Wise Quotes about Deadness

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
A man should do his job so well that the living,
the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it.
Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return.
Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?
- Epictetus

He who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead;
his eyes are closed.
- Albert Einstein

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet
as if they were going to be dead by midnight.
Extend to them all the care,
kindness and understanding you can muster,
and do with no thought of any reward.
Your life will never be the same again.
- Og Mandino

Life repeats itself mindlessly -
unless you become mindful, it will go on repeating like a wheel.
That's why Buddhists call it the wheel of life and death,
the wheel of time.
It moves like a wheel: birth is followed by death,
death is followed by birth;
love is followed by hate, hate is followed by love;
success is followed by failure,
failure is followed by success. Just see!
If you can watch just for a few days,
you will see a pattern emerging, a wheel pattern.
One day, a fine morning, you are feeling so good and so happy,
and another day you are so dull,
so dead that you start thinking of committing suicide.
And just the other day you were so full of life,
so blissful that you were feeling thankful to God,
that you were in a mood of deep gratefulness,
and today there is great complaint
and you don't see the point why one should go on living...
And it goes on and on, but you don't see the pattern.
Once you see the pattern, you can get out of it.
- Osho

It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

An old friend will help you move.
A good friend will help you move a dead body.
- Jim Hayes

I do not fear death.
I had been dead for billions and billions
of years before I was born,
and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
- Mark Twain

Every creature is better alive than dead,
men and moose and pine trees,
and he who understands it aright
will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
- Henry David Thoreau

The educated differ from the uneducated
as much as the living from the dead.
- Aristotle

Do not save your loving speeches
For your friends till they are dead;
Do not write them on their tombstones,
Speak them rather now instead.
- Anna Cummins

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger,
who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe,
is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
- Albert Einstein

Sucking the marrow out of life
doesn't mean choking on the bone.
- Robin Williams as John Keating
in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society

Why wait until you're dead,
when you can create your own Hell right here and now.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Tombs are the clothes of the dead.
A grave is a plain suit;
while an expensive monument is one with embroidery.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,
when he fell into the hands of robbers.
They stripped him of his clothes, beat him
and went away, leaving him half dead.
A priest happened to be going down the same road,
and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
So too, a Levite [religious leader],
when he came to the place and saw him,
passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan [Samaritans and Jews generally disliked
and were suspicious of each other] came where the man was;
and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
He went to him and bandaged his wounds ... and ...
took him to an inn and took care of him. ...
Jesus [said] "Go and do likewise."
- Luke 10:25-37 (The Parable of the Good Samaritan)

Do feuds ever end?
Only when both sides shake hands,
and agree that there is no winner, no loser,
only people who have wearied of fighting
and desire to live in peace.
For many years, Northern Ireland was locked
in a murderous and seemingly unending feud.
The key to ending the feud was a shared commitment
that peace was more important than vengeance.
That is always the choice to be made.
The organizers of an April 10, 2009
joint Protestant-Catholic commemoration
of the Northern Ireland dead,
comprised of members of the once-outlawed Sinn Fein
as well as their once-avowed enemies,
referred to, "the terrible, random nature
of death in war and civil conflict."
Some lessons have been learned, many more remain.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears,
for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
- Albert Einstein

A relationship, I think, is like a shark.
You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies.
And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.
- the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall (1977)

Bureaucrats: they are dead at 30 and buried at 60.
They are like custard pies; you can't nail them to a wall.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

What difference does it make to the dead,
the orphans, and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought
under the name of totalitarianism
or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

She's been diagnosed as a paranoid hypochondriac.
Doctors think she may be faking.
- the movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

My plan was to kiss her with every lip on my face.
- the movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

I can't go back to yesterday -
because I was a different person then.
- Lewis Carroll

Today's problems can seldom be solved using yesterday's answers.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People generally complain about only two things:
when they have less than yesterday,
and when they have less than their neighbor.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Do not say, "It is morning,"
and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.
See it for the first time
as a newborn child that has no name.
- Rabindranath Tagore

