Eastern Philosophy Quotes

The idea of the universe as an interconnected whole is not new; for millennia it's been one of the core assumptions of Eastern philosophies. What is new is that Western science is slowly beginning to realize that some elements of that ancient lore might be correct. ~ Dean Radin

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment. ~ Lao-Tzu

When affirmation and negation came into being, Tao faded. After Tao faded, then came one-sided attachments. ~ Zhuangzi

As the sun, revealer of all objects to the seer, is not harmed by the sinful eye, nor by the impurities of the objects it gazes on, so the one Self, dwelling in all, is not touched by the evils of the world. (The Upanishads: Breath of the Eternal, pg. 35) ~ Swami Prabhavananda

Study the past if you would define the future. --CONFUCIUS ~ Steve Berry

And as I stumbled onto Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, it was the first time I had ever read any sort of philosophy that really made a tremendous amount of sense. What I liked that was missing from my experience of Christianity growing up was a sort of acceptance, a sort of being OK with being imperfect and not focusing on the sin. ~ Alan Ball

Does a man who is acting on the stage in a female part forget that he is a man? Similarly, we too must play our parts on the stage of life, but we must not identify ourselves with those parts. ~ Ramana Maharshi

I was born Muslim, but for a large part of my life, I wasn't necessarily raised Muslim. My father always kept everything around us, from Western philosophy to Eastern philosophy. ~ Lupe Fiasco

Western philosophy must be discussed; eastern philosophy must be experienced. ~ Adriano Bulla

There are people dying from famine on the roads, and you do not issue the stores of your granaries for them. When people die, you say, 'it is not owing to me, it is owing to the year.' In what does this differ from stabbing a man and killing him, and then saying, 'it was not I, it was the weapon? ~ Mencius

Once we got closer to the origins of these Eastern practices, we found that the monks and swamis were just as dogmatic and paternalistic, just as literal and conservative in their approach to spirituality as the Christian priests and ministers we were trying to get away from. ~ Gudjon Bergmann

In ancient China, the Taoists taught that a constant inner smile, a smile to oneself, insured health, happiness and longevity. Why? Smiling to yourself is like basking in love: you become your own best friend. Living with an inner smile is to live in harmony with yourself. ~ Mantak Chia

African tradition deals with life as an experience to be lived. In many respects, it is much like the Eastern philosophies in that we see ourselves as a part of a life force; we are joined, for instance, to the air, to the earth. We are part of the whole-life process. We live in accordance with, in a kind of correspondence with the rest of the world as a whole. And therefore living becomes an experience, rather than a problem, no matter how bad or how painful it may be. ~ Audre Lorde

The development of physics in the twentieth century already has transformed the consciousness of those involved with it. The study (of modern physics) produces insights into the nature of reality very similar to those produced by the study of eastern philosophy. ~ Gary Zukav

Compassion is not complete if it does not include oneself. ~ Allan Lokos

i get lost in my head sometimes
tangled in my thoughts.
it took me years to lose touch with reality
to realize there is no reality.

our thoughts rule our lives.
we have become addicted to our thoughts.
we feel the need to occupy ourselves
and think of more thoughts
to avoid the feeling of boredom;
to avoid being alone with ourselves. ~ Incognito .

I'm into a lot of Eastern philosophy. It's kind of like theosophy; it's about finding the relationships between all the great religions and focusing in on the good stuff. ~ Weyes Blood

Anyone who is steady in his determination for the advanced stage of spiritual realization and can equally tolerate the onslaughts of distress and happiness is certainly a person eligible for liberation. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Gandhi became my role model. I have always been interested in Eastern philosophy. Since early in my life I've been fascinated by India, and I have spent a great deal of time traveling in that country. ~ Bianca Jagger

The energy body acts as a bridge connecting our physical and spiritual bodies. In order for us to influence transformation of the body and mind, we must first learn to transform the energy flow. ~ Ilchi Lee

When somebody plays music, you listen. you just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music. the point can't be explained in words because music is not words, but after listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the music itself. in exactly the same way, you can listen to all experiences. ~ Alan W. Watts

In student government in high school, I learned how to deal with people, and in college I studied Eastern philosophy. I'm also an avid team-sports fan. I think I just blended them all together and came out with a business management philosophy that combines the Eastern ethic with the Western sport concept, basically. ~ Michael Ovitz

