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How can you get very far, If you don't know who you are? How can you do what you ought, If you don't know what you've got? And if you don't know which to do Of all the things in front of you, Then what you'll have when you are through Is just a mess without a clue Of all the best that can come true If you know What and Which and Who.

Benjamin Hoff

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Benjamin Hoff
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: January 1
Author
Composer
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
Writer
Oregon
United States
Front
Ought
Justice
True
Best
Come
Clue
Without
Mess
Things
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More quotes by Benjamin Hoff

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A well-frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then can a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning.
Benjamin Hoff
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The major lesson Tiggers need to learn is that if they don't control their impulses, their impulses will control them. No matter how much they do, Tiggers are never satisfied because they don't know the feeling of accomplishment that eventually comes when one persistently applies one's will to the attaining of non-immediately-reachable goals.
Benjamin Hoff
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Those who think that the rewarding things in life are somewhere over the rainbow 'burn their toast a lot,' said Pooh
Benjamin Hoff
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Inner Nature, when relied on, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.
Benjamin Hoff
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Practically everything from hairstyles to lifestyles is endorsed as some sort of drug to be taken Now for Instant Relief.
Benjamin Hoff
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Modern man's difficulties, dangerous beliefs and feelings of loneliness, spiritual emptiness,and personal weakness are caused by his illusions about, and separation from, the natural world.
Benjamin Hoff
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The urge to grow and develop, present in all forms of life, becomes perverted in the Bisy Backson's mind into a constant struggle to change everything (the Bulldozer Backson) and everyone (the Bigoted Backson) else but himself, and interfere with things he has no business interfering with, including practically every form of life on earth.
Benjamin Hoff
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When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.
Benjamin Hoff
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Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way.
Benjamin Hoff
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It means that Tao doesn't force or interfere with things, but lets them work in their own way, to produce results naturally. Then whatever needs to be done is done.
Benjamin Hoff
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I think, therefore I am confused.
Benjamin Hoff
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We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it.
Benjamin Hoff
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The wise know their limitations the foolish do not.
Benjamin Hoff
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A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn't really care, wisdom does.
Benjamin Hoff
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And when you try too hard, it doesn't work. Try grabbing something quickly and precisely with a tensed-up arm then relax and try it again. Try doing something with a tense mind. The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard-one that thinks too much.
Benjamin Hoff
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A way of life that keeps saying 'Around the next corner, above the next step,' works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good.
Benjamin Hoff
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As any old Taoist walking out of the woods can tell you, simple-minded does not necessarily mean stupid.
Benjamin Hoff
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Everything has its own place and function. That applies to people, although many don't seem to realize it, stuck as they are in the wrong job, the wrong marriage, or the wrong house. When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don't belong.
Benjamin Hoff
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What's that? the Unbeliever asked. Wisdom from the Western Taoist, I said. It sounds like something from Winnie-the-Pooh, he said. It is, I said. That's not about Taoism, he said. Oh, yes it is, I said.
Benjamin Hoff
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Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem.
Benjamin Hoff