TImeless Wisdom: Quotations from East & West

Timeless Wisdom: Quotations from East and West

Editor

Hazem I. Kira

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© Copyright 2014 Many Easts Many Wests

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Cover design by Bay Area graphic designer, Susanah Pittam of MQube (http://www.mqu.be/)

Printed in the United States of America.

978-0-9904112-6-0 (sc)

978-0-9904112-3-9 (hc)

978-0-9904112-0-8 (e)

Many Easts Many Wests

www.TimelessWisdom.Info

phone: 925 212 6604

This book is dedicated to my mom, a giving soul for whom I can never repay, and to Dr. A. K. Saeed for opening my eyes to the inherent wisdom embedded in all cultures and traditions.

Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Ability

Action

Advice

Age

Ambition

Art and Artist

Beauty

Being

Boldness

Caution

Change and Progress

Character, Virtue, and Conduct

Circumstances

Civilization

Critique

Culture

Discovery and Exploration

Divine

Doubt and Fear

Economics

East and West

Education

Ethics

Existence

False Hope and Despair

Fate

Fools and Foolishness

Freedom

Friendship

Future

Generosity

Great People

Happiness

Heart

History

Hope

Humanity

Ideas

Imagination and Abstract Thinking

Innovation and Imitation

Intellect and Intellectual

Intelligence

Jealousy and Anger

Judging

Knowledge

Language

Law and Justice

Law and Justice:

Unjust Laws, Civil Disobedience

Liberty

Leadership

Life and Death

Literature and Writing

Loneliness

Love

Lust

Lying and Deceit

Men and Women

Mercy

Mistakes

Opportunity

Order

Patience

Peace, security, and diplomacy

Poetry

Politics

Politics: Nations and National Identity

Politics: Governance and Governments

Politics: Democracy

Praise

Prejudice

Quality versus Quantity

Reason and Logic

Revenge

Risk

Silence

Science and Nature

Time

Universe

Secrets

Solitude

Spiritual: Meditation and Prayer

Success

Suffering and Adversity

Truth

Vanity

War and Conflict

Strong and Weak

Wisdom

Words/Speech

Introduction

E Pluribus Unum

(From Many, One)

Never before have the open secrets of both East and the West been so close to one’s fingertips. Huddled in the forthcoming pages are not token authors from the other side of the world, but a balanced collection of unearthed gems to be found in any one quote book. Ideas born from both halves of our diminutive planet by the world’s greatest thinkers—warriors, philosophers, poets, academics, saints, and prophets alike—who reflect, with us in tow, on such subjects as the nature of time, love, morality, beauty, success, the divine, and for that matter the very words we utter. It is in this exhaustive labor of love that you will find inspiration, wisdom, and words ripe for the proverbial picking.

As a child of both East and West, I started this book many years ago on my journey of self-discovery. To my delight, I have discovered many of humanity’s innermost secrets. Each quote, herein, is a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that when fitted together forms a picture of humanity’s most sublime reflections and triumphs.

Born in the East are the written word, the foundations of science and math, alongside Confucius, Mandela, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad. Celebrated in the West are the Magna Carta, modern notions of individualism and democracy, and the expansion of scientific knowledge that allows humans to shape their environment in extraordinary ways.

Unfortunately, the open secrets—those that sit in front of us and beg to be laid bare—are often overlooked with our unease or partial exposure of the other. Overlooked is the elegant truth that nations, much like individuals, have insights forged from centuries of history, struggle, and debate. In the end, knowledge is not a one way street or even a two way street, says A. K. Saeed, rather it evolves multidirectionally.

Bon Appétit,

Hazem I. Kira

About This Book

One never knows from which spring knowledge will flow. Recently, while in the final phase of this collection, I sat down with my six-year-old niece—my little bundle of joy—on a camping trip and read to her some of the wisdom found from both sides of our global coin.

After catching a glimpse of the Eastern and Western designations, she asked, Why use only those two, how about Northern and Southern? At first I laughed. But then I found myself prompted to revisit those designations, as well as the concept of identity formation.

References of Eastern and Western people are seen in over three millennia of literature, history, and culture. The commonly used terms orient—from the Latin oriri, to rise from the east—and occident—from the Latin occidere, falls down (in reference to the sun setting in the west)—have shifted, over the years, from a neutral geographic description to generic assumptions of the other. Today, Northern/Southern delineations are increasingly more common, but often are in reference to distinctions between First—and Third-World nations.

