Quotations

"There are two ways to wake up. You can wake up thinking about what you know, or you wake up thinking and saying 'What can I learn?.' That's a very different approach."

— Tori Amos, American singer, born 1963

"Whether we laugh or cry, the days are going to pass by. So why not choose to laugh?"

— Mata Amritanandamayi, Hindu spiritual leader, born 1953

"Happiness depends on how you accept, understand and surrender to situations."

— Mata Amritanandamayi, Hindu spiritual leader, born 1953

"Many people meditate in order that a third eye may open. For that they feel they should close their two physical eyes. They thereby become blind to the world. But the fact is that the third eye will never open. We can never close our eyes to the world in the name of spirituality. Self-realization is the ability to see ourselves in all beings. This is the third eye through which you see, even while your two eyes are open. We should be able to love and serve others, seeing ourselves in them. This is the fulfillment of spiritual practice."

— Mata Amritanandamayi, Hindu spiritual leader, born 1953

"There are thousands ready to die for their religion, but only are few willing to live by its principles. Because of their narrow vision and envy, they have missed the true essence and message of religion which is love and compassion."

— Mata Amritanandamayi, Hindu spiritual leader, born 1953

"Nowadays everybody wants to become a leader. No one wants to become a servant. In reality, the world is badly in need of servants, not leaders. A real servant is a real leader."

— Mata Amritanandamayi, Hindu spiritual leader, born 1953

"Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale."

— Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author, born 1805

"Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead."

— Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author, born 1805

"It's only the giving that makes you what you are."

— Ian Anderson, Scottish singer, born 1947

"Prayer begins where human capacity ends."

— Marian Anderson, African-American contralto, born 1897

"You lose a lot of time hating people."

— Marian Anderson, African-American contralto, born 1897

"In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage."

— Robert Anderson, American playwright, born 1917

"In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful.

There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful.

And then the people came along. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them.

It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood."

— Sherwood Anderson, American writer, born 1876

"You must not try to make love definite. It is the divine accident of life. If you try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses."

— Sherwood Anderson, American novelist, born 1876