When you know who you are;
when your mission is clear and you
burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will;
no cold can touch your heart;
no deluge can dampen your purpose.
You know that you are alive.
~ Chief Seattle
“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein
“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.
This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.
Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.”
― Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
“If a cluttered desktop is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desktop a sign?” – Albert Einstein
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.” (Erroneously attributed to Benjamin Franklin)
I know, I know,…too romantic, not philological, not correct, but…
…no other interpretation gives me the same chills. The choir entry at 1.44 is smashing and the o lamm gottes unschuldig choral by children at 3.01 is breathtaking. Pure beauty and passion. No words. Only gratitude and awareness.
Well,… really moving, rhetoric or not.
Keep some kleenex handly 🙂
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo
Because if you are not the lead dog, the view never changes…
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete” – R. Buckminster Fuller
