Category Archives: wisdom

FIVE WISE LINES [August 2026]

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Photograph taken in the desert outside of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

One can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge,
but one cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom.

Michel de montaigne

Nothing is lost if one has the courage to proclaim that all is lost and one must begin anew.

Julio Cortázar

Experience is not what happens to you,
it’s what you do with what happens to you.

Aldous Huxley

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

T.s. Eliot

If we do not possess a ‘sense’ for a given energy -form,
we do not experience its existence.

Robert E. Ornstein in The psychology of consciousness [As quoted in the Bihar School edition of Hatha Yoga Pradipika]

Surrender

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FIVE WISE LINES [July 2026]

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Photograph of a green patch between granite outcrops at Uttari Betta (Hutridurga) in Karnataka, India.

Trust in Allah, but tether your camel.

Sufi Saying

[S]ome day you will be old enough to
start reading fairy tales again.

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Marcel proust

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.

Mahatma gandhi

It took me four years to paint like Raphael,
but a lifetime to paint like a child.

Pablo Picasso

PROMPT: Lesson

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?
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Just because a message has merit does not mean there is benefit in its delivery. For example, telling a person who is on fire and mad with itching not to scratch or telling a person to not be a jackass when their core nature is jackass. Saying such things will not nudge the state of the world and can only release the puff of hot air that creates chaos — like Edward Lorenz’s proverbial butterfly in Brazil that causes a tornado in Texas.

FIVE WISE LINES [June 2026]

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Photograph of sunset taken at Moalboal, Philippines across the Tanon Strait.

When I was younger I could remember anything,
whether it had happened or not;
but my faculties are decaying now and soon
I shall be able to remember only the things
that never happened.

Mark twain

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled,
but a fire to be kindled.”

Plutarch [paraphrased]

Judge a man by his questions
rather than his answers.

Voltaire

Resist much, obey little.

Walt whitman; “To the states“

People don’t take trips —
trips take people.

John steinbeck

FIVE WISE LINES [May 2026]

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Photograph of desert dunes in the United Arab Emirates.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Ernest hemingway; A Moveable feast

Friends do not live in harmony…, but in melody.

Henry david thoreau

Avoid adjectives of scale, you will love the world more and desire it less.

Robert Hass’ paraphrasing of Bashō [National Geographic; Feb 2008]

Do not hurry; do not rest.

 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be careful of your words,
for someone will agree with them.

Lieh Tzu

PROMPT: Movies or TV Series

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Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
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Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Hustle, and The Matrix. Together, they contain the sum of all wisdom.

Baby Monkey Wisdom [Kyōka]

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Photograph of a baby Macaque taken at Gudibande Fort in the Chikkaballapur District of Karnataka, India.
the fixed boulder
 makes great shelter;
  rolling boulders
 make monkey paste:
 how do baby monkeys know?

FIVE WISE LINES [December 2025]

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William Blake painting of Urizen praying to the world he created, an illustration from "Song of Los."
William Blake:
Urizen prays to the world he created (1795)
Song of Los

I must create a system
or be enslaved by another man’s…

william blake; Jerusalem: The emanation of the great albion

Saying Yoga exists to make one more flexible
is like saying that it exists to wring farts out of one’s body,
both will happen — neither is the primary objective.

Me

He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her…

JESUS; John 8:7

The best government is that which governs least.

Henry david thoreau, Civil Disobedience

Gods always behave like the people who make them…

zora neale hurston; Tell my horse

PROMPT: Historical Figure

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Daily writing prompt
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
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If babel fish existed or I could have access to a fluid translator, then perhaps Drukpa Kunley, (or, alternatively, Hanshan or Ikkyu,) because I would like to know how that level of freedom is achieved (and whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be.)

If I was on my own for language, maybe Thoreau or Whitman. (For largely the same reason.)