Insightful Vision

The Miracle Worker

Observations about life from Helen Keller

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” 

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows.”

“Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.”

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.”

“Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.”

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land.”

“It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.”

“There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.”

“As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love clears and sharpens the vision.”

“The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.”

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”

“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but no vision.”

— Helen Keller, in Uncle John’s Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader, #15, p. 233.

The Present of the Present

I had rather men should ask why Cato had no statues, than why he had one.

— Cato, in A Treasury of the Familiar, Ralph L. Woods, p. 681.

….It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

     March 23, 1775

— Patrick Henry, from the end of a speech, in Ibid., p. 685.

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation.

— James Freeman Clarke, in Ibid., p. 688.

“Fay que vouldrass!”

(“Do what you want!”)

— Rabelais, in Warm Logic: The Art of the Intuitive Lifestyle, Louis Wynne/Carolyn Klintworth, p. 13.

“Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind.”

— Woody Allen, in Ibid., p. 13.

“Seek not to understand what is too difficult for you,

search not for what is hidden from you.

Be not over-occupied with what is beyond you,

for you have been shown more than you can understand.”

— Apochrypha (Ben-Sira), in Ibid., p. 13.

When actions flow from intuitive sources, rather than from decisions and thinking, these actions are actually more responsible, not less. Intuitive actions are “responsible” to their supporting contingencies; rule-regulated acts are “responsible” to the person or persons who influenced your thinking and concocted those rules.

— Louis Wynne/Carolyn Klintworth, Warm Logic: The Art of the Intuitive Lifestyle, p. 24.

….All of which is to say, not only is there no such thing as a mistake, but also you can change your past. You cannot, of course, change what has happened, but you can change the importance of any event or action in your past simply by what you do in the present. You can make it very important, or you can make it irrelevant. Perhaps this is what Henry Ford meant when he said, “All history is bunk!”

     What about the much-recommended “taking the long view” of things? By all means you are most likely to benefit from taking the long view — but understand that we mean by this the long view back through the past, not into the future. When someone is “short-sighted,” he or she is failing to consider not what the future may bring, but what has happened in the past. Such a long view of the past will protect you, as much as it is possible to be protected in this uncertain world, from the undesirable and unhealthy long-term consequences of actions which in the short term may be pleasurable. The more you are sensitive to the long-term consequences in your and your acquaintances’ pasts, as they are now making themselves felt, of smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise, drug use, sexual promiscuity, or treating people in general with contempt or suspicion, the more protected you will be as you act in the present.

     When you live in the present, you become immediately free of the stress brought on by self-recriminations over the past, since you have never made a mistake. And you are immediately free of the stress brought on by worries over the future, worries about unfinished business, unsettled conflicts, unattained goals, and unfulfilled promises to yourself and to others.

— Louis Wynne/Carolyn Klintworth, in Ibid., pp. 64-65.

“Man is not troubled by events, but by the meaning he gives to them.”

— Epictetus, in Ibid., p. 101.

“It’s not what folks know that’s the problem; it’s what they know that ain’t so.”

— Josh Billings, in Ibid., p. 101.

“Our intention is to affirm life, not to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements to creation, but simply to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of the way and lets it act of its own accord.”

— John Cage, in Ibid., p.125.

“Some things have to be believed to be seen.”

— Ralph Hodgson, in Ibid., p. 125.

“It does not matter what has been made of us; what matters is what we ourselves make of what has been made of us.”

— Jan Kott, in Ibid., p. 125.

Where and Whyfore

MR. VALLIANT-FOR-TRUTH CROSSES THE RIVER

      After this, it was noised abroad the Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons, by the same Post as the other, and had this for a Token that the Summons was true, That his Pitcher was broken at the fountain. When he understood it, he called for his Friends, and told them of it. Then he said, I am going to my Fathers, and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the Trouble I have been to arrive where I am. My Sword, I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage and Skill, to him that can get it. My Marks and Scars I carry with me, to be a Witness for me, that I have fought his Battles who now will be my Rewarder. When the day that he must go hence, was come, many accompanied him to the River side, into which, as he went, he said, Death, where is thy Sting? And as he went down deeper, he said, Grave, where is thy Victory? So he passed over, and the Trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

— John Bunyan, from Pilgrim’s Progress, in A Treasury of the Familiar, Ralph L. Woods, p. 534.

