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 HOFFOne 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.
More Benjamin Hoff Quotes
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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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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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Knowledge and Experience do not necessarily speak the same language.
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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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From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.
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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.
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Well, it takes all kinds to make a mess.
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When we give up our images of self-importance and our ideas of what should be, we can help things become what they need to be.
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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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The play-it-safe pessimists of the world never accomplish much of anything, because they don’t look clearly and objectively at situations, they don’t recognize or believe in their own abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk.
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While Eeyore frets … … and Piglet hesitates … and Rabbit calculates … and Owl pontificates …Pooh just is.
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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.
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Pooh is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded.
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The Infinite Universal Power is more than just a narrow-minded gatekeeper to a spiritual County Club.
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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