How much does he lack himself who must have many things? ~ Sen No Rikyu

I stepped away to find out more about myself, which I was having difficulty doing as a football player. I got a chance to travel the world. I studied Eastern philosophy, and I've grown as a person so much. ~ Ricky Williams

Last month, Dean Sheeter (whose name usually transports Franny when I mention it) approached me with his gracious smile and bull whip, and I am now lecturing to the faculty, their wives, and a few oppressively-deep type undergraduates every Friday on Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. A feat, I haven't a doubt, that will eventually earn me the Eastern Philosophy Chair in Hell. ~ J.D. Salinger

It is a state of mind, a learning of the oneness of things, an appreciation for fundamental insights known in Eastern philosophy and religion as simply the Way [or Tao]. For Boyd, the Way is not an end but a process, a journey…The connections, the insights that flow from examining the world in different ways, from different perspectives, from routinely examining the opposite proposition, were what were important. The key is mental agility ~ Grant Tedrick Hammond

It has gone nowhere, you have gone somewhere. We are all nowhere until we go somewhere. Your mind is full again, but not because it is empty, you only think it is full. ~ Michael Kilman

Study without reflection is a waste of time; reflection without study is dangerous. ~ Confucius

As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it. ~ Lao-Tzu

To become learned, each day add something. To become enlightened, each day drop something. ~ Lao-Tzu

The goal of mankind is knowledge. That is the one ideal placed before us by Eastern philosophy. Pleasure is not the goal of man, but knowledge. Pleasure and happiness come to an end. It is a mistake to suppose that pleasure is the goal. ~ Swami Vivekananda

An educated man believing in a this-that vile sky-god rewarding him-her, but punishing your enemies with hell and fire, is uneducated. ~ Fakeer Ishavardas

A kind of bogan embodiment of Eastern philosophy, Prue swears prolifically, sells organic vegetables out the front of her house, is a strict vegan, chemical-free ('apart from toothpaste') and determined to live alone. ~ Anna Krien

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. ~ Confucius

To lead a life of meaning and purpose, the artist must lead a life of struggle. ~ Avijeet Das

Indeed, when you write, the point isn't to make your reader understand. The point is to make him or her feel. ~ Scott Edelstein

Here is a philosophy of boldness to take advantage of every tiny opening toward victory. ~ Arnold Palmer

In a very real sense, every person who denies God is living of borrowed capital. He enjoys living as if the world is filled with morality, meaning, order and beauty, yet he denies the God whose existence makes such things possible.

When you start with theism - "in the beginning God"- these destinations make complete sense. When you start with materialism though - "in the beginning, the particles" - that route takes you over a cliff of absurdity and despair. ~ Gregory Koukl

In formulating any philosophy the first consideration must always be: What can we know? That is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable. Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything? Descartes hinted at the problem when he wrote, 'My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs. ~ Woody Allen

The best way to appreciate life is to express love wherever you can and enjoy whenever you can. ~ Debasish Mridha

I have no patience with this dreadful idea that whatever you have in you has to come out, that you can't suppress true talent. People can be destroyed; they can be bent, distorted, and completely crippled ... In spite of all the poetry, all the philosophy to the contrary, we are not really masters of our fate. ~ Katherine Anne Porter

She asked him "What do you do when you feel alone and lonely?"
And he said "I talk to the mountains! ~ Avijeet Das

Even though people about us choose the path of hate and violence and warfare and greed and prejudice, we who are Christ's body must throw off these poisons and let love permeate and cleanse every tissue and cell. Nor are we to allow ourselves to become easily discouraged when love is not always obviously successful or pleasant. Love never quits, even when an enemy has hit you on the right cheek and you have turned the other, and he's also hit that. ~ Clarence Jordan

Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, - then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. ~ Plato

Finally, you are in the most magical world having the most wonderful time. Let us not fill it with stress or anxieties. ~ Debasish Mridha

Be judgmental to yourself, but be kind and non-judgmental to others. ~ Debasish Mridha

For me philosophy begins with these experiences of disappointment: a disappointment at the level of what I would think of as "meaning," namely that, given that there is no God, what is the meaning of life? And, given that we live in an unjust world, how are we to bring about justice? ~ Simon Critchley