      General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias. No man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed but has been well-high appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man — the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds unless, by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in his goodness performs a miracle and sends him an Angel of Light for as assistant.

 ……

     My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the “boss” is away as well as when he is at home. And the man who when given a letter to Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off” nor has to go on strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long, anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village — in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such; he is needed and needed badly — the man who can “Carry a message to Garcia.”

— Elbert Hubbard, from A Message to Garcia, in Ibid., p. 537/p. 540.

      When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.

— Mark Twain, in Ibid., p. 589.

                                  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 imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a tap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout 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, in Ibid., pp. 656-657.

     A man has two reasons for doing anything — a good reason and the real reason.

— J. P. Morgan, in Ibid., p. 660.

Quandaries

HAMLET CONTEMPLATES SUICIDE

 To be, or not to be; that is the question;

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them. To die; to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to; ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream; aye, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death —

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

No traveler returns — puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

— William Shakespeare, from Hamlet, in A Treasury of the Familiar, Ralph L. Woods, pp. 328-329.

There is nothing more frightful than a bustling ignorance.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goëthe, in Ibid., p. 400.

If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better mousetrap, than his neighbors, though he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Ibid., p. 412.

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

— Solon, in Ibid., p. 446.

          ON HIS BLINDNESS

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he return and chide,

‘Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?’

I fondly, ask. But Patience, to prevent

 

That murmur, soon replies, ‘God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts. Who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o’er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait.’

— John Milton, in Ibid., p. 447.

To each his suffering; all are men,

Condemn’d alike to groan,

The tender for another’s pain,

The unfeeling for his own.

Yet, ah! Why should they know their fate,

Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies?

Thought would destroy their paradise.

No more; — where ignorance is bliss,

‘Tis folly to be wise.

— Thomas Gray, from On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, in Ibid., p. 505.

Alas, a Lack

         THE FOOL’S PRAYER

The royal feast was done; the King

Sought some new sport to banish care,

And to his jester cried: “Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!”


The jester doffed his cap and bells,

And stood the mocking court before;

They could not see the bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.


He bowed his head, and bent his knee

Upon the monarch’s silken stool;

His pleading voice arose: “O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!


“No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool;

The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!


“’Tis not by guilt, the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

‘Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.


“These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust

Among the heart-strings of a friend.



“The ill-timed truth we might have kept —

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!

The words we had not sense to say —

Who knows how grandly it had rung!



“Our faults no tenderness should ask.

The chastening strips must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders — oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall. 


"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool

That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!”


The room was hushed; in silence rose

The King, and sought his gardens cool,

And walked apart, and murmured low,

“Be merciful to me, a fool!”

— Edward Rowland Sill, in A Treasury of the Familiar, Ralph L. Woods, pp. 160-161.



     PROSPERO ENDS THE REVELS

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air;

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

— William Shakespeare, from The Tempest, in Ibid., p. 215.



         OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things.

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing besides remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Ibid., p. 295.


MACBETH LEARNS OF HIS WIFE’S DEATH

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more; it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

— William Shakespeare, from Macbeth, in Ibid., p. 295.

Rectitude vs. Attitude

This is the final test of a gentleman:

his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.

— William Lyon Phelps, in A Treasury of the Familiar, Ralph L. Woods, p. 9.

             ARABIAN PROVERBS

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not,

            He is a fool — shun him; 

He who knows not and knows he knows not,

            He is simple — teach him;

 He who knows and knows not he knows.

            He is asleep — wake him;

He who knows and knows he knows,

            He is wise; follow him.
— In Ibid., p. 17.

AS THE TWIG IS BENT

 ‘Tis education forms the common mind;
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

— Alexander Pope, from Moral Essays, in Ibid., p. 41.

RETRIBUTION           

 Though the mills of God grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience he stands waiting,

With exactness grinds he all.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in Ibid., p. 87.

          INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gait,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

— William Earnest Henley, in Ibid., p. 97.

            MAN PROPOSES

 Man proposes, but God disposes.

When he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.

Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.

