Quotations and Literature Forum

If there are any quotes about dualism or duality then where would a man find them? I had searched two sources at the library but came up dry. (The only book on the subject was checked out.) The search engine did not pan any gold but I may be sifting in the wrong stream.

Arthur Shopenhauer had written some interesting essays about his views on religion and Christianity. He concluded that Christianity was the epitome of dualism. (Good & Evil, God & Satan, Heaven & Hell). I have misplaced his book, Essays and Aphorisms.

I think a google search of "dualism" will yield myriad philosophical resources. One of the greatest, most beautiful literary treatments of dualism is the poetry of William Blake -- Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, etc. Happy hunting; keep us posted on what you find.

Actually, if you use http://www.google.com type the words "duality" or "dualism" along with the word "quotations" and you will find your treasure.

Every explicit duality is an implicit unity.
-Alan Watts
http://www.gardendigest.com/complex.htm

One thing, all things:
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
Because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
- Hsin Hsin Ming, Verses On The Faith Mind
By Seng T'san,Third Zen Patriarch
Translated from the Chinese by Richard B. Clarke
http://www.gardendigest.com/zen/quotes5.htm

Have you ever wished you could be somebody other than yourself? Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about such a possibility in "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
http://classiclit.about.com/library/wee ... 01700a.htm

Bees that have honey in their mouths have stings in their tails.
~Scottish Proverb
Under the thorns grow the roses.
~Polish Proverb

I was having a telephone conversation with someone one night, and I got out my laptop and started taking notes. This is what came of it. I've never been too sure of what to do with it. I decided to call it.....

NOTES FROM THE FRINGE

I don't trust anyone
who doesn't understand
the fact that I'm crazy.
There are only two things that exist: Love and Fear.
Anything negative in the world that we live in
can be boiled down to the elements of Love and Fear.
We live in a world of duality.
Good and Evil have to exist in the same universe,
or the balance will be broken.
But in the spiritual universe,
there is nothing
but Good.
New life in this world comes in crying.
The cries of the newborn express the essence of all of life:
there is pain in growth and change.
We create our own reality.
Any behavior is predicated on your own belief system.
A sociopath accused of being a sociopath will be impressed.
But a sociopath will actually be nothing.
Nothing but black cold eyes.
There is no feeling,
there is no emotion,
there is no remorse.
There is only nothing.
~Jon Houge, copyright 2000

Thanks a bunch!!

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Every rose has it thorn
Just like every night has its dawn--
Just like every cowboy
Sings a sad sad song--
Every Rose has its thorn.


--Poison (I think)

I learned to play that song on the guitar and I learned to sing the words.

The Twins

"Give" and "It-shall-be-given-unto-you."

I.

Grand rough old Martin Luther
Bloomed fables---flowers on furze,
The better the uncouther:
Do roses stick like burrs?

II.

A beggar asked an alms
One day at an abbey-door,
Said Luther; but, seized with qualms,
The abbot replied, "We're poor!

III.

Poor, who had plenty once,
When gifts fell thick as rain:
But they give us nought, for the nonce,
And how should we give again?"

IV.

Then the beggar, "See your sins!
Of old, unless I err,
Ye had brothers for inmates, twins,
Date and Dabitur.

V.

While Date was in good case
Dabitur flourished too:
For Dabitur's lenten face
No wonder if Date rue.

VI.

Would ye retrieve the one?
Try and make plump the other!
When Date's penance is done,
Dabitur helps his brother.

VII.

Only, beware relapse!"
The Abbot hung his head.
This beggar might be perhaps
An angel, Luther said.

— Robert Browning

_________________
Regards,
Lou
I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages.
— Bill Mauldin

We must face the recognition that what the early Christians saw in Jesus Christ, and what we must accept if we look at him rather than at our imaginations about him, was not a person characterized by universal benignity, loving God and loving man. His love of God and his love of neighbor are two distinct virtues that have no common quality but only a common source. Love of God is adoration of the only true good; it is gratitude to the bestower of all gifts; it is joy in holiness; it is "consent to Being." But the love of man is pitiful rather than adoring; it is giving and forgiving rather than grateful. It suffers for them in their viciousness and profaneness; it does not consent to accept them as they are, but calls them to repentance. The love of God is nonpossessive Eros; the love of man pure Agape; the love of God is passion; the love of man, compassion. There is duality here, but not of like-minded interest in two great values, God and man. It is rather the duality of the Son of Man and Son of God, who loves God as man should love Him, and loves man as only God can love, with powerful pity for those who are foundering.
~ H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, Harper, New York: 1951
http://www.gospelcom.net/cqod/cqodndta.htm#Christ4

"Optimism is a truly wicked attitude of mind. It is mockery of the indescribable suffering of humanity."
"If a god had created this world, I would not like to be that god."
"If you want to know people's moral worth, generally speaking, then look at their usual lot. It is need, misery, wretchedness, torment and death. Speaking generally, if they were not so worthless their lot would not be so pitiful. If world misery could be put on one side of a scale and world guilt on the other, the balance would be even."
~ Arthur Schopenhauer, according to Eberhard Arnold
http://www.eberhardarnold.com/ea/index.htm