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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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Benjamin Hoff
Age: 78
Born: 1946
Born: January 1
Author
Composer
Journalist
Photographer
Photojournalist
Writer
Oregon
United States
Western
Asked
Taoist
Wisdom
Winnie
Sound
Unbeliever
Something
Pooh
Like
Unbelievers
Taoism
Sounds

More quotes by Benjamin Hoff

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Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness.
Benjamin Hoff
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Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem.
Benjamin Hoff
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Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you've got.
Benjamin Hoff
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You'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.
Benjamin Hoff
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In the Age of Perfect Virtue, men lived among the animals and birds as members of one large family. There were no distinctions between superior and inferior to separate one man or species from another. All retained their natural Virtue and lived in a state of pure simplicity.
Benjamin Hoff
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The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can't save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.
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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Enjoy the simple, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work.
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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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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Unfortunately complaining is one thing Eeyores are not afraid to do. They grudgingly carry their thimbles to the Fountain of Life, then mumble and grumble that they weren't given enough.
Benjamin Hoff
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Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about.
Benjamin Hoff
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Treat gain and loss the same.' Don't be Intimidated. Don't make a Big Deal of anything - just accept things as they come to you.
Benjamin Hoff
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To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering.
Benjamin Hoff
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Eeyore religion says that the earth isn't worth saving, anyway, and that when it comes to an end, the Faithful will be transported instantly to heaven. No problem. We'd like to see them explain things to Saint Peter at the Gate, when he asks them what they did with the world that God entrusted to them. That might get a bit sticky.
Benjamin Hoff
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Reality is what one makes it. And the more negative reality one nurtures and creates, the more of it one has.
Benjamin Hoff
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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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Pooh is able to accomplish what he does because he is simpleminded.
Benjamin Hoff
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Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line they're part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They're not only the ending, but the beginning as well.
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