My Favorite Quotes
collected by Don Richard Paladin
The following are a collection of some of my favorite quotes. This section of quotes is on cycles and change. If you have any of interest to add, please email me at sunergos@juno.com. Other quotation pages: Character Judgment Understanding
Cycles
1. There is a season for everything
And a time for every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to reap;
...
Ecclesiastes
2. There are only two or three human stories, and they go on
repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.
Willa Cather (1873-1947)
3. All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea
whose time has come.
Victor Hugo
4. I invent nothing. I rediscover.
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
5. New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed,
without any other reason but because they are not already common.
John Locke
6. There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from
bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stage coach, that it is often a comfort to
shift one's position and be bruised in a new place.
Washington Irving
7. Those who cannot learn from the past are condemned to
relive it.
as quoted by Leonard Nimoy
on an episode of In Search Of...
8. Nothing, in the ordering of this world, is either at all
times right or at all times wrong. What formerly passed current may nowadays be rejected;
what is now rejected may by and by come into use again.
Lieh Ztu 8
(Taoism)
9. Force never moves in a straight line, but always in a curve
vast as the universe, and therefore eventually returns whence it issued forth, but upon a
higher arc, for the universe has progressed since it started.
Kabbalah (B.C. 1200?-700 A.D.)
10. Everything changes, nothing remains without change.
Buddha (B.C. 568-488)
11. In all things there is a law of cycles.
Tacitus (55-117 A.D.)
12. We must all obey the great law of change.
It is the most powerful law of nature.
Burke (1729-1797)
13. We are negative in our relationships with that which is of
a higher potential than we are; and we are positive in our relationships with that which
has a lower potential. This is a relationship which is in a perpetual state of flux, and
which varies at every separate point at which we make our innumerable contracts with our
environment.
Kabbalah (B.C. 1200?- 700 A.D.)
14. There is nothing permanent except change.
Heraclitus (B.C. 535-475)
15. As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning,
so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.
Sallust (B.C. 86-34)
16. The misery which follows pleasure
Is the pleasure which follows misery.
The pleasure and misery of mankind
Revolve like a wheel.
Nararjuna (c. 100-200 A.D.)
17. The end of all motion is its beginning; for it terminates
at no other end save its own beginning from which begins to be moved and to which it tends
ever to return, in order to cease and rest in it.
Joannes Scotus Erigena 815? A.D.
18. In this world of change, nothing which comes stays, and
nothing which goes is lost.
Anne Swetchine (1782-1857)
19. Change is inevitable...Change is constant.
Disraeli (1804-1881)
20. The universe is moved by power which cycles endlessly from
day to day. Such greatness endures for all time. As in heaven, so on earth.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
21. In human life there is constant change of fortune: and it
is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all
things are daily changing.
Plutarch (46-120 A.D.)
22. To change and change for the better are two different
things.
German Proverb
23. The way of the Creative works through change and
transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into
permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
24. The true past departs not, no truth or goodness realized
by man ever dies, or can die; but all is still here, and recognized or not, lives and
works through endless change.
Carlyle (1795-1881)
25. They are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men
that most love change.
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
26. Perfection is immutable. But for things imperfect, change
is the way to perfect them.
Owen Feltham (1602-1668)
27. So man great nobles, things, administrations,
So many high chieftains, so many brave nations,
So many proud princes, and power so splendid,
In a moment, a twinkling, all utterly ended.
Jacopone (C. 1230-1306)
28. The ever-whirling wheele
Of Change, to which all mortal things doth sway.
Edmund Spenser (1552-
29. Bit by bit the man achieves success.
This should be valued but not pushed too far.
When the moon is full, waning is inevitable
Quiescence is in order.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
30. Despise no man and consider nothing impossible,
for there is no man who does not have his hour and there is not
thing that does not have its place.
The Talmud (B.C. 500?-400? A.D.)
