Cups Quotes

Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan

To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the wedding cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up.
- Ogden Nash

Just when the caterpillar thought
the world was over, it became a butterfly.
- Anonymous

Every blade of grass has an angel
that bends over it and whispers, "grow! grow!
- Talmud

If i had known... i would have lingered
over my coffee a little longer.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It's never too late -
never too late to start over,
never too late to be happy.
- Jane Fonda

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life
comes from being happy over the good fortune of others.
- Robert A. Heinlein

Completion:
It is time for the project to be over.
You submitted the proposal, you painted your house,
you passed-in the term paper.
Whatever praise or criticism you received,
it is now time to move on to your next project.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The tyrant dies and his rule is over,
the martyr dies and his rule begins
- Soren Kierkegaard

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela

Well, I don't know what will happen now.
We've got some difficult days ahead.
But it doesn't matter with me now.
Because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind. Like any man,
I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I'm not concerned about that now.
I just want to do God's will.
And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we,
as a people, will get to the promised land.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results.
- Albert Einstein (attributed)

You don't lead by hitting people over the head -
that's assault, not leadership.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

When we are happy and serene,
time loses its power over us.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing
over and over and expecting different results.
- Albert Einstein

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world,
and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
- Norman Vincent Peale

And as he spoke of understanding,
I looked up and saw the rainbow leap
with flames of many colors over me.
- Black Elk

One whispered yes becomes the wind song over an ocean of no's.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Anger is a destructive emotion
that becomes instinctive over the years.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The way to do fieldwork is never to
come up for air until it is all over.
- Margaret Mead

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,
we must carry it with us or we find it not.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men occasionally stumble over the truth,
but most of them pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill

We occasionally stumble over the truth
but most of us pick ourselves up and
hurry off as if nothing had happened.
- Winston Churchill

The grass is not always greener
on the other side of the fence.
Fences have nothing to do with it.
The grass is greenest where it is watered.
When crossing over fences, carry water with you
and tend the grass wherever you may be.
- Anonymous

It would be insane for me to
lose sleep over the opinions of others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression
and cruelty by the bad people
but the silence over that by the good people.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Protect your vision.
Prevail over adversity.
Persevere in the midst of turmoil.
Passionately act upon your convictions.
Purposely walk into the day.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Even if you're on the right track,
you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- Will Rogers

I just want to do God's will.
And he's allowed me to go to the mountain.
And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land!
I may not get there with you,
but I want you to know tonight that
we as a people will get to the promised land.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can have no dominion greater or
less than that over yourself.
- Leonardo da Vinci

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another
as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson

It cannot be wisdom to assert the truth of one faith over another.
In our troubled world so full of contradictions,
the wise person makes justice his guide and learns from all.
- Akbar the Great (1542-1605)

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge
and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Tip the world over on its side and
everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

"Good morning!" he said at last.
"We don't want any adventures here, thank you!
You might try over The Hill or across The Water."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

USE this time of fresh beginnings.
Use it as an impetus, the force or energy toward change.
Become stronger, a better leader, more focused in your thoughts.
Exert more influence over your dreams
by bringing them closer to your thoughts, every day.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

The greatest weapon against stress
is our ability to choose one thought over another.
- William James

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth,
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over
the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
- Henry David Thoreau

Might I perhaps win my wings?
I've been waiting for over 200 years now, sir,
and people ARE beginning to talk.
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946 movie)

Get over it - Life isn't Supposed to be fair.
You don't have the power to make life "fair,"
but you do have the power to make life joyful.
Get over yourself, and be of service to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The Sweetest Strawberry:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice,
he caught hold of the root of a wild vine
and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above.
Trembling, the man looked down to where,
far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.
Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black,
little by little started to gnaw away the vine.
The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him.
Grasping the vine with one hand,
he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
- Zen Koan

When we hate our enemies, we are
giving them power over us:
power over our sleep, our appetites,
our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness.
Our enemies would dance with joy if only
they knew how they were worrying us,
lacerating us, and getting even with us!
Our hate is not hurting them at all,
but our hate is turning our own days
and nights into a hellish turmoil.
- Dale Carnegie

Life ... full of loneliness, and misery,
and suffering, and unhappiness,
and it's all over much too quickly.
- the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall

One of the greatest titles we can have is "old friend."
We never appreciate how important old friends are until we are older.
The problem is we need to start our old friendships when we are young.
We then have to nurture and grow those friendships over our middle age
when a busy life and changing geographies
can cause us to neglect those friends.
Today is the day to invest in those people
we hope will call us "old friend" in the years to come.
- Grant Fairley

Repressed anger still is anger, it just isn't expressed.
If you truly have no anger, you are blessed and joyful.
If you have repressed anger, know that you have anger,
you just haven't expressed that anger.
Go ahead, express your anger briefly,
pound pillows, scream, curse.
Then take a deep breath, and get over it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Don't expect me to get excited over
another damn thing we need to find.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

I am so thirsty for the marvelous
that only the marvelous has power over me.
- Anais Nin

No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old,
and that I know.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

There's a trick to the Graceful Exit.
It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage,
a relationship is over - and to let go.
It means leaving what's over without denying its value.
- Ellen Goodman

And you would accept the seasons of your heart
just as you have always accepted
that seasons pass over your fields
and you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.
- Khalil Gibran

When the war of the giants is over,
the wars of the pygmies will begin.
- Winston Churchill

To a philosopher all news,
as it is called, is gossip,
and they who edit and read it
are old women over their tea.
- Henry David Thoreau

I say to you quite frankly that
the time for racial discrimination is over.
- Jimmy Carter

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Inspirational Quotes

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