Antti Vanhanen > Antti's Quotes

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women

“Ignorance is a lot like alcohol: the more you have of it, the less you are able to see its effect on you.”
― Jay Bylsma

“I laugh at those who think they can damage me. They do not know who I am, they do not know what I think, they cannot even touch the things which are really mine and with which I live.”
― Epictetus

“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.”
― Mark Twain

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“Despite the sale of millions of copies of "How to.." books and programmes each year, very few people take actions and put what they learn into practice. Here´s why. The "how to..." book has usually been written by someone who accomplished something of value. They then capture the steps they took to accomplish it in book, training course, or multimedia programme. Innocently, they´re sharing the symptoms of their accomplishment, but not the causes. If the symptoms are like apples, the causes are the tree that grew them. When people buy "how to" books and programmes, they´re unknowingly trying to glue someone else´s apples onto their tree, without realizing an essential fact: it doesn´t work that way!”
― Jamie Smart, Clarity: Clear Mind, Better Performance, Bigger Results

“People find it quite easy to have beliefs and to hold on to them and to let their whole world be a product of their belief system. They also find it quite easy to attack those who disagree. The harder, more courageous thing, which the hero and the heroine, the warrior, and the mystic do, is continually to look one’s beliefs straight in the face, honestly and clearly, and then step beyond them. That requires a lot of heart and kindness. It requires being able to touch and know completely, to the core, your own experience, without harshness, without making any judgment.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

“When thoughts come up, touch them very lightly, like a feather touching a bubble. Let the whole thing be soft and gentle, but at the same time precise.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: And the Path of Loving-Kindness

“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

“Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

“One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we are.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

“A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiviness is bitter or sweet.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

“Life’s work is to wake up, to let the things that enter into the circle wake you up rather than put you to sleep. The only way to do this is to open, be curious, and develop some sense of sympathy for everything that comes along, to get to know its nature and let it teach you what it will. It’s going to stick around until you learn your lesson, at any rate.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

“When you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha” means that when you see that you’re grasping or clinging to anything, whether conventionally it’s called good or bad, make friends with that. Look into it. Get to know it completely and utterly. In that way it will let go of itself.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness

“While we are sitting in meditation, we are simply exploring humanity and all of creation in the form of ourselves.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World

“Whatever comes, don’t push it away. When it goes, do not grieve.”
― Mooji

“Feelings are just visitors, let them come and go.”
― Mooji

“If you make human company too important you will not discover your true Self. Relationships not based in truth are never entirely reliable and are rarely enduring.
Taking time to discover yourself is the best use of time.
Prioritize this.
One should not excessively seek partners or friends, one should seek to know and be oneself. As you begin to awaken to the Truth, you start noticing how well life flows by itself and how well you are cared for. Life supports the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs of the one who is open to self-discovery. Trust opens your eyes to the recognition of this. Surrender allows you to merge in your own eternal being.”
― Mooji

“Surrender is not a weakness it is strength.It takes tremendous strength to surrender life to the supreme - to the cosmic unfolding.”
― Mooji

“I don’t have to be anything at all. I don’t even have to be myself, because there is no such thing as not being myself. I am inescapably myself.”
― Mooji

“much-anticipated, long-awaited epiphany is actually a brief, quiet, simple shift in perspective from the one who is looking for That, to the recognition that it is That which is looking.”
― Robert Wolfe, Awakening to Infinite Presence: The Clarity of Self-realization

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
― C.G. Jung

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
― C.G. Jung

“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”
― Carl Gustav Jung