A major problem that I encountered in preparing this book is that not everyone falls neatly into one category. I myself was born in the northeastern tip of Africa, on the steps of the pyramids of Giza, deep in the concrete jungles of Cairo. On my fifth birthday, my family and I moved to the United States. My father, who was then in the diplomatic core, came to serve out his full tour at the Egyptian Consulate in San Francisco. Having been born in the East and raised in the West, what then is my designation? Am I not a hybrid of the two?

But then came even trickier labels, including those that I was tempted to redefine altogether. For instance, which category do the Greeks fall into? The Greek Church, even today, is known as the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the notable Greek figure, Aristotle, lived much of his life in what is now part of modern-day Turkey. Since the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 by Odoacer, a Germanic general, the world has largely been divided into the Greek East and the Latin West. In the end, I decided to stay within the lines drawn out by most modern-day Western preferences. Aristotle, thus, will stay a modern Western construct.

That said, it is important to reflect upon Benedict Anderson’s assertion that nations are actually imagined political communities which dwell in a constant state of defining and redefining their languages, borders, and cultures. In truth, borders—demarcations of any kind—are claims found, not in nature, but in the collective imagination of a people. Thus, how we see ourselves today, is not how we imagined ourselves a few years ago or even in a few years, henceforth.

The final challenge I faced in preparing this collection was in determining the categories. This was a particularly difficult task because a question mulled over by a South African in the twentieth century is not the same question asked by a French peasant in the fifteenth century. Arnold Tonynbee, the great historian, tells us that history must be seen through the lens of challenge and response, as opposed to cause and effect. In other words, events are not deterministic or automatic, but rather every situation has unique challenges and thus requires unique responses. It is also the reason why similar questions (e.g., what is considered beautiful) may lead to varied conclusions. For example, the great teacher and activist, Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, argues that the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, rather they must be felt with the heart.

How then to categorize these broad subjects? The answer came when I considered S. I. Hyakawa’s ladder of abstraction. On his ladder, one can climb to higher and higher levels of abstraction (in language) or lower and lower into more specifics. Politicians, for example, tend to use generic abstract terms to speak to a broad demographic, whereas academics prefer more specific terms. As such, for the purpose of this book, I decided to climb to the higher levels of the ladder and use generic subject headings such as beauty and ambition. Finally, throughout the book, I tried to maintain a balanced weight of quotes from each side of our global coin. This was not always easy, since most works are not easily found or translated into English.

This collection will no doubt lead each person to their own conclusions. As for this author, it has cemented one overarching fact, that we, as humans, can learn from each other, and that when we choose to self-censor the words we listen to or the ideas we ponder—simply because they may come from another tribe or ethnicity—we succeed only in limiting our awareness of reality, creating false choices, and dooming ourselves to inevitable folly.

Finally, the fact that a quote is cited should not indicate agreement or disagreement. Additionally, I wholly concede that I am far from being an example of even the most true and virtuous quotes found herein. To improve future editions, suggestions from readers are most welcome. These could be new quotations or corrections in this first edition. Please submit such contributions to Kira@TimelessWisdom.info.

We should never be ashamed to approve truth and acquire it no matter what its source might be.

—Al-Kindi

We hold these Truths to be self-evident. . .

—U.S. Declaration of Independence

Ability

Ability | Eastern

Smooth seas do not make able sailors.

—African proverb

The well-being of the soul can only be obtained after that of the body has been secured.

—Moses Maimonides

The fact that the poor are alive is clear proof of their ability.

—Muhammad Yunus

Give sail to ability.

—Japanese proverb

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

—Mahatma Gandhi

If we pay no attention to each man’s intellectual endowments and capacities and push down those who rise to a high position in order to make all equal, the world will not progress.

—Sun Yat-sen

It had come out of the cover of its nest and stood face to face with the boundless sky but it was not yet aware of its powers. [Suddenly] it realized in its bones that it was a flying creature. A breath of life fanned through the lifeless frame. The drooping wings began to quiver for a take-off. In the twinkling of an eye the urge to fl y shook its whole frame and it jumped off as it had received a shock. The next moment the bird of courage was traversing space like an eagle.

—Abul Kalam Azad

Ability | Western

Give me the place to stand, and I shall move the earth.

—Archimedes

Hide not your talents. . . What’s a sundial in the shade?

—Benjamin Franklin

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

—Marcus T. Cicero

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

—Henry W. Longfellow

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

—Erasmus

The less their