Kent Nerburn famous quotes

We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware – beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Thinking #May #Moments

Solitude is a condition of peace that stands in direct opposition to loneliness. Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union. loneliness is small, solitude is large. loneliness closes in around you; solitude expands toward the infinite. loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal conversation that nodbody answers; solitude has it's roots in the great silence of eternity.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Loneliness #Being Alone #Roots

It is much easier to become a father than to be one.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Fathers Day #Father #Easier

Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Heart #Care #Harvest

Until you have a son of your own... you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Father #Heart #Son

Forgiveness allows us to live in the sunlight of the present, not the darkness of the past. Forgiveness alone, of all our human actions, opens up the world to the miracle of infinite possibility.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Past #Miracle #Darkness

Forgiveness is an embrace, across all barriers, against all odds, in defiance of all that is mean and petty and vindictive and cruel in this life.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Mean #Odds #Embrace

Something precious is lost if we rush headlong into the details of life without pausing for a moment to pay homage to the mystery of life and the gift of another day.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Details #Pay #Pausing

Love has its own time, its own season, and its own reasons from coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Love #Giving #Reason

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Children #August #Fields

The human being is a surprisingly resilient organism. We are impelled toward health not sickness. Your spirit, as surely as your body, will try to heal....So you should not fear tragedy and suffering. Like love, they make you more a part of the human family. From them can come your greatest creativity. They are the fire that burns you pure.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Creativity #Fire #Suffering

It is not our task to judge the worthiness of our path; it is our task to walk our path with worthiness.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Judging #Tasks #Path

Money is central to our lives. Yet money is not of central importance. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the lasting values that make life worth living.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Life #Importance #Lasting

Remember that you don't choose love. Love chooses you. All you can really do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing, then reach out and give it away.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Love #Dream #Giving

Until you have a son of your own . . . you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass something good and hopeful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to be.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Dad #Father #Heart

The true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Share

The power of this experience [fatherhood] can never be explained. It is one of those joyful codings that rumbles in the species far below understanding. When it is experienced it makes you one with all men in a way that fills you with warmth and harmony.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Men #Understanding #Fatherhood

My fatherhood made me understand my parents and to honor them more for the love they gave. My sonhood was revealed to me in its own perfection and I understood the reason the Chinese so value filiality, the responsibility of the son to honor the parents.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Responsibility #Son #Perfection

It is the same for all men. None of us can escape this shadow of the father, even if that shadow fills us with fear, even if it has no name or face. To be worthy of that man, to prove something to that man, to exorcise the memory of that man from every corner of our life--however it affects us, the shadow of that man cannot be denied.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Memories #Father #Men

I want you to consider this distinction as you go forward in life. Being male is not enough; being a man is a right to be earned and an honor to be cherished. I cannot tell you how to earn that right or deserve that honor. . . but I can tell you that the formation of your manhood must be a conscious act governed by the highest vision of the man you want to be.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Men #Honor #Vision

Like children, the elders are a burden. But unlike children, they offer no hope or promise. They are a weight and an encumbrance and a mirror of our own mortality. It takes a person of great heart to see past this fact and to see the wisdom the elders have to offer, and so serve them out of gratitude for the life they have passed on to us.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Gratitude #Children #Heart

In times past there were rituals of passage that conducted a boy into manhood, where other men passed along the wisdom and responsibilities that needed to be shared. But today we have no rituals. We are not conducted into manhood; we simply find ourselves there.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Responsibility #Boys #Past

Great joys make us love the world. Great sadnesses make us understand the world.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Healing #Sadness #Joy

When you give of yourself something new comes in to being... the world expands, a bit of goodness is brought forth and a small miracle occurs. You must never underestimate this miracle. Too many good people think they have to become Mother Teresa or Albert Schweitzer, or even Santa Claus, and perform great acts if they are to be givers. They don't see the simple openings of the heart that can be practiced anywhere with almost anyone.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Mother #Heart #Simple

We humans are destined to live with our feet on the earth and our heads in the heavens, and we can never be at peace because we are pulled both ways.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Feet #Heaven #Earth

Life is an endlessly creative experience, and we are shaping ourselves at every moment by every decision we make.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Choices #Creative #Decision

Do not fall prey to the false belief that mastery and domination are synonymous with manliness.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Fall #Mastery #Belief

...Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed. Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out. It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Giving Up #Selfish #Fighting

When all the words have been written, and all the phrases have been spoken, the great mystery of life will still remain. We may map the terrains of our lives, measure the farthest reaches of the universe, but no amount of searching will ever reveal for certain whether we are all children of chance or part of a great design. And who among us would have it otherwise? Who would wish to take the mystery out of the experience of looking into a newborn infant's eyes?
-- Kent Nerburn

