Brian Burns > Brian's Quotes

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“The future is there... looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become.”
― William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

“Identification with the mind creates more time; observation of the mind opens up the dimension of the timeless. The energy that is withdrawn from the mind turns into presence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books, and to win, not battles and provinces, but order and tranquility in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building, are only little appendages and props, at most.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. ”
― Michel de Montaigne

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.”
― Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“Off I go, rummaging about in books for sayings which please me.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“To begin depriving death of its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way clean contrary to that common one; let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it; let us have nothing more often in mind than death... We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere."

"To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”
― Michel de Montaigne

“Desist, brother. Great men never care for the harsh words uttered by inferior men. Even if able to retaliate, they do not take seriously acts of hostility, preferring instead to remember even a little good that their enemies may have done them.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Mahabharata

“A wise man laments neither for the living nor the dead. Both you, I, and all these assembled kshatriyas have always existed and will always exist. We are eternal souls, passing from body to body. Even in this life we see how the body changes, even though we remain the same person. In the same way, when death comes, we are given a new body. A self-controlled person is not bewildered by such a change.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Mahabharata

“Krishna was the unborn original Personality of Godhead, appearing on earth to destroy demonic men and to establish the eternal religion, pure love of God.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Mahabharata

“The sun was reaching the meridian and Bhishma knew his departure was near. He controlled his mind, absorbing it in thoughts of Krishna alone. Thinking of Krishna’s many divine pastimes during his presence on earth, he spoke one final time. “I can now meditate with full concentration upon that one Lord, Krishna, visible before me, because I have transcended the misconception of duality. It is this Krishna who is present in everyone’s heart and who is the ultimate destination for all transcendentalists, including those who accept the absolute truth as being simply the Brahman. Even though different people in different parts of the world may perceive the sun differently, the sun is one. I therefore surrender myself fully to that allpowerful, omnipresent Krishna. May all be well with the worlds.”
― Krishna Dharma, Mahabharata