Today as in ancient times
Mei Yaochen in Poets’ Jade Splinters
it’s hard to write a simple poem.
To be undefeated lies with oneself;
Sunzi in The ART of War (孙子兵法)
to be victorious lies with the enemy.
A buddha is an idle person.
Bodhidharma; Bloodstream Sermon
He doesn’t run around after fortune and fame.
What good are such things in the end?
Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
Epicurus
Take more time, cover less ground.
Thomas Merton
老子道德经校释（简体中文版）: 中华传世珍藏古典文库 by 王弼
Inspiration enters at the border between hard work and laziness.
Lu juren in “Poets’ jade splinters” [Trans. by Barnstone and Ping in The ART Of Writing]
I will not own anything that will one day be a valuable antique.
Miyamoto musashi in “My way of walking alone” [Dokkōdō] (Trans. by Teruo machida)
A house full of gold and jade can’t be guarded.
Laozi in the DAo De jing [Ch. 9]
Writing is a struggle between presence and absence.
Lu ji in The ART of Writing [Trans. by Barnstone and ping]
The best leaders remain unknown; the next best are praised; the next best are feared, and the worst are mocked.
Laozi in dAo de Jing [Ch.17]
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred
walt whitman; Leaves of grass; “I sing the body electric”
Strong in their softness are the sprays of the wisteria creeper;
Saying of Master Jukyo as Translated by Trevor Leggett in Zen and the Ways
The pine in its hardness is broken by the weak snow.
When there is mutual ignorance, confidence indeed is king.
Trevor leggett; Zen and the Ways
Do not see the gate and think it is the house. The house is something which is reached by passing through and going beyond the gate.
YAgyu Munenori’s Art of War (As translated by trevor leggett in Zen and the ways)
Students of the Ways must see clearly that in an untrained man the intellect is like a barrister. It argues clearly and logically, but the aim is not truth, but to reach a predetermined conclusion.
Trevor Leggett; Zen and the Ways
The apple tree never asks the beech
how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse
how he shall take his prey.
The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
If others had not been foolish we should have been so.
The soul of sweet delight can never be defiled.
When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion
of Genius. Lift up thy head!
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves
to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse
on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn braces; bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest,
the best water the newest.
Prayers plough not; praises reap not; joys laugh not;
sorrows weep not.
The head Sublime, the heart Pathos,
the genitals Beauty, the hands and feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish,
so is contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wished everything was black,
the owl that everything was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox,
he would be cunning.
Improvement makes straight roads,
but the crooked roads without Improvement
are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle
than nurse unacted desires.
Where man is not, nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be
understood and not to be believed.
Enough! or Too much.
* * *
The ancient poets animated all sensible
objects with Gods and Geniuses, calling
them by the names and adorning them with
properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes,
cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged
and numerous senses could perceive.
And particularly they studied the Genius of each
city and country, placing it under its mental deity.
Till a system was formed, which some took
advantage of and enslaved the vulgar by
attempting to realize or abstract the mental
deities from their objects.
Thus began Priesthood.
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounced that the Gods
had ordered such things.
Thus men forgot that all deities reside
in the human breast.
In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plough.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measured by the clock,
but of wisdom no clock can measure.
All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number, weight, and measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
A dead body revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
Folly is the cloak of knavery.
Shame is Pride's cloak.
Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
No country has ever benefited from a long war.
Sūnzi’s art of war (孙子兵法,) ch. 2
Humans are good intuitive grammarians but poor intuitive statisticians.
Daniel kahneman in Thinking, fast and slow
The highest form of leadership is to attack the enemy’s plans; the next highest is to attack the cohesion of their forces; the next is to attack their troops, and the worst is to besiege their cities.
Sūnzi’s Art of war (孙子兵法,) Ch.3
Laziness is built deep into our nature.
Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow
War is the Way of deception.
Sūnzi’s Art of war (孙子兵法), Ch. 1
Empires arise from chaos, and empires collapse back into chaos. This we have known since time began.
The romance of the three kingdoms by luo guanzhong
Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.
Jerome k. jerome; “On being hard up”
The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him…
Sun tzu; The art of war
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
Jerome k. Jerome; “On being idle”
The wise man, like a child, can be filled with wonder at anything.
Tibetan proverb
The man who says to me, “Believe as I do, or God will damn thee,” will presently say, “Believe as I do, or I shall assassinate thee.”
Voltaire, in On superstition
The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel proust
The translation of a poem having any depth ends by being one of two things: Either it is the expression of the translator, virtually a new poem, or it is as it were a photograph, as exact as possible, of one side of the statue.
Ezra pound
The people are of supreme importance to the ruler,
Chinese adage
food is of supreme importance to the people.
All translators face two choices: leave the reader in peace and drag the author closer, or leave the author in peace and drag the reader closer.
Friedrich schleiermacher (1768-1834)
[Referenced in Twenty-Nine GOODBYES, ed. by timothy billings]
Of what use for us is a man who, although he has long practiced philosophy, has never upset anyone?
Diogenes of sinope on Plato, according to themistius
The superstition that we must drive from the Earth is that which, making a tyrant of God, invites men to become tyrants.
Voltaire in On Superstition
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.
T.S. Eliot in Tradition and the Individual talent
What’s the difference between a king and a poor man if they would both end the same bundle of white bones.
Zhuangzi
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Carl sagan (Note: There are variations on this quote that long predate Sagan’s)
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
You live off the crumbs that fall from the festive table of my genius.
Kurban Said in Ali and Nino [Not so much wisdom as a wicked burn]
To roam Giddily and be everywhere, but at home, Such freedom doth a banishment become.
John donne in a Poetic letter to rowland woodward
Lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, it is the feeders, rather, who are the lion’s slaves. For fear is the mark of a slave, and wild beasts make men fearful.
Diogenes the cynic
Tiger Riding for Beginners 