“Rely not on the teacher, but on the teaching. Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words. Rely not on theory, but on experience. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
– the Buddha

“We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.”
– T. S. Elliot

“Remember, genius is more often found in a cracked pot, than in a whole one.”
– E.B. White

The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.
– Sydney J. Harris

The man who doesn’t relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on.
– Elbert Hubbard

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
– Calvin, to Hobbes.

Somewhere I Have Never Travelled
– e.e. cummings

somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which I cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though I have closed myself as fingers,

you open petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, I and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the color of it

“People who are engaged in challenging activities with clear goals tend to be happier than those who lead relaxing, pleasurable lives. The less one works just for oneself, the larger the scope of one’s relationships and commitments, the happier a person is likely to be.”

– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “The Future of Happiness”

“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it:

‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin’, and you say, ‘Oh, nothing’, and then you go and do it”.

“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.

“This is a nothing sort of thing that we’re doing now”.

“Oh, I see,” said Pooh again.

“It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

-A.A. Milne

The House at Pooh Corner