
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
Quoted in A. R. Orage, "Talks with Katherine Mansfield at Fontainebleau," http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XAR4yD3zcOIJ:www.gurdjieff-bibliography.com/Current/KM_07_2006_02_ORAGE_Talks_with_KM.doc The Century Magazine (November 1924)
Context: Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change of attitude.
“If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”
“Life will always be sorrowful. We can't change it, but we can change our attitude toward it.”
Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living
“As we wash our body so we should wash destiny, change life as we change clothes.”
Ibid., p. 68
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Assim como lavamos o corpo devíamos lavar o destino, mudar de vida como mudamos de roupa.
2020's, Speech during a 9/11 commemoration at the Flight 93 National Memorial
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified
Source: V. (1963), Chapter Seven, Part I
Context: Perhaps history this century, thought Eigenvalue, is rippled with gathers in its fabric such that if we are situated, as Stencil seemed to be, at the bottom of a fold, it's impossible to determine warp, woof, or pattern anywhere else. By virtue, however, of existing in one gather it is assumed there are others, compartmented off into sinuous cycles each of which had come to assume greater importance than the weave itself and destroy any continuity. Thus it is that we are charmed by the funny-looking automobiles of the '30's, the curious fashions of the '20's, the particular moral habits of our grandparents. We produce and attend musical comedies about them and are conned into a false memory, a phony nostalgia about what they were. We are accordingly lost to any sense of continuous tradition. Perhaps if we lived on a crest, things would be different. We could at least see.
“I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different.”
2010s, 2018, The Restless Wave (2018)
Context: !-- I want to talk to my fellow Americans a little more, if I may: --> My fellow Americans. No association ever mattered more to me. We’re not always right. We’re impetuous and impatient, and rush into things without knowing what we’re really doing. We argue over little differences endlessly, and exaggerate them into lasting breaches. We can be selfish, and quick sometimes to shift the blame for our mistakes to others. But our country ‘tis of thee.‘ What great good we’ve done in the world, so much more good than harm. We served ourselves, of course, but we helped make others free, safe and prosperous because we weren’t threatened by other people’s liberty and success. We need each other. We need friends in the world, and they need us. The bell tolls for us, my friends, Humanity counts on us, and we ought to take measured pride in that. We have not been an island. We were ‘involved in mankind.‘
Before I leave, I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations. I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We are citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one. Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it. Whether we think each other right or wrong in our views on the issues of the day, we owe each other our respect, as long as our character merits respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the rancorous debates that enliven and sometimes demean our politics, a mutual devotion to the ideals our nation was conceived to uphold, that all are created equal, and liberty and equal justice are the natural rights of all. Those rights inhabit the human heart, and from there, though they may be assailed, they can never be wrenched. I want to urge Americans, for as long as I can, to remember that this shared devotion to human rights is our truest heritage and our most important loyalty.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Original: (zh-CN) 学习有两种态度。一种是教条主义的态度,不管我国情况,适用的和不适用的,一起搬来。这种态度不好。另一种态度,学习的时候用脑筋想一下,学那些和我国情况相适合的东西,即吸取对我们有益的经验,我们需要的是这样一种态度
Nelson Mandela on freedom fighters, Upon Receiving the Roosevelt Freedom Award (8 June 2002). Source: From Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations © 2010 by Nelson R. Mandela and The Nelson Mandela Foundation http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/mini-site/selected-quotes
2000s