Shoot for the moon.
Even if you miss,
you'll land among the stars.
- Les Brown

 

Three things cannot be long hidden:
the sun, the moon, and the truth.
- The Buddha

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side
which he never shows to anybody.
- Mark Twain

I am not the same having seen the moon shine
on the other side of the world.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

When I admire the wonders of a sunset
or the beauty of the moon,
my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We need to find God, and he cannot
be found in noise and restlessness.
God is the friend of silence.
See how nature - trees, flowers, grass-
grows in silence; see the stars,
the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.
- Mother Teresa

The youth gets together his materials
to build a bridge to the moon,
or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth,
and, at length, the middle-aged man
concludes to build a woodshed with them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon,
and the stars, and the sun.
- John Lennon

We return thanks to our mother,
the earth, which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams
which supply us with water.
We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines
for the cure of our diseases.
We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters,
the beans and squashes, which give us life.
We return thanks to the bushes and trees,
which provide us with fruit.
We return thanks to the wind,
which, moving the air, has banished diseases.
We return thanks to the moon and the stars,
which have given us their light when the sun was gone.
We return thanks to our grandfather He-no,
that he has protected his grandchildren from witches and reptiles,
and has given us his rain.
We return thanks to the sun,
that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye.
Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit,
in whom is embodied all goodness,
and who directs all things for the good of his children.
- Iroquois traditional

In a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon,
it will be an entire nation.
For all of us must work to put him there.
- John F. Kennedy

Procrastination is the thief of time.
- Edward Young

Hunger makes a thief of any man.
- Pearl S. Buck

"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen

Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mother is the name for God
in the lips and hearts of little children.
- William Makepeace Thackeray

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
- Epicurus

Love is an act of faith,
and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.
- Erich Fromm

A little more persistence,
a little more effort, and
what seemed hopeless failure
may turn to glorious success.
- Elbert Hubbard

The choice is to work alone to be a little
more successful than the next person,
or to work together for the great betterment of humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Two little words that can make the difference: START NOW.
- Mary C. Crowley

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God
who is sending a love letter to the world.
- Mother Teresa

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.
- Jimmy Johnson

I have always held firmly to the thought
that each one of us can do a little
to bring some portion of misery to an end.
- Albert Schweitzer

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
- Plato

I will dance a little.
I will move with the wind.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Alone we can do so little;
together we can do so much.
- Helen Keller

Any man who reads too much
and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Albert Einstein

Practice yourself, for heaven's sake in little things,
and then proceed to greater.
- Epictetus

You should never be content with so little,
when you can reach out for something big.
- Charles L. Allen
(This quote is about making a big difference
in the world - not about greed)

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
- Khalil Gibran

He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

A little neglect may breed great mischief.
- Benjamin Franklin

It is of the small joys and little pleasures
that the greatest of our days are built.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It is not the man who has too little,
but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

If i had known... i would have lingered
over my coffee a little longer.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

He who knows best knows how little he knows.
- Thomas Jefferson

'Tis the business of little minds to shrink,
but they whose heart is firm,
and whose conscience approves their conduct,
will pursue their principles unto death.
- Thomas Paine

A great man is always willing to be little.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true
were really true, there would be little hope of advance.
- Orville Wright

I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Great oaks from little acorns grow.
- Proverb

We shall see but a little way if
we require to understand what we see.
- Henry David Thoreau

They who can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. -
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

He who can give thanks for little
will always find he has enough.
- Anonymous

I never accepted the idea
that I had to be guided by
some pattern or blueprint.
- Little Richard

A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize
how little we understand about life,
ourselves, and the world around us.
- Socrates

Little strokes,
Fell great oaks.
- Benjamin Franklin

Life is lived in the mists -
little is fully visible, less is certain.
Yet rejoice in the unknowing,
and let all of life be a wonderful adventure.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

And just dance a little.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
- Winston Churchill

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live
that his happiness shall depend
as little as possible on external things.
- Epictetus

Patience, persistence, and perseverance.
A little more each day, a little better each day.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu

Let the refining and improving of your own life
keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.
- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

We never repent of having eaten too little.
- Thomas Jefferson

A little simplification would be
the first step toward rational living.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Little minds have little worries,
big minds have no time for worries.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unlike grown-ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I will dance a little.
I will move with the wind.
I will give my body to my love and celebrate
that we have substance beyond the idea of ourselves.
We can move. We can touch. This is my physical exclamation point.
This is how I can awaken my mind to the possibilities in the day.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make the better.
What if they are a little coarse,
and you may get your coat soiled or torn?
What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled
in the dirt once or twice.
Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Genuine heroes - no batteries needed -
bring lots of open-mind and at least a little courage.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie




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