Wise sayings = Cards

Starting a journal to match proverbs to tarot cards. I was introduced to Baltasar Gracian today. Love his written words.

"Better to be mad with everyone than to be sane all alone: so say the politicians. If all are mad, you'll be equal to them. And if you are alone sane, you'll be taken for mad." = 7 of Wands; 8 of Cups; Hermit

"The land of discontent is a spacious one, filled with monsters." = 4 of Cups; 4 of Pentacles; 2 of Swords

"If you can't wear the skin of a lion, wear the skin of a fox." = 7 of Swords; 7 of Pentacles

"Neither all good nor all bad. A certain sage reduced the whole of wisdom to the golden mean. Carry right too far and it becomes wrong. The orange squeezed completely dry gives only bitterness. Even in enjoyment you shouldn't go to extremes. The intellect itself will go dry if pressed too hard, and if you milk a cow like a tyrant you will draw only blood." = Temperance; 2 of Pentacles

"When should we reason backward? When we are spoken to with malice. Some people reverse everything; yes is no and no is yes." = 9 of Swords; The Moon

13.08.2008

Sigmund Freud:

"A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual." = 5 of Wands; 7 of Wands; Strength (r); Chariot (r); Emperor (r); King of Wands (r)

"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence." = Emperor (r); Wheel of Fortune; The Tower

"A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world." = The Magician; Temperance; 4 of Swords

"Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another." = 2 of Swords; 8 of Swords; 9 of Swords

"Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them." = The Fool; Page of Pentacles; Page of Wands

"Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy." = The Moon; 7 of Cups

"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock." = Knight of Swords

"Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me." = Knight of Cups

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." = 6 of Cups; Emperor

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces. " = The Moon; 7 of Cups; The Tower; Wheel of Fortune; 3 of Swords; 9 of Swords

"Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone. " = King of Pentacles; Hierophant

"Incidentally, why was it that none of all the pious ever discovered psycho-analysis? Why did it have to wait for a completely godless Jew?" = Hierophant (r)


14.08.2008

Baltasar Gracian:

"Open you eyes before its too late." = 2 of Swords;8 of Swords; The Fool

"Be charming. It is a wise sort of bewitchment. Let charm and courtesy capture the goodwill of others and also their services." = The Empress; Queen of Wands, Queen of Pentacles

"Make others understand. It is more excellent than making them remember, for intelligence is much greater than memory." = Hierophant; Strength; Emperor

"Reality and appearance. Things pass for what they seem, not for what they are." = The Moon; 9 of Swords; The Tower; 7 of Swords; 7 of Cups; High Priestess; The Devil

"Temper your imagination. You must sometimes rein it in and sometimes encourage it." = 7 of Cups; Temparance; The Chariot, The Moon;

14.08.2008

Laurence J. Peter:

"Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor." = 4 of Pentacles

Victor Frankl:

"Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue... as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a course greater than oneself." = 10 of Cups; 10 of Pentacles

Confucius:

"He who will not economize will have to agonize." = 5 of Pentacles

"Study the past if you would define the future." = 6 of Cups

"When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves." = High Priestess; The Hermit

"If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand." = 3 of Swords; Knight of Wands; Knight of Swords

Lao-Tzu:

"He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know." = Hierophant

"The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.
Through this I know the advantage of taking no action." = The Hanged Man

"To be worn out is to be renewed." = 4 of Swords

"To have little is to possess. To have plenty is to be perplexed." = 9 of Pentacles; 9 of Swords

George Carlin:

"Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck." = Judgement

"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy." = 7 of Swords

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." = The World


15.08.2008

I liked the line about the 'land of discontent' and will now look at 4 of cups etc. in another way - just in case....
The last line regarding The World does seem to still have lots of resonance.

Aladdin, do feel free to add anything you've come across here; I could use some new insights too

Ash

Lol... a funny quote from the show Pushing Daisies -

"Don't make me cut a bitch" - Queen of Swords

Buddha:

"If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way. " = 6 of Pentacles; 6 of Cups

"The thought manifests as the word; = Ace of Swords
The word manifests as the deed; = Ace of Wands
The deed develops into habit; = Ace of Pentacles
And habit hardens into character; = 4 of Pentacles; Emperor
So watch the thought and its ways with care,= Priestess; Hermit; Hanged Man
And let it spring from love = Ace of Cups; The Lovers; The Star
Born out of concern for all beings… = 10 of Cups; 10 of Pentacles
As the shadow follows the body, As we think, so we become." = 9 of Swords; 4 of Pentacles; Justice

"Hatred does not cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth." = Ace of Cups

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought." = 10 of Swords; Ace of Swords

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." = Hierophant vs The Devil = Judgment

"Do not speak harshly to any one; those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful: blows for blows will touch thee." = 3 of Swords; 10 of Swords; 5 of Wands

"Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others." = 8 of Swords; 2 of Pentacles; 3 of Pentacles; 7 of Pentacles; 8 of Pentacles;

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." = 4 of Cups; 4 of Swords

"The tongue like a sharp knife... Kills without drawing blood." = 3 of Swords; 10 of Swords

Aleister Crowley:

"I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning." = The Moon; The Sun

"The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without. Inevitably anyone with an independent mind must become "one who resists or opposes authority or established conventions": a rebel. If enough people come to agree with, and follow, the Rebel, we now have a Devil. Until, of course, still more people agree. And then, finally, we have --- Greatness." = 7 of Wands; The Chariot; The Devil; The Hermit

H.P Lovecraft:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." = 8 of Swords; 9 of Swords; 10 of Swords

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." = 9 of Swords; The Moon

"It is only the inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex by the primitive shortcut of supernaturalism." = The Magician (r)


16.08.2008

sweet_intuition said:

Lol... a funny quote from the show Pushing Daisies -

"Don't make me cut a bitch" - Queen of Swords

Click to expand...

I love that program!! especially the pie-maker and his "gift"

Bodhidharma:

"The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words.
They're not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions...
Don't cling to appearances, and you'll break through all barriers..." = The Moon; The Tower; Wheel of Change; The Devil

J. Krishnamurti:

"I am only acting as a mirror to your life, in which you can see yourself as you are; then you can throw away the mirror; the mirror is not important." = Justice; Judgement

Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati (Swami J):

"In your meditation today....
May your body be still and comfortable....
May your head, neck and trunk be aligned....
May your breath be smooth, slow, serene, with no pauses....
May the flow of thoughts in your mind not disturb you....
May your meditation today bring you peace, happiness, and bliss...." = 4 of Swords; The Hanged Man

Moshe ibn Ezra, "Shirat Yisrael:

"Love blinds us to faults, hatred to virtues." = Ace of Cups (r); The Lovers (r); The Devil

Swami Rama:

"Love and attachment are two different things. Love means giving
selflessly, excluding none and including all. Attachment is possessing
something. In reality, it is bondage. There is a vast difference
between love and attachment. Western people say, "How can you live
without attachment?" Well, you can live wonderfully without
attachment. You can live on love. Love and attachment are poles
apart. One is the cause of freedom. The other is the cause of bondage." The Lovers vs The Devil; The Devil (r) vs The Lovers (r)

Mark Twain:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed at the things that you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away
from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream. Discover." = 2 of Wands


16.08.2008