In January’s book review post, I mentioned that there were too many quotations from The Answer Is… Reflections on My Life to include there.
“Curiosity has always been a very important factor in my life, about all subjects. It’s a thirst for knowledge. I have a standard motto and it’s very short: ‘A good education and a kind heart will serve you well throughout your entire life’. The more you know, the more knowledge you acquire, the better off you are in dealing with other people; the more you develop an understanding for other people. If you know geography for instance, you learn why a civilization settled in one location as opposed to another location 20 miles away…”
“As I tell studio audiences, you’re never too old to learn. There’s a thrill connected to curiosity; curiosity leads to discovery and there’s a thrill that comes with discovery… Even if you are learning facts that you are not going to be able to use in your daily life, it enriches you. The fact itself just enriches you as a human being and broadens your outlook on life and makes you a more understanding and better person.”
I love this because obviously I live by it too. I am interested in just about everything, from science and nature to astrophysics and stars. I’m assuming that everything I learn is helping me somehow.
“There’s a natural order to the way the world has been populated. That natural order unfortunately has been overtaken by man’s interference in setting up all kinds of international boundaries. We’ve drawn boundaries that make it difficult to achieve peace and that’s unfortunate. It’s man’s hubris. It’s man’s arrogance… Little by little we make mistakes and we keep compounding those mistakes and expanding on them to the point where you can’t get people to agree anymore…“
Simplistic, yet 100% true. How humans have managed to destroy our earth in such a relatively short time astounds.
“I believe we are all part of the great soul, what some call God. We are God and God is us. We are one with our maker. How do I know this? It’s not that I know it; it’s that I feel it. The same way that when I go to Africa I feel that is where I came from. The same way I feel that Jean is my soulmate. I feel it in my gut.”
I know that everything and everyone is interconnected. We are each born unique and with a purpose in the world. The rest is not up to us.
“My life has been a quest for knowledge and understanding and I’m nowhere near having achieved that… and it doesn’t bother me in the least. I will die without having come up with the answer to many things in life…”
Yes, our to-do list will never be completely accomplished. Our wants never fulfilled. We will never achieve perfection. But the journey… the journey is the entire point.