#Children #Eye #Design

Nature is the clearest source of solitude. The greatness of nature can overwhelm the insignificant chatter by which we measure most of our days. If you have the wisdom and the courage to go to nature alone, the larger rhythms, the eternal hum, will make itself known all the sooner. When you have found it, it will always be there for you. The peace without will become the peace within, and you will be able to return to it in your heart wherever you find yourself.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Nature #Heart #Greatness

Money is like any other language through which people communicate. People who speak the same language tend to find each other. If you are one whose money speaks of protection and hoarding, you will find yourself involved with others whose money speaks the same language. You will be staring at each other with hooded eyes and closed fists and suspicion will be your common value. If your money speaks of sharing, you will find yourself among people who want their money to speak the language of sharing, and your world will be filled with possibility.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Money #Eye #People

Place yourself among those who carry on their lives with passion, and true learning will take place, no matter how humble or exalted the setting. But no matter what path you follow, do not be ashamed of your learning. In some corner of your life, you know more about something than anyone else on earth. The true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Passion #Learning #Humble

We live in a world alive with holy moments. We need only take the time to bring these moments into the light.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Healing #Light #Needs

There are many ways to seek wisdom. There is travel, there are masters, there is service. There is staring into the eyes of children and elders and lovers and strangers. There is sitting silently in one spot and there is being swept along in life's turbulent current. Life itself will grant you wisdom in ways you may neither understand nor choose. It is up to you to be open to all these sources of wisdom and to embrace them with your whole heart.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Wisdom #Children #Heart

It is not easy for a man to be as great as a mountain or a forest. But that is why the creator gave them to us as teachers. Now that I am old I Iook once more toward them for lessons, instead of trying to understand the ways of men. They tell me to be patient. They tell me I cannot change what is, I can only hope to change what will become. Let the grasses grow over our scars, they say, and let flowers bloom over our wounds.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Change #Teacher #Flower

We are born male. We must learn to be men.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Men #Males #Born

This is important. Money on its most basic level is a hard fact - you either have it or you don't. But on it's emotional level it is purely a fiction. It becomes what you let it become.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Emotional #Important #Fiction

We wake up one day and find we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Dream #Order #One Day

Our actions in this world, and our ability to rise above the limits of our own self-interest, live on far beyond us and play their humble part in shaping a world of spirituality and peace.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Humble #Self #Play

We must find a way to replace yearning for what life has withheld from us with gratitude for what we have been given.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Spiritual #Gratitude #Way

We are born male. We must learn to be men. Remember, strength is a force. It is an attribute of the heart. Its opposite is not weakness and fear, but confusion, lack of clarity, and lack of sound intention. If you are able to discern the path with heart and follow it even when at the moment it seems wrong, then and only then are you strong. Remember the words of Tao te ching. "The only true strength is a strength that people do not fear." Strength based in force is a strength people fear. Strength based in love is a strength people crave.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Strong #Fear #Heart

When you are here, you are here. When you are gone, you are gone. It isn't a problem to be gone, so long as you are really here when you're here.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Long #Attention #Gone

In a perfect world perhaps we would all see more clearly. But this is not a perfect world, and it is enough to hope that each of us will share our talents, and find the balance between greed and benevolence that will allow us to live and thrive and help the world around us grow.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Perfect #Greed #Balance

We may not all live holy lives, but we live in a world alive with holy moments.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Alive #World #May

That is why we need to travel. If we don't offer ourself to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Dream #Eye #Our World

We are all born with a belief in God. It may not have a name or face. We may not even see it as God. But it is there. It is the sense that comes over us as we stare into the starlit sky, or watch the last fiery rays of an evening sunset. It is the morning shiver as we wake on a beautiful day and smell a richness in the air that we know and love from somewhere we can't quite recall. It is the mystery behind the beginning of time and beyond the limits of space. It is a sense of otherness that brings alive something deep in our hearts.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Beautiful #God #Morning

Do not grieve. Misfortune will happen to the wisest and best of men. Death will come, always out of season. It is the command of the Great Spirit, and all nations and people must obey. What is past and cannot be prevented should not be grieved for... Misfortunes do not flourish particularly in our lives - they grow everywhere.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Death #Past #Men

That is the magic of travel. You leave your home secure in your own knowledge and identity. But as you travel, the world in all it's richness intervenes. You meet people you could not invent; you see scenes you could not imagine. Your own world, which was so large as to consume your whole life, becomes smaller and smaller until it is only one tiny dot in time and space. You return a different person.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Home #Space #People

Our life is a work of art. We must seek always to be its artist.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Life #Art #Artist

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance, and none can say while some fields will blossom and others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices in life no more easily made. And give. Give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than how is shared, and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.
-- Kent Nerburn

#Dream #Children #Heart