"Every moment instructs, and every object; for wisdom is infused into every form." - Emerson, Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical, comp. by Charles Noel Douglas. New York: Halcyon House, 1917; Bartleby.com, 2012. A friend of mine recently asked me: "Can a tree be wise?" It was a sweet, seemingly simple question to answer, but it …
Tag: greg hake
Greatness
"Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength." - Beecher. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical, comp. by Charles Noel Douglas. New York: Halcyon House, 1917; Bartleby.com, 2012. I believe that every man has sufficient strength in himself to reveal greatness in every thing he undertakes. Rarely is man short on the strength …
World Within
The love of learning is the beginning of knowledge; humble appreciation for reproach is the beginning of wisdom. The former leads to a more extensive understanding of the world without, while the latter leads to a deeper ken of the world within.
The Physics of Life
"For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; For soule is forme and doth the bodie make." - Spenser, C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical, 1917. Every visible thing takes form first in the invisible, in vibration. While I am sure this notion is well clothed by many other patterns of thought, the physics …
Reference to the Soul
"As all curves have reference to their centres or foci, so all beauty of character has reference to the soul, and is a graceful gesture of recognition or waving of the body toward it." - Henry David Thoreau, C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. You have two souls: one eternal and one temporal. …
Study and Care
"All who are able, may gain virtue by study and care, for it is better to be happy by the action of nature than by chance. To entrust to chance what is most important would be defective reasoning." - Aristotle, Nico. I.9. Thomas Jefferson read one passage each evening that he knew would catalyze his thoughts …
Love
Love does not entreat; or demand. Love must have the strength to become certain within itself. Then it ceases merely to be attracted and begins to attract. - Herman Hesse, Demian. Trans. Stanley Appelbaum. Dover Publications. 2000. Man sits at the apex of creation not because of his strength, adaptability or intelligence, but because of his capacity …
Wondrous and Worthy
"But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and …
More Love
“To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all …
Perpetual Becoming
“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” - Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha. How freely would you say does the voice of your Being speak through you? Are your heart and mind attuned to it? Or …
Gregory Hake 