What you do without expectations defines your success. ~ Debasish Mridha

We are all connected; our thoughts affect the whole universe. Every small thought of peace will make the world a little more peaceful. ~ Debasish Mridha

Love is as clear as water from a pitcher. ~ Debasish Mridha

What you think, you become.
What you feel, you attract.
What you imagine, you create. ~ Gautama Buddha

Your life is a poetry with purpose. ~ Debasish Mridha

I love contemporary poetry because it moves between what we call poetry and what we call philosophy. It joins these fields and makes writing more natural, as in how it is lived in the person. We don't separate thinking from feeling in real life, so why should we separate it in writing? ~ Etel Adnan

If peace is our ultimate goal, love should be our only weapon. ~ Debasish Mridha

Everything you hate holds you back from growing. Everything you love helps you to grow. ~ Debasish Mridha

It's easy to put the links between the increases in mental illness, depression, ADHD, and the like, with the speed of the modern world. People never get the chance to do nothing, or when they do, they lack the control to prevent their mind from racing off in a thousand different directions. So much so that their doing nothing becomes a thousand different things and the thousand different things becomes stress, anxiety, worry and fear. Left untreated these simple everyday things become well entrenched in our psyches and start to dominate our lives. We have a chronic addiction with doing and we love to use our busyness as a stamp of our hard work and hectic lives and we get stuck in this busy trap of always doing. ~ Evan Sutter

Life is not only about acquiring knowledge, it is about applying knowledge. ~ Amit Kalantri

He was the most contradictory of men. A champion of extending freedom and democracy to even the poorest of whites, Jackson was an unrepentant slaveholder. A sentimental man who rescued an Indian orphan on a battlefield to raise in his home, Jackson was responsible for the removal of Indian tribes from their ancestral lands. An enemy of Eastern financial elites and a relentless opponent of the Bank of the United States, which he believed to be a bastion of corruption, Jackson also promised to die, if necessary, to preserve the power and prestige of the central government. Like us and our America, Jackson and his America achieved great things while committing grievous sins. ~ Jon Meacham

With resentment, hearts burn in the fire of hatred. With forgiveness, hearts dance with pure joy. ~ Debasish Mridha

The mind more often faints from the severity of study than from the severity of gymnastics: the toil is more entirely the mind's own and is not shared with the body. ~ Plato

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows. ~ Socrates

The natural world gives us many examples of the great effectiveness of this way. The Chinese philosophy of which judo itself is an expression - Taoism - drew attention to the power of water to overcome all obstacles by its gentleness and pliability. It showed how the supple willow survives the tough pine in a snowstorm, for whereas the unyielding branches of the pine accumulate snow until they crack, the springy boughs of the willow bend under its weight, drop the snow, and jump back again. If, when swimming, you are caught in a strong current, it is fatal to resist. You must swim with it and gradually edge to the side. One who falls from a height with stiff limbs will break them, but if he relaxes like a cat he will fall safely. A building without 'give' in its structure will easily collapse in storm or earthquake, and a car without the cushioning of tires and springs will soon come apart on the road. The mind has just the same powers, for it has give and can absorb shocks like water or a cushion. But this giving way to an opposing force is not at all the same thing as running away. A body of water does not run away when you push it; it simply gives at the point of the push and encloses your hand. A shock absorber does not fall down like a bowling-pin when struck; it gives, and yet stays in the same place. To run away is the only defense of something rigid against an overwhelming force. Therefore the good shock absorber has not only 'give,' but also stability or 'weight. ~ Alan W. Watts

When you forget what you ultimately stand for, you rejoice in blinding ignorance. Missing the bigger picture for the near pleasure is what humans and all living beings stand for. I guess there is no alternate way either. Because it is after all a game that all are destined to play until they end up dead. ~ Rakesh Ranjan

I am very proud of The Saints and I'm very glad that I've been associated with them all these years, but the next record is the best record ... has to be the philosophy for any band that remains even halfway decent or vibrant, and that is kind of where my head's at. ~ Chris Bailey

Oh my dear, you can break my heart, tear my soul, but you will never be able to take my sweet memories and dreams away. Those are the truest assets of my life. ~ Debasish Mridha

Love is divine and peaceful but hate is devilish and dreadful. So love everyone without judging them, you will be in peace always. ~ Debasish Mridha