Quotessence
Home / Quotes / A Quotes

A Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All A Quotes

“A Provider is not a magician. He cannot wave a magic wand and produce a perfect product—solutions take time and effort to produce... However, he will have an expertise in his field and he will use this expertise in his work. If you have chosen your Provider wisely, begin by trusting his expertise. Allow your Provider the freedom to do his work.”

“A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.)”

“A Psalm of Life Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow Find us farther than today. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, - act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sand of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solenm main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.”

“A psychic development program cannot 'teach' or 'train' someone to become psychic. Instead, it can only strive to sharpen and refine the already existing talent or predisposition of someone born with psychic sensitivity by teaching the gifted person how to better utilize their innate gift.”

“A psychologically engrossing novel about the homes we make-in our houses, in our neighborhoods, and in the hearts of our loved ones. Laken takes on that great unspoken American subject-class-and does so with frankness, acuity and surpassing feeling. DREAM HOUSE is a memorable debut novel from a fully mature talent.”

“A psychologist came to me for a personal meeting and said, "It's good that it's not a cult." There are two kinds of people, who come to spiritual teachers and spiritual organizations. The first kind is the power people and the second kind is the awareness people. The power people focus on the outer world. They focus on creating rules, ideologies , hierarchies, churches and organizations. The awareness people focus on the inner world. They focus on meditation, love, silence, truth, freedom, creativity and the divine. Often these two kinds of people come in conflict in a spiritual organization. I do not belong to any spiritual group or tradition any longer, I am just interested in exploring what it means to live with open eyes. People in spiritual organizations tend to get caught in ideas of how it should be, and in the need of the ego to create hierarchies of power, status, roles, ambition and obedience. Spiritual Masters teach on many different levels at the same time. Some people take what they can and some take something deeper. Padma, my beloved friend for many lives, recounted during satsang with me that she told a visiting therapist during an individual consultation at a meditation center in Stockholm that she did not feel at home at the center. The therapist replied, "That is because you don’t belong to the collective unconscious at the center." The members of a dysfunctional and unconscious group structure play the three roles: aggressor, denier (the denier is the role of "I have not seen anything,, "I do not understand what is going on", "I do not say anything" and "I do not hear anything" - like the three apes, who do not speak, see or hear) and the third role is the victim of the dysfunctional group. This is the psychological structure in both alcoholic families, in dysfunctional groups and in cults. A dysfunctional group is a neurotic group, where there is no real love. The core of the dysfunctional group is instead neurotic, and the group does not really want to change, so any attempts from the outside for change will be met with resistance, silence and aggressive attack. The basic sign of a dysfunctional group is that the members of the group play three roles and positions: aggressor, denier and victim. It is always easier to follow the group without reflection or awareness, than to trust your own heart, to trust your own intelligence, truth, wisdom and creativity. It is not always easy to follow your own heart, but it always leads you right.”

“A psychologist once asked a group of college students to jot down, in thirty seconds, the initials of the people they disliked. Some of the students taking the test could think of only one person. Others listed as many as fourteen. The interesting fact that came out of this bit of research was this: Those who disliked the largest number were themselves the most widely disliked. When we find ourselves continually disliking others, we ought to bring ourselves up short and ask ourselves the question: "What is wrong with me."”

“A psychology of looting and disregard for the rule of law took hold of the ruling coterie in Pakistan early on. The initial gold mine was the allotment of properties abandoned by Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab and, subsequently, also in Sindh. Senior civil bureaucrats in cahoots with prominent Muslim League politicians had the pick of the field but did not fail to pass on some of the lesser goods as favors to those with contacts. Individual citizens with little or no influence had to settle for whatever was left over, which in most cases was very modest.”