Today is Mark Twain's Birthday

Today is Mark Twain's (Samuel Clemens) birthday so I though I would share a few of my favorite quotes:

I will start with a few on government:

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

We have the best government that money can buy.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

(Too bad things have not improved much since his day.)

Some quotes about society in general:

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.

And my personal favorite:

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Some Thoughts on the Two Towers and the Aftermath

Today we remember the terrorist attacks which destroyed the World Trade Center, and killed many innocent people.

It was a truly diabolical attack, carried out mercilessly.

I think we also need to reflect on how we responded, and continue to respond. I have some quotes which I think are relevant:

Thomas Jefferson
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Benjamin Franklin
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

John Adams
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Henry David Thoreau
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.

Eleanor Roosevelt
Hate and force cannot be in just a part of the world without having an effect on the rest of it.

David Kaczynski
We've got to take back the ideal of justice, we've got to take back this principle of human dignity. We've got to take it back from vengeance, from hatred, we've got to say: look, we're all in this together. We are human beings.

Martin Luther King Jr
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Mohandas K Gandhi
What is obtained by love is retained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality for it increases hatred.

Mohandas K Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Mohandas K Gandhi
Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love.

Albert Schweitzer
This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.

Jonathan Swift
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

William Blake
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

Desmond Tutu
Without forgiveness, there's no future.

Matthew 5:44
But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you...


These might seem like a bunch of random quotes, but they relate to my own thinking about the attacks, and our response. We, as a people responded, our government responded, both here and abroad.

We voluntarily gave the government more power, looking for security. (See the Benjamin Franklin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt quotes above, and think about the risks there.)

I think we need to evaluate what has been done, and decide if we have taken the best road, and if there might be a better way. We have tried hatred and violence, maybe we should try love and forgiveness.

Struggle Against the Darkness?

I overheard a conversation recently between two people who were discussing all the darkness in the world, and how it was necessary to struggle against the darkness unceasingly.

I spent some time thinking about what I overheard, and concluded that they were mistaken in their basic assumptions.

First of all, it seems they are focused on the darkness in the world, so they see it everywhere. And, they see it as something wrong with the world.

I believe that light and darkness are not two separate things, but two sides of the same coin. There is a saying, from Buddhism, I think: nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Which means we put our labels on things, and call them good and bad, or light and dark; what we label something is based on what we can see, not on any absolute truth. It is impossible for any of us to see the whole truth about anything, so our understanding is necessarily limited.

Please understand I am not offering a defense to justify wrong actions, I believe we all have an innate sense of right and wrong, and should strive to live up to our own highest ideals of right action. I am suggesting that we should not be too quick to judge light and dark, or good and evil. I am also suggesting that there is a cycle of light and dark, and that cycle is larger than humanity.

That cycle will continue progressing from light to dark and back again, no matter how we might struggle against it.

I am also not suggesting that we do nothing, and simply stand back and allow things we see as wrong to happen and make no effort to stop them. (This may sound like I am contradicting myself, but keep reading, it will be clearer.)

What I believe is that there is no reason to "struggle against the darkness." If you think about light and dark, there is no struggle. Darkness does not pass because anyone struggled against it. Darkness passes when someone brings a light into the darkness, no struggle is needed. (Better to light one candle than curse the darkness.)

So, I think the people I overheard were wrong because they were focused on the "darkness" and they wanted to struggle against it. A better approach would be to look for ways to bring more light into the world; everyone has a light, maybe now is the time to let it shine.

Here are some lines from an old Incredible String Band song:

"One light, light that is one
though the lamps be many..."

Some of My Favorite Quotes

I was looking through an old journal yesterday, and I came upon these quotes which i wanted to share (I wrote down the names of the authors of the quotes, but not the sources where I found them):

"If you switch on the light in a dark room, it makes no difference how long it was dark because the light will still shine. Be teachable. That is the whole secret."
Vernon Howard

"You are created anew every moment."
Sri Aurobindo

"The difficulty is that we do not make a world of our own, but fall into institutions already made."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A free mind has the power to achieve all things."
Meister Eckhart

"Be free, gay, uncomplicated, a child. But be a strong child, fearing nothing."
Francois Fenelon

For me, these quotes are significant because of the difficulties I was experiencing in my personal life at the time I recorded them in my journal. They helped me get through a very dismal time, and come out a better and happier person, maybe even a little wiser. I offer them to anyone who needs some hope or light.