— Thomas à Kempis, from Imitation of Christ, in Ibid., p. 173.

Thinking Beyond a Head

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

— Marcel Proust, in Life 101, John-Rogers & Peter McWilliams, p. 6. 

Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
— Tallulah Bankhead, in Ibid., p. 26. 

     As John Kenneth Galbraith pointed out, “Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

     Firmness of mind, to a point, is a good thing. It keeps us from being wishy-washy, swayed by every new bit of information that comes our way. Carried beyond a certain point, however, the mind becomes closed to any new information from any source. The closed mind is, obviously, not open to learning. Learning is the assimilation and integration of new ideas, concepts and behaviors.

— John-Rogers & Peter McWilliams, Life 101, p. 31.

     As humans, we seem to be the students of the people who know more than we do, doers with the people who know just about as much as we do, and teachers of the people who know less than we do. Life is a process of learning, doing and teaching.

— John-Rogers & Peter McWilliams, in Ibid., p. 343.

Life is a long lesson in humility.

— James M. Barrie, in The Portable Curmudgeon Redux, Jon Winokur, p. 192.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

— Mark Twain, in Ibid., p. 192.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

— Samuel Johnson, in Ibid., p. 197.

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

— Bertrand Russell, in Ibid., p. 317.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

— Leo Tolstoy, in Ibid., p. 317.

     Innovation is often thought of as creativity. But as Harvard Professor Theodore Levitt points out, the difference between creativity and innovation is the difference between thinking about getting things done in the world and getting things done. Says Professor Levitt, “Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new things.”

—Michael E. Gerber, The E Myth, pp. 73-74.

     Reality only exists in someone’s perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, conclusions — whatever you wish to call those positions of the mind from which all expectations arise — and nowhere else.

     So the famous dictum which says, “Find a need and fill it” is, in fact, inaccurate. It should say, “Find a perceived need and fill it.” Because if your customer doesn’t perceive he needs something, he doesn’t, even if he actually does. Get it?

—Michael E. Gerber, Ibid., p. 138.

Still Here

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
— Lenny Bruce, in David Schiller, The Little Zen Companion, p. 20.

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
— Leonard Cohen, in Ibid., p. 26.

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
— Dogen, in Ibid., p. 28.

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
— Robert M. Pirsig, in Ibid., p. 28.


                THE SECRET SITS

We dance around in a ring and suppose,
But the secret sits in the middle and knows.
— Robert Frost, in Ibid., p. 29.

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while
A great wind is bearing me across the sky.
— Ojibwa Saying, in Ibid., p. 43.

The map is not the territory.
— Alfred Korzbyski, in Ibid., p. 67.

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
— Walker Percy, in Ibid., p. 68.

If you seek, how is that different from pursuing sound and form? If you don't seek, how are you different from earth, wood or stone? You must seek without seeking.
— Wu-men, in Ibid., p. 69.

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
— Gauguin, inscription on one of his paintings,  in Ibid., p. 70.

In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
— Yun-men, in Ibid., p. 71.

     If you want to understand Zen easily, just be mindless, wherever you are, twenty-four hours a day, until you spontaneously merge with the Way.
     This is what an ancient worthy called "The mind not touching things, the steps not placed anywhere."
— Ying-an, in Ibid., p. 82.

The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon.
— Franz Kafka, in Ibid., p. 83.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.
— Basho, in Ibid., p. 107.

God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through.
— Paul Valéry, in Ibid., p. 176.

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.
— Tao Te Ching, in Ibid., p. 178.

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes — ah, that is where the art resides!
— Artur Schnable, in Ibid., p. 179.

Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.
— Simone Weil, in Ibid., p. 192.

Ten years' searching in the deep forest
Today great laughter at the edge of the lake.
— Soen, in Ibid., p. 193.

When a fish swims, it swims on and on, and there is no end to the water. When a bird flies, it flies on and on, and there is no end to the sky. There was never a fish that swam out of the water, or a bird that flew out of the sky. When they need a little water or sky, they use just a little; when they need a lot, they use a lot. Thus they use all of it at every moment, and in every place they have perfect freedom.
— Dogen, in Ibid., p. 216.

Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humors, is also such a garden or such a pond.
— Leibniz, in Ibid., p. 218.

