The Library
Every quote here has been checked for provenance before being allowed into the corpus. Each one shows what is actually known about its attribution — a primary source where one exists, and honest uncertainty where it doesn't.
When Cosmo cites a quote in conversation, it links here, to the record itself. These also appear in the full library alongside the source texts.
178 quote sources
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first six of them sharpening my axe.”
“My safety lies in my defenselessness.”
“Without the assistance of the Divine Being, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail.”
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
“In the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer.”
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous…”
“I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to…”
“A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as well as that of his fellow man, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.”
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts…”
“All truths are half-truths.”
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”
“Once you name an object, you shape its future.”
“Beauty is convulsive, or not at all.”
“One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
“When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.”
“We live in a world that needs more soul, more meaning. We, as conscious beings, have, as our primary responsibility, at this time in human history, the task of bringing soul into the world, or…”
“No one has ever become poor by giving.”
Collective source
“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it completely.”
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
Collective source
“Know thyself.”
“Does thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of.”
“All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”
“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.”
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or act with an impure mind and trouble will follow you as the wheel follows the ox that…”
“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.”
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education…”
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”
“The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.”
“The wisdom of Enlightenment is inherent in every one of us. It is because of the delusion under which our mind works that we fail to realize it ourselves, and we seek the advice and the guidance of…”
“There are no ordinary moments.”
“Conscious change is brought about by the two qualities inherent in consciousness: attention and intention. Attention energizes, and intention transforms. Whatever you put your attention on will grow…”
“Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others.”
“I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself.”
“Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to…”
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. / To study the self is to forget the self. / To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things. / When actualized by the myriad things, your…”
“It is not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and usable, we also need to build products that bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and, yes, beauty to people’s…”
“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
“If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen.”
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.”
“Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution.”
“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars not to dance.”
“Feeling the oneness of yourself with all things is true love.”
“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
“I am only one, but still I am one; I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
“Procrastination is the thief of time.”
“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in a environment, an environment in a city plan.”
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to…”
“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.”
“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.”
“Remember it's not the things that upset us, it's our opinion about things.”
“Friendship dances around the world, bidding us all to awaken to the recognition of happiness.”
“In a world of change the learners will inherit the earth, while the learned will find themselves beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists.”
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
“If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.”
“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, here and now.”
“One must have chaos in one's self in order to give birth to a dancing star.”
“Life is no brief candle for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
“Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters. United with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”
“Mindfulness teaches us to identify when we become entangled in our own thoughts.”
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”
“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
“Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or…”
“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.”
“Would you learn the secret of the sea? / Only those who brave its dangers, / comprehend its mystery!”
“The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a path to perfection. No, it is perfect every moment. Every sin already carries grace in it.”
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”
“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”
“You were born an original. Don't die a copy.”
“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.”
“One person with a belief is equal to the force of ninety-nine who have only interests.”
“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”
“Even in the human languages there is no proposition that does not imply the entire universe; to say the tiger is to say the tigers that begot it, the deer and turtles devoured by it, the grass on…”
“The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here is the place to have the experience.”
“Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you…”
“Pain is the cracking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
“The thinker is the thought.”
“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”
“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”
“They don’t want quarter-inch bits. They want quarter-inch holes.”
“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment. Go…”
“There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of humankind has achieved the second.”
“In her first passion woman loves her lover, in all the others she loves love.”
“Know the value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.”
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
“It's time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.”
“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. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be…”
“travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”
“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”
“When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion.”
“We shape our tools, thereafter our tools shape us.”
“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression in unique. If you block it, it will never…”
“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation - either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force.…”
“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”
“My work is loving the world.”
“No one chooses evil because it is evil; we only mistake it for happiness.”
“There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of…”
“Being is God.”
“He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”
“Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.”
“Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by…”
“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room.”
“Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of…”
“Every adversity or failure carries with it the seed of an equivalent or a greater benefit.”
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once, and we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.”
“In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
“Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.”
“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.”
“Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master…”
“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.”
“To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.”
“The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.”
“There are no classes in life for beginners: right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.”
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
“We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself…”
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.”
“Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.”
“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
“The object isn't to make art; it's to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”
“The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.”
“Absence is to love what wind is to a fire; it puts out the little, it kindles the great.”
“There is an Indian belief that everyone is in a house of four rooms: A physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into…”
“You realize that on that small spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you - all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love, tears, joy,…”
“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.”
“Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs.…”
“When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way... If you wish to move in the One Way do not…”
“To a great mind, nothing is little.”
“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.”
“The world is full of obvious things, which nobody by any chance ever notices.”
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.”
“Money is the visible sign of a universal force, and this force in its manifestation on earth works on the vital and physical planes and is indispensable to the fullness of the outer life. In its…”
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
“For many of us there is a gap between the compass and the clock - between what's deeply important to us and the way we spend our time.”
“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”
“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may…”
“The entire fruit is already present in the seed.”
“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.”
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
“Good design is good business.”
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
“We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.”
“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.”
“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
“The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.”
“I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.”
“To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”
“Why aren't you happy? It's because ninety-nine percent of everything you do, and think, and say, is for yourself - and there isn't one.”
“Where there is great love, there are always miracles.”
“To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower / Hold infintiy in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.”
“Believe that your life is worth living, and your belief will create the fact.”
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”
“Eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.”
“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the…”
“Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn, a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life.”
“Do or do not do. There is no try.”
“Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.”
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.”