One last quote for the day:

"For all these years, you've protected the seed. It's time to become the flower."
Stephen C Paul

Can You Think and Grow Rich?

I have been talking about goals and success over the last few posts. I wanted to add a book recommendation, Napoleon Hill's classic, Think and Grow Rich.
If you have not read this book, it is a must read for anyone looking to achieve outstanding success.
I read it once a year, and find it a helpful guide to accomplishing my goals.
It is a book that many highly successful people credit as the starting point of everything they have achieved.
Although it is called Think and Grow Rich, and one of its major points is that your results are dependent on your thinking, it is a book about taking action.
I also read somewhere that Think and Grow Rich is responsible for creating more millionaires than any other book in the world. (I don't know if that is true or not, but I have read many biographies of successful individuals, and it is the book more of them mention than any other.)
You can purchase a copy from the link included below, or do a search of the internet, there are many websites offering free digital copies (usually in exchange for your email address); either way, get this book, read it, and most importantly, take action on what you learn.
(If you are reading it for the first time, I suggest that you quickly read it through once to familiarize yourself with its contents, and then read it more slowly, and really digest it, and take action.)

Some Thoughts About Work

My last post was about working towards your goals, and I shared some of my thinking on the subject. Today, I want to share some of my favorite quotes on work.


"Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person."
Og Mandino

"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Henry D Thoreau

"The harder I work, the luckier I get."
Samuel Goldwyn

"When I work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, I get lucky."
Armand Hammer

This next ones are not specifically about work, but I think they are relevant anyway.

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."
Ernest Hemingway

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy."
Rabindranath Tagore

"You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event - it is a habit."
Aristotle

"Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen."
Peter Marshall


And I want to close with a great quote from Bob Proctor:

"It's a strange thing, you have said it thousands of times I am sure… you will never know what you can do until you try. However the sad truth is, that most people never try anything until they know they can do it."
Bob Proctor

Working Towards Your Goals

I wanted to offer some thoughts about goals, I think that this is the perfect time to begin working towards greater accomplishments, especially if your goals include bringing value into the world. I will post some more thoughts about goals and achievement over the next few weeks. Please feel free to comment.

In order to be successful, you need some goals to work towards.
It has been often said that a person without goals is like a ship without a rudder, you just drift from day to day.

Some of the most successful people I have ever studied insist that it is not only necessary to have goals, but also necessary to have them written down.

That is just the first step, if you never take any action towards your goals, it's a little like sitting in your car with a map, but never starting the engine, or putting the car in gear. You never get out of your driveway.

It is not necessary to know every step you are going to take to get to your goal before you get started, it is much more important to get moving, and build momentum. It is easier to change direction than it is to start moving in the first place. Start from where you are right now, and do whatever seems like it will move you in the direction of your goal. Remember the old cliche about a journey of a thousand miles starting with a single step. You will get much further by taking a small step every day, rather than trying to map out every step perfectly before you start.

Perfectionism is most often an obstacle on the way to achievement, and generally an excuse not to take action. While having a plan is helpful, there is no way to cover every possibility, so be flexible in your planning, and use the plan to be sure you are moving in the direction you wish to go.

It is important to be consistent, and take action every day. At first, it will seem extremely difficult, but every day gets a little easier. As you take more steps towards your goal, the level of satisfaction you feel will grow, making it easier to continue. Repeated efforts will also become habitual, so you will not require as much discipline to continue making progress.

Lighten Up!

Those of you who follow me on twitter (look for me under username ecdumchus) know I stopped reading or listening to the news some time ago.

I found that just taking this step made me feel much better psychologically, without the constant input of gloom and doom about the world economy. I have been reading a small local newspaper which has news which directly affects me, things like road closings, local parades and events, but nothing about the economic sky falling.

