Torah Quotes

That which is hateful to you,
do not do to your fellow.
That is the whole Torah;
the rest is the explanation.
- Talmud (Jewish Wisdom)

Related topics: Values Wisdom Life Human-Nature Psychology Inspirational

We are composed of self-contradictions.
Each of us is loving in some moments - hateful in others.
Patient and calm sometimes - harried by urgency at others.
Understanding - and self-absorbed.
Reassuring - and sarcastic.
Generous - and greedy.
Trusting - and jealous.
Comforting - and snappish.
Original - and stuck in a rut.
Thankful - and needy.
Forgiving - and vengeful.
Nurturing ourself - and stuffing ourself with fast food.
Honoring our bodies - and overstressing.
Being Joyful - and Suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters.
One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
- John F. Kennedy

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.

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is well to remember that the
entire population of the universe,
with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
- Andrew J. Holmes

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear,
feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
- Samuel Butler

Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious,
and they must be brought into connection with action.
They must be woven together.
- Anais Nin

A vow is a purely religious act
which cannot be taken in a fit of passion.
It can be taken only with a mind purified
and composed and with God as witness.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
- Aristotle

Half the world is composed of idiots,
the other half, of people clever enough
to take indecent advantage of them.
- Walter Kerr

The worst government is often the most moral.
One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
- H. L. Mencken

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
- Martin Luther

Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
- written on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.
- Simon and Garfunkel

No written law has ever been more binding
than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.
- Carrie Chapman Catt

History is written by the victors.
- Winston Churchill

The very ink with which all history
is written is merely fluid prejudice.
- Mark Twain

Miracles are a retelling in small letters
of the very same story
which is written across the whole world
in letters too large for some of us to see.
- C. S. Lewis

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
We can do no great things - only small things with great love.
- although commonly attributed to Mother Teresa,
who kept a copy of this prayer on
the wall of her Calcutta orphanage,
this prayer was actually written by Kent Keith.

Life is a moderately good play
with a badly written third act.
- Truman Capote

The history of free men is never really written by chance
but by choice; their choice!
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I have never written a book that didn't teach me
far more than it taught any reader.
- Isaac Asimov

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]

It is a fact often observed,
that men have written good verses
under the inspiration of passion,
who cannot write well under other circumstances.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- although attributed to St. Francis of Assisi,
this prayer first appeared (written in French) in 1912

It is our choices ... that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.
- J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets)

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
- Joseph Campbell

We all live with the objective of being happy;
our lives are all different and yet the same.
- Anne Frank

Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe,
our class, and our nation;
and this means we must develop a world perspective.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We have only this moment,
sparkling like a star in our hand -
and melting like a snowflake.
- Marie B. Ray

"Hurry up" ranks right up there with "you need to"
as a destroyer of our humanity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

All our dreams can come true,
if we have the courage to pursue them.
- Walt Disney

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.
- Marianne Williamson

Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What we think, we become.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

We cannot choose our external circumstances,
but we can always choose how to respond to them.
- Epictetus

As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Our faith gives us knowledge of something better.
- E. F. Schumacher

Our Joy comes from living our own lives simply -
never from demanding that others live simply -
or from ever making any demands whatsoever upon others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We can't control the impressions others form about us,
and the effort to do so only debases our character.
- Epictetus

We censor our actions, but
our dreams reveal our true character.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
- Marianne Williamson

Our lives are defined not by the challenges we encounter,
but by how we respond to those challenges.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life flows - and all else is our drama.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
- Henry David Thoreau

If we don't see a failure as a challenge to modify our approach,
but rather as a problem with ourselves, as a personality defect,
we will immediately feel overwhelmed.
- Anthony Robbins

We should take care not to make the intellect our god;
it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
- Albert Einstein

Each one of us has our own perspective
on everything we see in life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is a secret wisdom-of-the-ages
that holds the key to breaking
our cycle of self-imposed suffering.
The secret wisdom is,
"Life is not supposed to be fair."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We cling to our own point of view,
as though everything depended on it.
Yet our opinions have no permanence;
like autumn and winter, they gradually pass away.
- Zhuangzi

The only limits in our life are those we impose on ourselves.
- Bob Proctor

How we spend our days is of course
how we spend our lives.
- Annie Dillard

The greater part of our happiness or misery
depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.
- Martha Washington

Many people excuse their own faults
but judge other persons harshly.
We should reverse this attitude
by excusing others' shortcomings
and by harshly examining our own.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures
is not to hate them,
but to be indifferent to them:
that's the essence of inhumanity.
- George Bernard Shaw

Let's have faith that right makes might;
and in that faith let us, to the end,
dare to do our duty as we understand it.
- Abraham Lincoln

We can change our lives.
We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish.
- Tony Robbins

Each of us dwells in a cathedral of our own BEing
that is created vast enough to encompass Unity with all creation.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.
The process never ends until we die.
And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Women are like teabags.
We don't know our true strength
until we are in hot water!
- Eleanor Roosevelt

What power there is in our service when our actions
line up with our mission, skills and joy.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal,
and then leap in the dark to our success.
- Henry David Thoreau

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is our moment, this is our time.
- Bono

Our deepest fears are like dragons
guarding our deepest treasure.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Being part of the natural world reminds me
that innocence isn't ever lost completely;
we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.
- Jewel

No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny
without leaving some mark on it forever.
- Francois Muriac

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying
about things which are beyond the power of our will.
- Epictetus

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.
And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie