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
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
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
The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan
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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
What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan
Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative
of the dignity of my high vocation,
and its many responsibilities.
Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way
to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
- Mother Teresa
Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden
No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore
All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)
Circumstance does not make the man: it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde
Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln
The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
- Lao Tzu
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
The full measure of a man is
not to be found in the man himself,
but in the colors and textures that
come alive in others because of him.
- Albert Schweitzer
The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl
Every man must decide whether he will
walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard
How could man rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
- Lao Tzu
The man who is successful is the man who is useful.
- Bourke Cockran
No man is free who is not master of himself.
- Epictetus
Science gives man knowledge, which is power;
religion gives man wisdom, which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully, is prepared to die at any time.
- Mark Twain
Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.
- Mark Twain
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
- John Morley
If thou wilt make a man happy,
add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
- Epicurus
If a man can... make a better mousetrap,
the world will make a beaten path to his door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man,
but if you're up there and you can hear me ...
show me the way... show me the way.
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946 movie)
A man is but the product of his thoughts -
what he thinks, he becomes.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
For man with no forgiveness in heart,
life worse punishment than death.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid 2
The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion
to his commitment to excellence,
regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.
- Vince Lombardi
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
but he is brave five minutes longer.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.
- Seneca
Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
A man should do his job so well that the living,
the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
- Oscar Wilde
Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis
of man's desire to understand.
- Neil Armstrong
The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius
Great and good are seldom the same man.
- Winston Churchill
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
- Henry David Thoreau
Man must evolve for all human conflict,
a method which rejects
revenge, aggression and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche
If a man does not know what port he is steering for,
no wind is favorable to him.
- Seneca
I submit to you that if a man hasn't
discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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
Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding
and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
- Epicurus
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question
than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
- Bruce Lee
Well, I don't know what will happen now.
We've got some difficult days ahead.
But it doesn't matter with me now.
Because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind. Like any man,
I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I'm not concerned about that now.
I just want to do God's will.
And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we,
as a people, will get to the promised land.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is no limit to what a man can do
or where he can go,
if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.
- Robert Woodruff
Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction
devised by the ingenuity of man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln
Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]
The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin
The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden
Each man is the architect of his own fate.
- Appius Claudius
There is a sufficiency in the world
for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams.
- Yiddish Proverb
When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln
Early to bed and early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
- Benjamin Franklin
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
- The Buddha
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb
A man is a success if he gets up in
the morning and gets to bed at night,
and in between he does what he wants to do.
- Bob Dylan
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