"My cosmic schmuck principle holds that, if you occasionally notice that you've been thinking or acting like a cosmic schmuck, you''ll become less of a cosmic schmuck. And the more often you notice that you're thinking and acting like a cosmic schmuck, the less of a cosmic schmuck you become. On the other hand if you never, never, never suspect that you might be thinking or acting like a cosmic schmuck, you will remain a cosmic schmuck for the rest of your life."

-Robert Anton Wilson

"Writing poetry consists in letting the word be heard behind words"

-Gerhart Hauptmann

"But the cult of the self, which is really at the engine of consumer society and which now dominates our culture...is very differnt...it is about a kind of breakage of community...and of course this is what consumer society is about - it's about creating anxieties and fears quite consciously...this cult at its core has many of the traits of psychopaths. It's about superficial charm, it's about grandiosity, self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, and manipulation, and an incapacity for remorse or guilt. It's about presentation, not about integrity. It's about image. And this is exceedingly dangerous."

-Chris Hedges

"The blind was down; but outside the moon rose up out of the sea, and laid the silver path across the waters that is the way to places at the edge of the world and beyond, for those that can walk on it."

-Tolkien

"...when we begin to practice and to learn more, we may think we should be adding tricks or embellishments of all kinds to our practice. This is the approach of spiritual materialism. It seems fascinating and efficient to use more gadgets to run our domestic scene, office scene, spiritual scene or whatever scenes we may have. American society already has enough gadgets, but we want more.

In the long run, that approach is wasteful and creates further chaos. Spiritual discipline is not about advancement, but it is a question of undoing what we have created already. We are not talking about extending ourselves to become greater or more professional meditators, we are talking about meditation as unlearning.

We should be aware that spiritual materialism creates garbage. Some of the mental tricks associated with spirituality are so fantastic and outlandish that one wonders who dreamed up such things. One might feel dwarfed by such seemingly impressive wisdom. We purchase this stuff. We pile up one cardboard box of spiritual stuff after another. We bring it home and take it out of the cardboard box it came in, and then we find that our garage is completely filled with boxes after boxes with labels on them. A lot of these complicated techniques are just garbage that is being imposed on us. They have nothing to do with unlearning, undoing, or simplifying at all.

We have all made these kinds of collections. In fact, without them, we couldn’t come to the spiritual path. Some people like to collect junk, some like to collect antiques, some like to collect stamps. You have your own style of collecting. Some of these collections may be worthwhile. In the practice of meditation, you are surrendering the collections you have made, and that process could be genuine and beautiful. On the other hand, sometimes we are aggressive about holding onto our collections-we want to get something out of them."

-Chogyam Trungpa

"Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves. The realizations of such masters cannot be expressed well in words or by theories. The most perfect actions echo the patterns found in nature."

-Morihei Ueshiba

"All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgement old
Your answer had not been inscroll'd
Fare you well, your suit is cold."

-Shakespeare

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

-Tolkien