I strongly urge everyone reading this to do the same. Unplug from the gloom and doom merchants, find something that makes you feel good. Even better, find something that makes you feel good and brings value into the world. Don't worry about getting paid for what you can do as much as what kind of value you can create in the world.

People focusing on bringing value to the economic table is the quickest way to get the economy growing again. It will not happen because of government bailouts, no matter how well intentioned.

Anyway, in the interest of lightening things up, I am making a commitment to begin regularly posting to this blog again, and encourage anyone who has a positive contribution to offer, to leave comments here.

Let's brighten the world! There has been enough darkness.

Real Friendship

This is a story I first found in a collection of middle eastern stories:

A man and his wife were sitting at home when there was a knock at the door. The man answered the door to find one of his friends standing there, looking very troubled.
"What's wrong?", he asked.
His friend replied, "I am so sorry to trouble you, but if I don't get $5000.00 by tomorrow, I will lose my business and my house. Can you help me?"
The man said, "Please don't worry, I will bring you $5000.00 by this evening."
His friend left, much relieved.
The man gathered up what cash he had, and even took some things of value and sold them, but all he could raise was $3000.00. So he went to all his neighbors and friends, asking to borrow whatever they could lend him.
Eventually, he had $5000.00, and took it to his friend.
His friend thanked him profusely, and said he would be forever grateful. The man told his friend it was nothing, and he should repay the money whenever he could.
The man returned home, sat in a chair, buried his head in his hands and cried.
His wife asked, "Are you crying because you are worried that we will not be able to repay what we have borrowed for your friend?"
The man looked up and said, "No, I am crying because my dearest friend in all the world was in need, and I did not know until he came to my door and told me so."


Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all felt this way about our friends?

Ernest Hemingway's Birthday

Ernest Hemingway was born this day in 1899. I thought a few quotes from this great American writer would be a good way to celebrate and remember him.

"But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

"As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary."

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."

"In Europe we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also a great giver of happiness and well being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating, and to me as necessary."

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."

"The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without."

"The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it."

"All things truly wicked start from innocence."

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."

"No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one."

Some interesting thoughts on a wide range of subjects, hopefully, if you have never read Hemingway, this will inspire you to try. A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and For whom the Bell Tolls are good starting places.

Find Hemingway's Books

Independence Day

In honor of July 4, Independence Day here in the USA, I thought I would share some of my favorite success quotes:


"Seventy percent of success in life is showing up." Woody Allen

"Self-trust is the first secret of success." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed." Henry Ford

"No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." William Blake

"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." Thoreau


"The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."
–Dale Carnegie


"...Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person."

Og Mandino

Put Her Down!

This is another story I first encountered in a collection of Zen teaching stories. It takes place in Japan, many, many years ago.

Two monks are walking down the road of a small village.

The road is unpaved, and muddy. They pass a courtesan standing on the side of the street, dressed in a fine silk kimono. She is looking for a way to cross the road without getting muddy. She seems very distressed, as there is no way to cross the road without going through the mud.

The elder of the two monks, seeing her distress, picks her up and carries her across the road, and sets her down on the opposite side.

The monks continue walking through the village and beyond.

Eventually, the younger of the two monks, turns to the other monk and says, "How could you do that? We are monks, we are supposed to keep ourselves pure. We should not even associate with women like that. But you picked her up and carried her."

The older monk looks at the younger monk, and says, "I put her down back at the corner. You are still carrying her."

How Badly Do You Want It?

Here is another teaching story I have found in many different forms.
It's been presented as a Chinese teaching story, the characters in it
have been Socrates and Plato, sometimes there has been another
character who attempted to take the journey for the Seeker in the
story, but was told by the Teacher only the Seeker himself can find
what he seeks. What the Seeker is searching for is sometimes health,
sometimes truth, and sometimes wisdom. It really doesn't matter,
the wisdom of this story applies to anything you wish to attract,
even wealth or fame.

