black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

If people were superior to animals, they’d take good care of them,” said Pooh.

Benjamin Hoff

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

Owl Piglet Rabbits
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
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
As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Mean Simple Stupid
Wisdom, 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.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Lines Sight Waiting
Phonographic. It goes around and around. Sometimes it gets stuck. That’s why I remember things so well.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Remember Sometimes Stuck
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
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
It means that Tao doesn’t force or interfere with things, but lets them work in their own way, to produce results naturally. Then whatever needs to be done is done.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Done Mean Needs
The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Foolish Pooh Tao Wise
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.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Knowing Understanding Way
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
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
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
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.
BENJAMIN HOFF

Loneliness People Spiritual
There is more to knowing than just being correct
BENJAMIN HOFF

Correct Just Being Knowing

If people were superior to animals, they’d take good care of them,” said Pooh.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

If people were superior to animals, they’d take good care of them,” said Pooh.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Hoff Quotes