A wise human being does not seek to change his circumstances because he knows that the fulfillment of God’s law—the law of love—is possible in all circumstances.
A sage seeks everything in himself, a fool seeks everything in others.
— Confucius
I did not complain about my fate and did not grumble. But one time, when I was barefoot and had no money to buy shoes, I grumbled. I went then with a heavy heart into the Great Mosque of Kufa, and in the mosque I saw a man without feet. And I praised God for the fact that I had both my feet and only lacked the shoes to put on them.
— Saadi
A sage knows what he should know without going out the gates and without gazing out the window because he is conscious of the heavenly reason within him. The more you wander, the less you know. That is why a sage has knowledge without traveling, recognizes things without seeing them and achieves much without doing.
— Laozi
A person should never feel upset about two things: that which he can help and that which he cannot help.
— From “Everybody’s Book of Proverbs and Quotations”
If a human being is unhappy with his situation, he has two means of changing it: he can either improve the conditions of his life, or he can improve his spiritual condition. The former is not always in his power, the latter always is.
Treat your thoughts as guests, and your desires as children.
— Chinese saying
Man’s unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the finite.
— Carlyle
Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness—
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks to us and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only!
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The more unhappy a person is with other people and with his circumstances and the more pleased he is with himself, the further away he is from wisdom.