The way to happiness is what I call Zero-Based Gratitude.
Each day be happy and grateful for what you have,
independent of yesterday and of other people.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Yesterday is a canceled check;
tomorrow is a
promissory note;
today is the only cash you have;
so spend it wisely.
- Kay Lyons

Yesterday is history,
tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift.
That is why it is called Present.
- Anonymous

Yesterday is ashes.
Tomorrow is green wood.
Only today does the fire burn brightly.
- Eskimo Proverb

It is difficult to say what is impossible,
for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today
and the reality of tomorrow.
- Robert H. Goddard

Today Is More Joyful Than Yesterday,
And Tomorrow Will Be More Joyful Still.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We are now at a point where we must educate our children
in what no one knew yesterday,
and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.
- Margaret Mead

All unhappiness comes from either
having less than yesterday,
or from having less than one's neighbor.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our unhappiness is triggered by either
having less than yesterday,
or having less than our neighbor.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Which beliefs bring out the best in you?
Which beliefs hold you prisoner to yesterday
and limit your options for designing a great future?
Test your beliefs with as much objectivity
as you can bring to the subject.
Be willing to let go of those beliefs
that represent your parents' opinions,
or your communities opinions, rather than your own.
Those beliefs that withstand rigorous testing,
should become the foundation of your being -
your reason for living.
Take action on those beliefs.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A reporter is always concerned with tomorrow.
There's nothing tangible of yesterday.
All I can say I've done is
agitate the air ten or fifteen minutes
and then boom - it's gone.
- Edward R. Murrow

Touch me in the morning
Then just walk away
We don't have tomorrow
But we had yesterday
- Ron Miller/Michael Masser

Yesterday is like a dung heap;
you can complain about the smell,
or you can use it to fertilize tomorrow's garden.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Essentially all suffering is the result of...
1. Comparing what we have (or don't have) today
... with what we had yesterday.
2. Comparing what we fear we might have (or not have) tomorrow)
... with what we have today.
3. Comparing what we have (or don't have) with what others have.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I do not think much of a man who is
not wiser today than he was yesterday.
- Abraham Lincoln

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
- Albert Einstein

The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness;
and knows that yesterday is but today's memory
and tomorrow is today's dream.
- Khalil Gibran

The present is the ever moving shadow
that divides yesterday from tomorrow.
In that lies hope.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Every day is a new beginning -
a day for a new plan and new action.
If today, in conscious awareness, you choose
the same plan as yesterday, you are wise.
If you choose a different plan, you are equally wise.
Whatever you choose, choose with intention.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Have a talk with your mind
(it really is something separate from yourself).
Lay down the law.
"My life begins TODAY.
I am like a newborn.
I have what I have today;
I have my fingers, my toes,
some people in my life,
some material and financial state.
Yesterday is only a dream -
perhaps a nightmare,
perhaps a cherished memory,
but only a dream - nothing more.
I will make all decisions and actions based solely
on what I have today as a starting point."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Suppose our gratitude could be zero-based gratitude.
With zero-based gratitude,
we would be grateful for everything we had each day -
regardless of whether it was more or less than yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude, I can be grateful for all the people,
the love, the food, the shelter, the services,
the health, that I am blessed with today,
regardless of what I had yesterday.
With zero-based gratitude,
I can be grateful each day for the gift of life itself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off
until the day after tomorrow what should
have been done the day before yesterday.
- Napoleon Hill

There are only two or three human stories,
and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely
as if they had never happened before.
- Willa Cather

By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try.
The world is beyond the winning.
- Lao Tzu

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends,
of most of the people you see every day,
is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform.
- Theodore H. White

"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely,
"and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
- Lewis Carroll

The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive,
but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger

Can you let go of words and ideas,
attitudes and expectations?
If so, then the Tao will loom into view.
- Lao Tzu

In meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere
is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Love them
Serve them
Plan with them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have.
- Jimmy Yen (Y. C. James Yen)

Nurture your mind with great thoughts,
for you will never go any higher than you think.
- Benjamin Disraeli

To live is to choose. But to choose well,
you must know who you are and what you stand for,
where you want to go and why you want to get there.
- Kofi Annan

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish.
Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Wisdom Quotes