Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
~ Steve Jobs, from a college commencement address

“On this small planet, in the daily dreams of our life, beneficial deeds are always recommended, simply because we are all born to help each other. By sharing our love with different expressions and through the practice of generosity, morality and understanding, we will then be fulfilling our purpose of being members of the human race.”
- His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa May 2009

“The path to happiness and a sense of well-being in this very life lies not in avoiding suffering but in using the conscious, embodied, direct experience of it as a vehicle to gain deep insight into the true nature of life and your own existence. Instead of being a reactionary slave to the inevitable pain, frustration, stress, and sorrow in your life, which the Buddha called ‘dukkha’, you can free your mind such that you have a sense of well-being even when dukkha is present, and you create the possibility of finding compete freedom. Why not dance with the constant vicissitudes of life in a manner that is joyful and liberated, rather than feeling like a victim or being flooded with fear and stress?”
~ from “Dancing With Life” by Phillip Moffit

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”
~ Buddha

“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.” ~Thomas Merton

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this.”
-Henry David Thoreau

“Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.”
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Though I’m certain Peter may disagree.

“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.”
- Zen master Wu-men

“This time,like all times, is a good time, if we but know what to do with it.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

To A Visitor

Listen to the cicadas in treetops near the
waterfall;
See how last night’s rains have washed away
all grime.
Needless to say my hut is as empty as can
be,
But I can offer you a window full of the most
intoxicating air !

–Ryokan, zen monk of Japan