31. The evolution of the universe is not a linear process. Simultaneous with the expansion of the primal cosmic energy, its polarization and organization into interrelated cyclic patterns occurs. The ancient Chinese sages used the function of yang and yin to describe the process of energy evolution and polarization. They discerned the five interacting evolutionary phases or basic types of energy transformation, which they designated as earth, metal, water, wood, and fire. This system provides a complete systematic symbology which illustrates the interrelationships and cyclical transformations of all existence. ... . [my emphasis]
Ni, Hua-Ching, Tao--The Subtle Universal Law and The Integral
Way of Life, The Shrine of Tao and Traditional Chinese Healing, Malibu, CA, 1979, p. 23.
32. Wise it is to comprehend the whole.
Young (1683-1765)
33. The wheel of fortune turns round incessantly, and who can
say to himself, "I shall to-day be uppermost."
Confucius (B.C. 551-479)
34. The wheel goes round and round, And some are up and some
are on the down, And Still the wheel goes round.
Josephine Pollard (1843-1892)
35. Rhythm is the basis of life, not steady forward progress.
The forces of creation, destruction, and preservation have a whirling, dynamic
interaction.
Kabbalah (B.C. 1200?-700? A.D.)
36. Rain falls, wind blows, plants bloom, leaves mature and
are blown away; these phenomena are all interrelated with causes and conditions, are
brought about by them, and disappear as the causes and conditions change.
Buddha (B.C. 568-488)
37. Do not vainly lament, but do wonder at the rule of
transiency and learn from it the emptiness of human life. Do not cherish to unworthy
desire that the changeable might become unchanging.
Buddha
38. It is an inexorable Law of Nature that bad must follow
good, that decline must follow a rise. To feel that we can rest on our achievements is a
dangerous fallacy. Inner strength can overcome anything that occurs outside.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
39. The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right.
Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848)
40. The Laws of Nature are such that things at their peak must
decline and those at their lowest point must rise up, just as the sun and moon follow one
another ceaselessly through the skies. Man also follows these laws.
I Ching
41. The last day does not bring extinction to us, but change
of place.
Cicero (B.C. 106-43)
42. Study the past if you would divine the future.
Confucius (B.C. 551-479)
43. The mind is a product of experience. It is the result of
past thinking and is modified by present thinking.
Sivananda (born 1887)
44. If you want the present to be different from the past,
study the past.
Spinoza (1632-1677)
45. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
Patrick Henry (1736-1799)
46. It is between the two polarizing aspects of manifestation
- the Supernal Father and the Supernal Mother - that the web of Live is woven; souls going
back and forth between them like a weaver's shuttle. In our individual lives, in our
physiological rhythms, and in the history of the rise and fall of nations, we observe the
same rhythmic periodicity.
Kabbalah (B.C. 1200?-700 A.D.)
47. Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its
own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but succession of
changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
48. There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times. Voltaire (1694- 1778)
49. The misery which follows pleasure
Is the pleasure which follows misery.
The pleasure and misery of mankind
Revolve like a wheel.
Nagarjuna (c. 100-200 A.D.)
50. In this world of change, nothing which comes stays, and
nothing which goes is lost.
Anne Swetchine (1782-1857)
51. The appearance and disappearance of the Universe are
pictured as an outbreathing and inbreathing of the" Great Breath," which is
eternal, and which, being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute - Abstract
Space and Duration being the other two.
H.P. Blavatsky (1831-1891)
52. The universe is moved by a power which cycles endlessly
from day to day. Such greatness endures for all time. As in heaven, so on earth.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
53. As when rivers flowing toward the ocean find there final
peace, their name and form disappear, and people speak only of the ocean, even so the
different forms of the seer of all flows towards the Spirit and find there final peace,
their name and form disappear and people speak only of Spirit.
Bhagavad Gita (c. B.C, 400)
54. All things change, nothing perishes
Ovid (B.C. 43-18 A.D.)
55. The customs and fashions of men change like leaves on the
bough, some of which go and others come.
