So you think that money is the root of all evil? 

Have you ever asked what is the root of money? 

Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them.

 Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. 

Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. 

Money is made possible only by the men who produce.

 Is this what you consider evil?

 

How much evil throughout history could have been avoided had people exercised their moral acuity with convictional courage and said to the powers that be, 

No, I will not. 

This is wrong, 

and I don't care if you fire me,

 shoot me, 

pass me over for promotion,

 or call my mother, 

I will not participate in this unsavory activity.' 

Wouldn't world history be rewritten if just a few people had actually acted like individual free agents rather than mindless lemmings?

 

What then is truth? 

A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms:

 in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. 

Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions 

— they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force.

 

The flame that burns half as long 

burns twice as bright 

 

Don't explain your philosophy. 

Embody it.

 

Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. . . 

If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn't we really be talking about plural realities? 

And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? 

What about the world of a schizophrenic? 

Maybe it's as real as our world. 

Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can't explain his to us, and we can't explain ours to him. 

The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication 

... and there is the real illness.

 

Man is a mystery.

 It needs to be unravelled, 

and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, 

don't say that you've wasted time.

 

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. 

The point, however, is to change it.

 

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

Curiosity has its own reason for existing

 

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; 

but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, 

so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each

 

We are addicted to our thoughts. 

We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking

 

A truth that's told with bad intent

Beats all the lies you can invent.

 

Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world

indifference

 

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. 

The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.

 The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. 

And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

 

even if your hunch is strong, before taking the leap, some part of you always worries, 

"What if I'm about to make a huge mistake?" 

The experimental drug, the impossible dream, the fork in the road;

 we face dozens of choices every day and have to weigh our options.

 Sometimes, you fail utterly. 

But to move forward, you have to take the leap of faith. 

You never know where you'll land.

 

Since our problems have been our own creation
They also can be overcome
When we use the power provided free to everyone

 

Jesus was all right, 

but his disciples were thick and ordinary. 

 

It only takes one tree to make a thousand matches 

It only takes one match to burn a thousand trees 

They say you fight fire with fire

 

We stoke the flames, but playing with fire is a dangerous thing.

 When we strike that match, we like to think we can control the burn. 

We like to think we have any control at all, but fire is wildly difficult to contain.

 And just when you think you've extinguished the blaze, it reignites. 

It sucks in air and burns hotter and brighter than ever.

 

I have to believe there's a way. There has to be a way to step off the carousel. Start again. Start fresh. There has to be a way to leave all my ghosts behind.  It's a choice. It's a choice I'm making. To move forward. To move past this. I can do that. I can do that. All I have to do is begin.

 

The adrenal system reacts to stress by releasing hormones that make us alert and reactive. 

The problem is, the adrenal system can't tell what's a regular case of nerves, and what's real impending disaster. 

The body doesn't know the difference between nerves and excitement, panic and doubt, the beginning and the end. The body just tells you to get the hell out.

 Sometimes you ignore it… That's the reasonable thing to do. But sometimes you listen; you're supposed to trust your gut. Right? 

When your body says run… Run!