PETE'S PHILOSOPHICAL PICKS: THE TOP FIFTY

A faithful friend is the medicine of life.

Ecclesiasticus

A man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.

Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

William Blake 1757-1827

All seems infected that th' infected spy
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

Alexander Pope 1688-1744

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

John Stuart Mill 1806-1873

Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.

John Dryden 1631-1700

Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

old Chinese proverb and motto of The Christophers, a religious organization

Blindness, old age, sickness -- you have to think of them as gifts, as a blessing in disguise. You have to turn them into beauty.

Jorge Luis Borges 1900-1986

Eternity was in that moment.

William Congreve 1670-1729

Everything flows and nothing stays.

Heraclitus 540-480 B.C.

Failure is an orphan, but victory has a thousand fathers.

Pres. John F. Kennedy at the time (1961) of the Bay of Pigs tragedy

For man plans, but God arranges.

Thomas à Kempis 1380-1471

For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt.

Lord Tennyson 1809-1892

For things far off we toil, while many a good
Not sought because too near, is never gained.

William Wordsworth 1770-1851

"Sonnet to the River Eden"

From a little spark may burst a mighty flame.

Dante 1265-1321

Habits are first cobwebs, then cables.

Spanish proverb

How can you summarize in black and white the rainbow of life?

Richard Einer Peterson

I think of God as a verb rather than a noun, meaning that we must work toward justice and peace. We can't just profess it.

Rabbi Julius Nodel

In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
None can be called deform'd but the unkind.

William Shakespeare 1564-1616

Twelfth Night

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.

Epictetus A.D. 55-135

Life is like a tea bag. You don't know your strength (or weakness for that matter) until you're in hot water.

Anonymous

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone,
Kindness in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.

Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833-1870

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has courage to lose sight of the shore.

André Gide 1869-1951

Music heard so deeply that it isn't heard at all, but you are the music while the music lasts.

T. S. Eliot 1888-1965

No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood.

Anonymous

Reality is just a paint brush looking for a canvas.

Richard Einer Peterson

SADLY HOLLOW
IMMORTALITY

Do not stand by my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am a diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star shine at night.
Do not stand by my grave and cry.
I am not there ... I did not die.

Prayer of the Makah Indians

Smooth seas do not make good sailors.

Anonymous

So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1855-1919

Tendoku igaku
In poison, there is medicine.

Japanese proverb

That puts the puck in the cage.

Richard Einer Peterson

The bird that flutters least
Is longest on the wing.

William Cowper 1731-1800

The dream he had became a snowball that melted in his hands.

Richard Einer Peterson

The Law of the Hen is that you cackle after the egg is laid.

Richard Einer Peterson

The one Moon reflects itself wherever
There is a sheet of water.
And all the moons in the waters
Are embraced within the one Moon.

Yung-chia Ta-shih

The sun will set without your help.

Yiddish proverb

The tree is not felled by the first chop.

Richard Einer Peterson

The years teach what the days never know.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882

There is no death, but the circle of life does close.

Richard Einer Peterson

There is nothing permanent except change.

Heraclitus 540--480 B.C.

There is Yin in the Yang and Yang in that Yin.

Richard Einer Peterson

Things past redress are now with me past care.

William Shakespeare 1564-1616

Richard II

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower:
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

William Blake 1757-1827

We may well go to the Moon, but that's not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.

Charles de Gaulle 1890-1970

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and to know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot 1888-1965

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

Crowfoot 1821-1890

You cannot put the same shoe on every foot.

Publilius Syrus

You have to chew on a root before you see the color of the juice.

Chinese proverb