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Clear thinking leads to Nirvana,
a confused mind is a place of death.
Clear thinkers do not die,
the confused ones have never lived.

- Buddha; The Dhammapada

To know how little one knows is to have genuine knowledge.
Not to know how little one knows is to be deluded.
Only he who knows when he is deluded can free himself from such delusion.
The intelligent man is not deluded, because he knows and accepts his ignorance as ignorance, and thereby has genuine knowledge.

- Lao Tsu; Tao Te Ching

Don't believe what your eyes are telling you.
All they show is limitation.
Look with your understanding,
find out what you already know,
and you'll see the way to fly.

- Jonathan Livingston Seagull
(AKA Richard Bach)

GRADATIM

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.

I count this thing to be grandly true,
That a noble deed is a step toward God,
Lifting the soul from the common sod
To a purer air and a broader view.

We rise by things that are 'neath our feet;
By what we have mastered of good and gain,
By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,
When morning calls us to life and light;
But our hearts grow weary, and ere the night,
Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,
And we think that we mount the air on wings
Beyond the recall of sensual things,
While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.

Wings for angels, but feet for men!
We may borrow the wings to find the way;
We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray;
But our feet must rise, or we fall again.

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown
From the weary earth to the sapphire walls,
But the dreams depart, and the vision falls,
And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.

- Josiah Gilbert Holland

The Quiet Room

And so I find it well to come
For deeper rest to this still room,
For here the habit of the soul
Feels less the outer world's control;
The strength of mutual purpose pleads
More earnestly our common needs;
And from the silence multiplied
By these still forms on either side
The world that time and space have known
Falls off and leaves us, God alone.

- John Greenleaf Whittier