I'm presenting here just the basic bones of the story. There's
always a Seeker, always a Teacher, and it usually takes place near a
body of water, a lake or river or the ocean.

After a long, arduous journey, the Seeker reached the dwelling
of the Teacher. The Seeker approached the Teacher, and begged the
Teacher to show the way to wisdom (or health, or truth). The Teacher
at first refused, but the Seeker remained persistent, and the Teacher
finally relented.

The Teacher invited the Seeker into the water until they stood waist deep.

The Teacher then firmly grasped the Seeker by the neck, and firmly
thrust the Seeker's head under water.

The Seeker at first reacted calmly, expecting the Teacher to release
his hold, and explain the lesson. As the seconds crawled by, the
Seeker began to suspect perhaps the Teacher was mad. Eventually
the Seeker began to panic and began to struggle against the hold of
the Teacher.

When the Seeker was sure his lungs would burst and he was about to
die, the Teacher pulled his head above the water. The Seeker gasped
mightily for air, filling his lungs again and again.

The Teacher looked at the Seeker, and said, "When you desire wisdom
(or health, or truth) as strongly as you wanted that last breath of air,
you will find it."

Bury Me Upside Down

I have encountered this story in several different forms. Some are more elaborate, but I'm just giving you the most basic form:

A group of friends is sitting around discussing life, the universe and everything. Eventually the subject of death comes up. Each of the friends describes what kind of funeral and memorial they would like, and how they would like to be remembered.

One of the group declares, "When I die, bury me standing on my head."

All the other members of the group look at him astounded, and say, almost in unison, "What? Why would you want to be buried upside down?"

He replies, "If we are right side up in this world, I want to be upside down in the next."

Comings and Goings

I was recently reminded of this story, during a conversation with friends. I first came upon this story in a collection of Zen teaching stories, and have since some slightly different versions, two of which I include here.

An old monk is dying. He is very near death, drifting in and out of consciousness. At one point, he opens his eyes to see some of his disciples gathered around his bedside, all looking terribly sad.
“What’s wrong?” asked the old monk. “Why are you so unhappy?”
“We are unhappy, Master, because you are going to leave us.” replied one of the younger monks.
The old monk sadly shook his head, and said, “If you still think there is a coming or a going, you have a long way to go.”

The second version is only slightly different, but I like it equally as much as the first:

An old monk is dying. He is very near death, drifting in and out of consciousness. At one point, he opens his eyes to see some of his disciples gathered around his bedside, all looking terribly sad.
“What’s wrong?” asked the old monk. “Why are you so unhappy?”
“We are unhappy, Master, because you are going to leave us.” replied one of the younger monks.
“Don’t be silly.” said the old monk. “Where would I go?”

Enjoy Time, or Waste It

Rereading an old journal recently, I came across another quote that had a big impact on me at the time. The journal is dated 1967, and the quote is attributed to Vernon Howard, but I did not record what book I found it in. The quote reads: "If we have not enjoyed the last hour, we have wasted it."

Over time my understanding of that quote has changed as my experience has changed me. And I have grown to appreciate the wisdom of that statement even more.

When I first read this statement, I took it to mean if I was not enjoying what I was doing, I needed to change what I was doing. And that led to a lot of changes in terms of jobs, where I lived, who was a part of my life, what I did in my free time. But I never reached a point where I could change enough things in my environment to enjoy every hour.

Over the course of many years, I came to understand that what needed to change was not my world, but me. And that has made all the difference.

Who Has Mastered the Way?

"I do not write as someone who has mastered the way, but as someone who has been walking it, though often clumsily, for several decades of my life."

That is a quote from Marianne Williamson, someone I have begun reading only recently, but it relates to why I am writing this blog. I do not claim to be a guru or enlightened master, but I have been studying mysticism and self development for some forty years now, and want to offer a little light to others walking the same way.

