Quotes

[tulc]

Ghazal 947

don't go to sleep
this night
one night is worth
a hundred thousand souls

the night is generous
it can give you
a gift of the full moon
it can bless your soul
with endless treasure

every night when you feel
the world is unjust
never ending grace
descends from the sky
to soothe your souls

the night is not crowded like the day
the night is filled with eternal love
take this night
tight in your arms
as you hold a sweetheart

remember the water of life
is in the dark caverns
don't be like a big fish
stopping the life's flow
by standing in the mouth of a creek

even Mecca is adornedwith black clothes
showing that the heavens
are ready to grace
the human soul

even one prayer
in the Mecca of a night
is like a hundred
no one can claim
sleep can build
a temple like this

during a night
the blessed prophet
broke all the idols and
God remained alone
to give equally to all
an endless love
-Rumi (Translated by Nader Khalili)

 

[tulc]

Chinese Art and Greek Art

The Prophet said, "There are some who see Me
by the same Light in which I am seeing them.
Our natures are ONE.
Without reference to any strands
of lineage, without reference to texts or traditions,
we drink the Life-Water together."
Here's a story
about that hidden mystery:
The Chinese and the Greeks
were arguing as to who were the better artists.
The King said,
"We'll settle this matter with a debate."
The Chinese began talking,
but the Greeks wouldn't say anything.
They left.
The Chinese suggested then
that they each be given a room to work on
with their artistry, two rooms facing each other
and divided by a curtain.
The Chinese asked the King
for a hundred colors, all the variations,
and each morning they came to where
the dyes were kept and took them all.
The Greeks took no colors.
"They're not part of our work,"
They went to their room
and began cleaning and polishing the walls. All day
every day they made those walls as pure and clear
as an open sky.
There is a way that leads from all-colors
to colorlessness. Know that the magnificent variety
of the clouds and the weather comes from
the total simplicity of the sun and the moon.

The Chinese finished, and they were so happy.
They beat the drums in the joy of completion.

The King entered their room,
astonished by the gorgeous color and detail.

The Greeks then pulled the curtain dividing the rooms.
The Chinese figures and images shimmeringly reflected
on the clear Greek walls. They lived there,
even more beautifully, and always
changing in the light.

The Greek art is the Sufi way.
They don't study books of philosophical thought.

They make their loving clearer and clearer.
No wantings, no anger. In that purity
they receive and reflect the images of every moment,
from here, from the stars, from the void.

They take them in
as though they were seeing
with the Lighted Clarity
that sees them.

-Rumi (Mathnawi, I, 3462-3485, 3499)

 

[tulc]

"I tried to find him on the Christian Cross, but He was not there;
I went to the Temple of the Hindus and to the old pagodas,
but I could not find a trace of Him anywhere.
I searched on the mountains and in the valleys
but neither in the heights nor in the depths was I able to find Him.
I went to the Caaba in Mecca, but He was not there either.
I questioned the scholars and philosophers, but He was beyond their
understanding.
I then looked into my heart and it was there where He dwelled that I saw
Him;
He was nowhere else to be found."
-Rumi

 

[tulc]

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.
-Mark Twain

 

[tulc]

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.
-Laurens van der Post

 

[tulc]

Those who love wisdom must investigate many things
-Heraclitus

 

[tulc]

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty"
-Edward R. Murrow

 

[tulc]

As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of
corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country
will endeavor to prolong its reign... until all wealth is aggregated in a few
hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the
safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
-Abraham Lincoln

 

[tulc]

The world doesn't need more politics, it needs more lunch.
-PJ O'Rourke

 

[tulc]

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
-Author Leo Rosten

 

[tulc]

"If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
-Maslow

 

[tulc]

When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't
the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
-Otto von Bismarck

 

[tulc]

Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists, private militia, people's resistance movements -or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognised government.
-Arundhati Roy

 

[tulc]

"The time is always right to do the right thing."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

[tulc]

A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-Mahatma Ghandi

 

[tulc]

The art of power and its minions is the same in all countries and in all ages.
It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public
hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.
-Henry Clay

 

[tulc]

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others,
but it does no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 Gods or no God.
It neither picks my pockets nor breaks my leg."
-Thomas Jefferson

 

[tulc]

Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends.
But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.
-Bertrand Russell

 

[tulc]

We pause over that sturdy "no." At this point of
the prophet's story, it is Daniel's only word,
his only offering, to the exiles, to the future.
To ourselves. A gesture of grace, a simple
monosyllable! On the lips of the resisters it
becomes a word of worship; sorry and small to be
sure, lonely, accompanied by no grandezza, no
trumpets, promising no favorable outcome. A risky
word on the tongue. His "no" is all Daniel can
offer - and there is no altar to offer it on.

We hear that word, that refusal. We hear it
repeated, echoed down the centuries, perhaps never
more strongly than in our own day. We know, or
know of, those who dare utter it. And of some who
die for the utterance. A puny monosyllable; no
sooner spoken, it seems lost on the air. And yet
the word, like "a cloud no larger than a hand,
covers the sun."
-Daniel Berrigan.

 

[tulc]

"Everyone is in favor of free speech.
Hardly a day passes without its being extolled,
but some people's idea of it is that
they are free to say what they like,
but if anyone says anything back,
that is an outrage."
-Winston Churchill