Thought for the day IV

Use this topic to discuss themes not related to martial arts. Everyone needs to chat sometimes, discuss some personal ideas, maybe talk about movies or music, please use this topic for that, so we can keep all other themes on the Martial Arts topic.

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Postby yat_chum » Sun Mar 01, 2009 4:23 am

The Blind Men and the Elephant
John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a WALL!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho, what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a SPEAR!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a SNAKE!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he:
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a TREE!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a FAN!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a ROPE!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
yijing zhidong

use stillness to overcome movement
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Postby yat_chum » Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:29 am

"Keep five yards from a carriage, ten yards from a horse, and a hundred yards from an elephant; but the distance one should keep from a wicked man cannot be measured."
Indian Proverb
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Postby yat_chum » Tue Mar 03, 2009 2:15 am

"Trumpet in a herd of elephants; crow in the company of cocks; bleat in a flock of goats."
Malayan Proverb
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Postby yat_chum » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:23 am

"It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish."
Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC)
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Postby yat_chum » Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:03 am

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
Sun-tzu (~400 BC), The Art of War. Strategic Assessments
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Postby yat_chum » Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:45 pm

"Know thyself."
Thales (635 BC - 543 BC), (The Seven Sages) from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
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Postby yat_chum » Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:41 am

"If"

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
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Postby yat_chum » Sun Mar 08, 2009 4:17 am

“Test all things; hold fast what is good.”
1 Thessalonians 5:21 (New King James Version)
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Postby yat_chum » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:49 am

"Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own."
Bruce Lee
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Postby yat_chum » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:00 am

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive,
nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change."
Charles Darwin, British Naturalist (1809-1882)
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Postby yat_chum » Wed Mar 11, 2009 1:59 am

"We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it."
Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)
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Postby yat_chum » Thu Mar 12, 2009 2:37 am

"Acceptance is not a state of passivity or inaction. I am not saying you can't change the world, right wrongs, or replace evil with good. Acceptance is, in fact, the first step to successful action. If you don't fully accept a situation precisely the way it is, you will have difficulty changing it. Moreover, if you don't fully accept the situation, you will never really know if the situation should be changed."
Peter McWilliams, Life 101
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Postby yat_chum » Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:00 am

“To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral you down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that training and discipline are about. So teach your mind to dwell on sweet perfumes, the touch of silk, tender rain drops against the shoji, the tranquillity of dawn, then at length you won’t have to make such an effort and you will be of value to yourself.”
James Clavell extract from Shogun
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Postby yat_chum » Sat Mar 14, 2009 4:02 am

"Practise courtesy and rightousness, serve the community and honour your family."
GM Yip Man
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Postby yat_chum » Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:22 am

"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."
Martin Luther King Jr.
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Postby yat_chum » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:12 pm

"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
Chinese Proverb
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Postby yat_chum » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:45 am

"I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse."
Brian Eno, Wired 1/99, p. 176

“Computers and technology are gettting faster and faster, but when it comes to unarmed combat, the old way is the best way.”
Sifu Kan Wah Chit
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Postby yat_chum » Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:55 am

"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!"
Bob Marley

"Real strength is not just a condition of one's muscle, but a tenderness in one's spirit."
McCallister Dodds
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Postby yat_chum » Fri Apr 03, 2009 1:42 am

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
Mark Twain

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”
Bruce Lee
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Postby yat_chum » Sat Apr 04, 2009 2:44 am

"When crossing hands with ordinary people you do not need to use too many techniques, broad knowledge of many techniques is not refinement; the changes within a body are simply infinite. When skilled people compete in martial skills it is similar to a general using his soldiers: having good soldiers without brave officers and you can not win battles, having good skill in technique without good kungfu and you can not win over others. Therefore in speaking of soldiers it is not in their numbers that is important it is their bravery; skill and technique being plentiful is not as important as their refinement."
Gao Yisheng

"Knowledge without skill is useless and skill without knowledge is a waste of time."
Chee Kim Thong the late Malaysian Ngo Cho Kun
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