I actually believe there is only One Way, the differences are illusory between all the different "ways", whether you call them "religion", "science", spiritual development", meditation", "yoga", "New Age", or any other label you may want to use. They all come from and return to the same Source. (See my previous post: Teaching Stories, it talks about One Truth)

Along the way, I have come upon many useful ideas, from many sources, and my goal here is to share the best of them, hopefully in a light-hearted manner. (I believe anyone who claims to be spiritual, but lacks a sense of humor, is either lying, or deluded. The more spiritually developed people I have met all laugh easily, and often, especially at themselves. )

Ready to Live?

Way back in the 1960's, when I first became interested in personal growth, I began to read widely. One author I really felt drawn towards was Ralph Waldo Emerson.

I read whatever I could find written by and about him, and was especially fond of his journals. I found an old journal of my own today, and chanced upon a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson I thought was worth sharing.

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living."

I think it is worth reflecting on whether the things you do every day are part of getting ready to live, or really living your life.

More on Teaching Stories

In my last post, I told a story that was inspired by a previous post, and I promised that I would have more to say about stories in this post.

I have another story today, it's the one I usually start with whenever I tell teaching stories, because it talks about the usefulness of teaching stories for personal growth.

The story begins...

I had a dream recently, in which I met an enormous wolf. I was terrified, and unable to move.

The wolf looked directly at me, and slowly walked toward me, until it stood directly in front of me. It sat back and looked down at my face.

Not knowing what else to do, I said "Hello". as if it was some neighbor's dog I had met on the street.

To my astonishment, the wolf replied with a hello of it's own.

Not knowing what else to do, I tried to make conversation, and blurted out that wolves appear in many stories that we humans tell each other. The wolf asked me to tell one. The only one that occurred to me was The Boy Who Cried Wolf, so I told that one.

After I had finished, the wolf said, "That is very interesting. We wolves also tell stories, and we have one called 'The Wolf Who Cried Boy'."

I remarked that it was a good thing that we could tell each other stories, and save each other from making big mistakes.

The wolf sadly shook it's head. "I am afraid that I have greatly over estimated your intelligence. Even stupid wolves know that a story does not teach before the experience."

End of story...

My experience has confirmed that stories teach more after the experience, and I have often found new levels of meaning in stories after having new experiences.

Teaching Stories

Yesterday, I said that we all see a part of a greater whole, often thinking we get the whole picture.
The idea about understanding the same occurrence differently because we each have a hold on a different part of the "elephant" reminded me of a story, and I wanted to tell that story today.

There are three characters in this story. The first I will call "Our Hero", who represents a person of some spiritual understanding, meaning someone who gets that the elephant is bigger than any one description of a part of it. The second, I will call "The Neighbor", who represents someone in ordinary consciousness, someone whose understanding of the spiritual comes from watching the television show "Medium". The third character I will call the "Wild Eyed Mystic", someone who has glimpsed the elephant, and is no longer wholly focused in this world, but lost in some Spiritual Reverie.

Our story opens with Our Hero holding a small sack, standing along a roadside, talking with The Neighbor, just chatting, about the weather.

Suddenly, the Wild Eyed Mystic appears.And what an apparition! Ragged, disheveled clothes, eyes that seem focused elsewhere , and a look that may be bewilderment, or maybe amusement, or even madness.

The Wild Eyed Mystic comes directly in front of Our Hero and The Neighbor and stares intently at both. Suddenly he thrusts his right index finger skyward, and continues glaring at Our Hero and The Neighbor.

The Neighbor thinks, "This man is deranged." and positions himself behind Our Hero for protection against the madman.

Our Hero understands the Wild Eyed Mystic is saying "One Truth, which covers all." then opens his sack and pulls out a coil of rope, which he hands to The Neighbor.

The neighbor is much relieved, and thinks, "Good. If he becomes violent, we can restrain him with the rope."

The Wild Eyed Mystic nods and smiles, understanding Our Hero to say "Ordinary Man tries to reach that One Truth in the same way one would try to climb into the sky with a length of rope."

Then, just as quickly as he appeared, the Wild Eyed Mystic is gone, much to the relief of the neighbor.

That is the story, there is more to it than just how different people perceive things differently, but that's for another discussion.

I'll have more to say about teaching stories in my next post.