Dante (1564-1616)
56. There is such a thing as a general revolution which changes the taste of men as it changes the fortunes of the world.
57. The seen is the changing, the unseen is the unchanging.
Plato (B.C. 427? - 347?)
58. As the blessing of health and fortune have a beginning, so
they must also find and end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.
Sallust (B.C. 86-34)
59. Since 'tis Nature's law to change, Constancy alone is
strange.
John Wilmot (1647-1680)
60. To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed
often.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890)
61. Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances;
departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions
for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
62. Man must be prepared for every event of life, for there is
nothing that is durable.
Menander (B.C. 342-291)
63. No sensible man ever imputes inconsistency to another for
changing his minds.
Cicero (B.C. 106-43)
64. Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.
Wordsworth (1770-1850)
65. Unity can only be manifest by the Binary. Unity itself and
the idea of Unity are already two.
Kabbalah (B.C. 1200?-700 A.D.)
66. One should rest when it is time to rest and act when it is
time to act. True resting and putting to rest are attained through the disappearance of
the ego, which leads to the harmony of one's behavior with the laws of the universe.
Resting in principle involves doing that which is right in every position in which one is
placed.
I Ching (B.C. 1159?)
67. There is no royal road to anything.
One thing at a time, all things in succession.
That which grows fast withers rapidly;
That which grows slowly endures.
Josiah Holland (1819-1881)
68. The law is the expression of the will of the strongest for
the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to
generation.
Brooks Adams (1848-1927)
69. It is common error to infer that things which are
consecutive in order of time have necessarily the relation of cause and effect.
Jacob Bigelow (1786-1879)
70. Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any
time is for the good of that man at that time.
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.)
71. Great progress and success can be realized. But spring
does not last forever, and the favorable trend will reverse itself in due time. The wise
man foresees evil and handles its threats accordingly.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
72. Polarity is the principle that runs through the whole of
creation, and is, in fact, the basis of manifestation. Polarity really means the flowing
of force from a sphere of high pressure to a sphere of low pressure; high and low being
always relative terms. Every sphere of energy needs to receive the stimulus of an influx
of energy at higher pressure, and to have an output into a sphere of lower pressure. The
source of all energy is the Great Unmanifest, and it makes its own way down the levels,
changing it form from one to the other, till it is finally "earthed" in matter.
Kabbalah (B.C. 1200? -700 A.D.)
73. When the Holy One who created the Universe wished to
reveal its hidden aspect, the light within the darkness, He showed how things were
intermingled. Thus out of darkness comes light and from the concealed comes the revealed.
In the same manner does good emerge from evil and mercy from justice, since they two are
intertwined.
Zohar (120?-1200? A.D.)
74. The way of the Creative works through change and
transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into
permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.
I Ching (B.C. 1150?)
75. There is timing in the whole life of the warrior, in his
thriving and declining, in his harmony and discord. Similarly, there is timing in the Way
of the merchant, in the rise and fall of capital. All things entail rising and falling
timing. You must be able to discern this.
Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645)
76. Excess generally causes reaction and produces a change in
the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in government.
Plato (B.C. 427?-347?)
77. The first fundamental law of the universe is the law of
three forces, of three principles, or , as it is often called, the law of three. According
to this law every action, every phenomenon in all worlds without exception, is the result
of a simultaneous action of three forces- the positive, the negative, and the
neutralizing.
Gurdjieff (1873-1949)
78. Humanity is moving in a circle. In one century it destroys
everything it creates in another, and the progress in mechanical things of the past
hundred years has proceeded at the cost of losing other things which perhaps were much
more important for it.
Gurdjieff
79. God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and its
circumference nowhere.
Empedocles (B.C. 495-435)
80. The point appeared in the circle, yet wasn't.
Rather, it was the circle, traversed by the point.
To one who has completed the circle,
The point exists on the circumference.
The whole world I said is His imagination,
then I saw: His imagination is Himself.
Ni'matullah Wali (1331-1431?)
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