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It is very hard to be brave,” said Piglet, sniffing slightly, “when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: “It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.

Benjamin Hoff

Without difficulties, life would be like a stream without rocks and curves – about as interesting as concrete. Without problems, there can be no personal growth, no group achievement, no progress of humanity. But what mattes about problems is what one does with them.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Curve Interesting Rocks
A way of life that keeps saying ‘Around the next corner, above the next step,’ works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Next Order Steps Way
As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Mean Simple Stupid
The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Foolish Pooh Tao Wise
When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Block Discover Fun Life
Whether many people realize it yet or not, man, the Inferior Animal, has by now proved himself incapable of keeping his own species – and others – alive for very much longer. So the earth has begun its own plan to set things right.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Animals Men People
Pooh is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Able Minded Simple Tao
In the Age of Perfect Virtue, men lived among the animals and birds as members of one large family. There were no distinctions between superior and inferior to separate one man or species from another. All retained their natural Virtue and lived in a state of pure simplicity.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Animal Men Perfect
Lots of people talk to animals… Not very many listen, though… That’s the problem.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Dog Inspiring Love Problem
The Eeyore Educational System sees childhood as a waste of time, a luxury that society cannot afford . . . Put children in school at the earliest age possible; load them down with homework; take away their time, their creativity, their play, their power; then plug them into machines.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Children Creativity Education
When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Belong Job Respect Tao
Sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Messages Mind Sweet
Reality is what one makes it. And the more negative reality one nurtures and creates, the more of it one has.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Negative Nurture Reality
It is very hard to be brave,” said Piglet, sniffing slightly, “when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: “It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Adventure Animal Writing
Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It’s just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Dull Information Way
Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn’t look very deeply into things to begin with.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Clever Looks Pooh
A well-frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then can a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Ice Ocean Summer
If people were superior to animals, they’d take good care of them,” said Pooh.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Animal Nature People
Treat gain and loss the same.’ Don’t be Intimidated. Don’t make a Big Deal of anything – just accept things as they come to you.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Accepting Gains Loss
A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn’t really care, wisdom does.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Clever Heart Mind
The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Problem Saving Simple
“Rabbit’s clever,” said Pooh thoughtfully. “Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit’s clever.” “And he has Brain.” “Yes,” said Piglet, “Rabbit has Brain.” There was a long silence. “I suppose,” said Pooh, “that that’s why he never understands anything.”
BENJAMIN HOFF

Clever Funny Humor
To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Attachment Desire Suffering
Well, it takes all kinds to make a mess.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Kind Order Wells
Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Phrases Purpose Steps
But isn’t the knowledge that comes from experience more valuable than the knowledge that doesn’t? It seems fairly obvious to some of us that a lot of scholars need to go outside and sniff around – walk through the grass, talk to the animals. That sort of thing.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Animal Needs Pooh Tao
While Eeyore frets … … and Piglet hesitates … and Rabbit calculates … and Owl pontificates …Pooh just is.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Owl Piglet Rabbits

It is very hard to be brave,” said Piglet, sniffing slightly, “when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: “It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.

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It is very hard to be brave,” said Piglet, sniffing slightly, “when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: “It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.

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Popular Authors

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