As is the human body,
   so is the cosmic body.
As is the human mind,
   so is the cosmic mind.
As is the microcosm,
   so is the macrocosm.
As is the atom,
   so is the universe.
— The Upanishads, in Ibid., p. 219.

One real world is enough.
— Santayana, in Ibid., p. 228.

Each molecule preaches perfect law,
Each moment chants true sutra:
The most fleeting thought is timeless,
A single hair's enough to stir the sea.
— Shutaku, in Ibid., p. 229.

1. Out of clutter, find simplicity.
2. From discord, find harmony.
3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
— Albert Einstein, three rules of work,  in Ibid., p. 300.

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.
— Shunryu Suzuki, in Ibid., p. 301.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
— H. L. Mencken, in Ibid., p. 324.

You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
— G. K. Chesterton, in Ibid., p. 354.

Holding Pattern

You should have seen March's blogs — they were the best yet!

(April Fools!)

Live Teaching

….He had already explained these things to his Moscow pupils in 1916, and here we have Ouspensky’s very precise account.

‘You must understand’, he said, ‘that every real religion, that is, one that has been created by learned people for a definite aim, consists of two parts. One part teaches what is to be done. This part becomes common knowledge and in the course of time is distorted and departs from the original. The other part teaches how to do what the first part teaches. This part is preserved in secret in special schools and with its help it is always possible to rectify what has been distorted in the first part or to restore it to what has been forgotten.
     Without this second part there can be no knowledge or religion or in any case such knowledge would be incomplete and very subjective.
     This secret part exists in Christianity as well as in other religions and it teaches how to carry out the percepts of Christ and what they really mean.’

What is the fundamental sound which emerges from words like these?

Blessed is he who has a soul. Blessed is he who has none, but woe to him who has it in embryo.

Today exists to repair yesterday and to prepare for tomorrow.

Those who have not sown anything during their responsible life will have nothing to reap in the future.

All life is a representation of God. He who sees the representation will see what is represented . . . He who does not love life does not love God.

     How often he voiced the idea that there are only two ways of freeing the man (not yet born) from the animal (who carried the man in embryo); conscious labour and suffering voluntarily undertaken.
     This was the Alpha and the Omega of his teaching, his final message, the bottle which he cast upon the waters, before disappearing into the ocean.
     One would have to be deaf and blind not to recognize that this thought and the Christian tradition are identical in essence.
— René Zuber, Who Are You Monsieur Gurdjieff?, pp. 37-39.


     This game could be formulated thus: try (to win). Just as you are, here, immediately, take stock of yourself, discover who you are.
     The newborn child, in the first few moments when he lies, all unseeing, in his mother’s arms, does not question anything yet. As soon as he opens his eyes he will begin to do so. Since everything ends in suffering, decay, and finally death, to shut him up in a sheep-pen, behind the thick walls of reassuring ideologies, would only serve to deceive him. Let him rather hear the tigers that are always prowling outside those walls. They at least are real.
     If the innocent escapes the ‘massacre of the innocents’ or, in other words, the bludgeoning of virtue by vice, if he keeps his heart pure in spite of the wickedness, deceit and violence which hold sway in this world, he will be given as a counterweapon the magic word, the cunning, thanks to which he will triumph. The Bible, the Thousand and One Nights, fables, legends, fairy tales and myths (from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska) abound with stories of this kind. The forces of evil are destroyed or reduced to slavery by the patience and slyness of the weakest.
     This is why Gurdjieff once called his teaching the way of the sly man.
     I believe he cared too much for human beings to dupe them with the promise of ‘entering heaven with their boots on’. His slyness was directed against all forms of what he calls ‘auto-satisfaction’, in particular against that of the man who, having found a guru, falls in behind him, ceases all effort and abandons the use of any critical faculty.
     He came to waken man, if it is not too late, by reminding him of his dignity — not to anaesthetize him.
     Some people saw him as Merlin the Magician, others as the Devil, and these are only two of the many aspects of himself that he was able to present.
     In order to meet his eye one would have needed both the candid, defenceless gaze of the newborn babe and the keen eye of the hunter alone in the bush, who is attentive to the slightest sign.
— René Zuber, in Ibid., pp. 63-64.