Legacy Quotes

“Most of my opinions are not as informed and well rounded as I would like. I have to be humble enough to accept that I don’t know enough. If my goal is to understand something true, then being challenged is a good thing. We need to be challenged occasionally and to get out of the echo chamber that is your own philosophical group or your own confirmation biased mind. The alternative is to only be able to hear one narrative and for those who oppose that narrative to be silenced, or to have uncivil debate by two polar opposite opinions. Truth is usually found to be hidden in a field of nuance and, as Albert Maysles said, “Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“My heart beats with you,
Love runs red throughout my veins,
Making me alive

SA Node - Haiku”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“We met our love in the February air
And the lives we had before,
They began to tear”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“We never fully move on,
We leave a piece of ourselves behind
Like leaves and trunks molded into the earth
And forest floor, we give what we know
And others take it up and use it to grow.

I stand under the shade of giants.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“If you haven’t learned something
From periods of suffering,
If you haven’t wrung the juices
Of your own pain and drank them
For your own nourishment,
You have wasted your experience
And missed the chance
To expand the capacity
For being stronger the next time
That these seasons arrive at your door.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“In order to think through things clearly, we need other opinions and viewpoints in order to navigate into the nuance. We need civil debate to present opposing viewpoints and point out our blind spots. We need the ability to speak freely and civilly to one another.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“To the poet,
Every act is poetry;
From cutting the grass,
To cleaning a headstone.
From walking,
To breathing.

Every act is something worth holding
In the mind’s eye and letting go
Onto paper or into the imperfect
Reflective stream of memory.

Every act done simply,
Reminding them of their place here
And the impermanence
Of experience and of the moment.

No matter the situation,
“Yes, and this too is beautiful.”
Is the mantra.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“I end where you begin
And begin where you end;
You are my Earth’s horizon
And the axis on which it spins”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“You know that all I have
Is all that we are

So hold me close tonight
Underneath a billion stars”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“I stole your heart in the back of your Rogue,
With only the moon as our light,
In our special place that nobody knows,
Our love was born in the night,
Incandescent feelings between us,
We felt our bodies ignite”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“I left behind
Believing in things I can’t see,
Now I find
Myself being lost
In the way you look at me,
Green eyes like eternity
Something like a deity,
I lose myself
And find all that we could be”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“To the poet,
Every act is poetry;
From cutting the grass,
To cleaning a headstone.
From walking,
To breathing...

...No matter the situation,
“Yes, and this too is beautiful.”
Is the mantra.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“To know your mind,
you need a little distance.
You need to be a step or two away
and be able to notice
what your mind is doing
without being so lost or involved in it
that you can’t see it.
It’s like trying to see your eyes.
If you want to see yourself,
you need to create some space,
you need a mirror.
Stillness, mindfulness, meditation:
these are the mirrors.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“Life is lived only in this moment.
If I am distracted or lost in thought,
I miss my life.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“We walk from darkness to light,
From light back to darkness again,
From unknown to known,
Known back to unknown”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“I hope I am more kind, patient, mindful, and forgiving than any previous days’ version.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“Surgical Talk

As we look at the insides of humans,
We find the inside of ourselves
And each other.
What lies beneath us?
What do we believe
About the world and our place in it?
We cut down layer upon layer
And dissect the inner life.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“It is said of the Dalai Lama that when he stops to talk to you, for that moment, he makes you feel that you are the most important thing in his life, you have his full attention.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“Words are like seconds,
You will never get them back
Once they have come forth and left.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“Where does my next thought come from?
Hold your next thought as long as you can,
Try it.
It’s like holding water in your hands.
Like holding fog.
Allusory.
A new one springs up
From the nowhere
And dissipates as quickly.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“What are you left with
When you notice your thoughts
Without being entangled in their web?

The present

This”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“Buy the toilet paper;
Bye to the life you knew before;
By tomorrow,
The storefronts will be closed down.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“Times of suffering will come, use them
To grow into a better version of yourself.
Use the dirt to grow flowers. Let the storm water them. Watch them grow in the sunshine.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“I no longer pray,
Nothing left ‘outside’ to pray to,
Now I look inside

Inside - Haiku”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“When I lose sight of her,
when I reach for an iPhone
first thing in the morning
instead of her hand;
When I look at screens
before I see her face,
I put the screens away,
resuming my morning meditations
on the miracle of waking up beside her.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy

“A three year journey
has caused us suffering and pain
but we have grown stronger,
bound together by patience, determination,
trials, pain, perseverance, suffering, and love.
When I say, “I love you”
this part is bound up into that statement.
This is has been trial by fire,
purification by fire, our love is gold.”
― Eric Overby, Legacy