"Like a blind man fumbling in garbage Happens to find a rare and precious gem, Likewise I have discovered The jewel of the precious Bodhimind. Thus was found this supreme ambrosia to dispel The Lord of death, destroyer of life; An inexhaustible treasure able to cure The poverty of all sentient beings."
Shantideva was an 8th-century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar at the mahavihara of Nalanda He was an adherent of the Maadhyamaka philosophy of Naagaarjuna Abhayadatta Sri also lists Shantideva as one of the eighty-four mahasiddhas and is known as Bhusuku Pa (布苏固巴)
"The Spirit of Awakening is known to be of two kinds: the spirit of aspiring for Awakening, and the spirit of venturing toward awakening. Just as one perceives the difference between a person who yearns to travel and a traveler, so do the learned recognize the corresponding difference between these two."
"May the slander, harm And all forms of abuse That anyone should direct towards me Act as a cause of their enlightenment."
"Just as a blind man might find a jewel amongst heaps of rubbish, so this Spirit of Awakening has somehow arisen in me."
"Thus today in the presence of all awakened Ones I invite every living being to this festival Giving both immediate and lasting joy. May the gods and all others rejoice."
"Those who injure me are really impelled by my actions. For this they will go to the realms of hell. Surely it is they who are harmed by me?"
"His the knife, and mine the body the twofold cause of suffering. He has grasped the knife, I my body. At which is there anger?"
"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
Mahatma Gandhi"we are engaged in a grim experiment never before attempted. We are subjecting whole populations to exposure to chemicals which animal experiments have proved to be extremely poisonous and in many cases cumulative in their effect. These exposures now begin at or before birth and-unless we change our methods-will continue through the lifetime of those now living. No one knows what the result will be, because we have no previous experience to guide us."
"pity this busy monster, manunkind, not. Progress is a comfortable disease: your victim (death and life safely beyond) plays with the bigness of his littleness"
E. E. Cummings"I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought."
Erich Fromm"“We need brains, is the bottom line,” Ivy said. “We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It’s our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.”"
"I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and Id rather be miserable than stupid. I am what I am."