Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified. – Polly Toynbee
There is all the difference in the world between teaching children about religion and handing them over to be taught by the religious. – Polly Toynbee
Most people come to fear not death itself, but the many terrible ways of dying. – Polly Toynbee
How do you make any sense of history, art or literature without knowing the stories and iconography of your own culture and all the worlds main religions? – Polly Toynbee
If the day and night be such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more immortal — that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden
If you ask Zen people they will say; tea is not something that you pour with unawareness and drink like any other drink. It is not a drink, it is meditation; it is prayer. So they listen to the kettle creating a melody, and in that listening they become more silent, more alert. – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh