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 HOFFWisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they’re part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They’re not only the ending, but the beginning as well.
More Benjamin Hoff Quotes
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Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness.
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Reality is what one makes it. And the more negative reality one nurtures and creates, the more of it one has.
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I think, therefore I am confused.
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Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, ‘This isn’t supposed to be happening this way,’ and trying harder to make it happen some other way.
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If people were superior to animals, they’d take good care of them,” said Pooh.
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One sometimes gets the impression that those intimidating words are there to keep us from understanding. That way, the scholars can appear Superior, and will not likely be suspected of Not Knowing Something.
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From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.
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Modern man’s difficulties, dangerous beliefs and feelings of loneliness, spiritual emptiness,and personal weakness are caused by his illusions about, and separation from, the natural world.
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When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong.
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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.
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Practically everything from hairstyles to lifestyles is endorsed as some sort of drug to be taken Now for Instant Relief.
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Well, it takes all kinds to make a mess.
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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.
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As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.
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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