Quotes by South Korean Authors - Page 4

Maintain a forgiving attitude!
Tae Yun Kim
People do not know what Truth is and what false is. Truth knows both Truth and falseness. However, the false know neither the false nor Truth. People do not know what Truth is, nor do they know what they are being deceived by. When they have a bigger mind and become Truth, they will know the wisdom of the world and will live without death.
Woo Myung
I am doing the servant job in order for you to become the owners of Heaven
Sun Myung Moon
To make a change, you must be: willing to commit, willing to change, willing to have an open mind, and willing to take action!
Tae Yun Kim
Your own thoughts can be your worst enemy!
Tae Yun Kim
Freedom is your birthright!
Tae Yun Kim
If you say one thing, and do something different, how can your conscience trust you? Self-trust comes from integrity.
Ilchi Lee
At this time in history, sick, afraid, and despondent are the general conditions that affect the majority of poeple almost everywhere. It's difficult and challenging to follow the call of conscience when we're under the dark veil of these forces. At the same time, it's painful not to follow it.When you become healthy, courageous, and hopeful, following your conscience becomes easier. When people are healthy, courageous, and hopeful, it's difficult to bend their mind and will. You can't force them to do what you'd like them to do against their will. They will speak out what they believe, and stand up and do what is right even when it means a loss to them.I am hopeful because I have witnessed this change throughout my life. From the realization of what I really am, I became hopeful, courageous, and passionate for life, and I felt responsible for the general condition of humanity and the Earth because they are not separate from me.
Ilchi Lee
Because everybody has a conscience, whether or not we can be great beings is not determined merely by its presence in us . Instead, it is determined by the choice to acknowledge its presence and follow its lead
Ilchi Lee
The scene [Bruegel's 'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'] is filled with a vast field, and a cow and a farmer plowing. In the left-hand corner is a tiny ocean the size of a palm, and there, I can barely make it out, the two legs of a man who fell headlong into the sea. This is called the Fall of Icarus. Compared to everyday life, the fall of an idealist who flew too high with candle-wax wings is an unremarkable tragedy.
Hwang Sok-yong
The blazing sun beat down on the concrete of the museum's front yard- Reverend Ryu Yosop felt as if the heat were sucking up all the moisture in his brain and heart. What different colors he and his brother Yohan must have used as each of them painted their own picture of home, of the carnage. These people have constructed yet a different vision of their own, Yosop thought to himself, but it all stems from the same nightmare, the one we created together.
Hwang Sok-yong
The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive
Han Kang
I have the documents. Documents, proof, evidence, photograph, signature. One day you raise your right hand and you are American. They give you an American Pass port. The United States of America. Somewhere someone has taken my identity and replaced it with their photograph. The other one. Their signature their seals. Their own image. And you learn the executive branch the legislative branch and the third. Justice. Judicial branch. It makes the difference The rest is past.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Everyone has his or her own means of defining value.
Kyung-Sook Shin
Now the choices you make are not about finding your path. Rather, they are choices to open the path you have found.
Ilchi Lee
When we are aware that we are eternal beings, when we become enlightened to the fact that our life is something eternal that cannot be harmed by anything, then we have no attachments to the past of anxiety about the future and are able to focus on the present moment the now.
Ilchi Lee
People do not necessarily know what they are doing, because our ability to comprehend even matters that concern us directly is limited – or, in the jargon, we have ‘bounded rationality’. The world is very complex and our ability to deal with it is severely limited. Therefore, we need to, and usually do, deliberately restrict our freedom of choice in order to reduce the complexity of problems we have to face. Often, government regulation works, especially in complex areas like the modern financial market, not because the government has superior knowledge but because it restricts choices and thus the complexity of the problems at hand, thereby reducing the possibility that things may go wrong.
Chang Ha-Joon
By acknowledging and accepting the ultimate commonality, we can naturally and voluntarily develop the attitude of compassion and benevolence toward other people, other life-forms, and all beings. We will want to live for the good of all because we know that's the way we benefit ourselves, too.
Ilchi Lee
It’s perhaps more laudable to simply keep heading out into the world, than always tilting to leave one’s mark on it.
Chang-rae Lee
Many people, through diverse spiritual practices and disciplines have sought enlightenment. Various phenomena, some of them potentially quite captivating, may occur along the path of spiritual development whether it leads to true enlightenment or not. They can be helpful if used wisely, but are neighed the sign of enlightenment nor the requirements for enlightenment. These can includes extrasensory perception (sometimes called ESP), remote viewing, or "miraculous" healing. However, the essence of enlightenment, above and beyond all phenomena, is a big understanding, which gives you a deep and wide perspective to see the world as a whole, and a capacity to accept with compassion all that is.
Ilchi Lee
Does any (MFA) program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them?
Chang-rae Lee
Does any program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them?
Chang-rae Lee
Only one knows, speaks, and lives according to what he has within. One who has the universe within him knows the true meaning of the universe. Living as the will of the universe by becoming the universe is true life.
Woo Myung
If loneliness or sadness or happiness could be expressed through food, loneliness would be basil. It’s not good for your stomach, dims your eyes, and turns your mind murky. If you pound basil and place a stone over it, scorpions swarm toward it. Happiness is saffron, from the crocus that blooms in the spring. Even if you add just a pinch to a dish, it adds an intense taste and a lingering scent. You can find it anywhere but you can’t get it at any time of the year. It’s good for your heart, and if you drop a little bit in your wine, you instantly become drunk from its heady perfume. The best saffron crumbles at the touch and instantaneously emits its fragrance. Sadness is a knobby cucumber, whose aroma you can detect from far away. It’s tough and hard to digest and makes you fall ill with a high fever. It’s porous, excellent at absorption, and sponges up spices, guaranteeing a lengthy period of preservation. Pickles are the best food you can make from cucumbers. You boil vinegar and pour it over the cucumbers, then season with salt and pepper. You enclose them in a sterilized glass jar, seal it, and store it in a dark and dry place.WON’S KITCHEN. I take off the sign hanging by the first-floor entryway. He designed it by hand and silk-screened it onto a metal plate. Early in the morning on the day of the opening party for the cooking school, he had me hang the sign myself. I was meaning to give it a really special name, he said, grinning, flashing his white teeth, but I thought Jeong Ji-won was the most special name in the world. He called my name again: Hey, Ji-won.He walked around the house calling my name over and over, mischievously — as if he were an Eskimo who believed that the soul became imprinted in the name when it was called — while I fried an egg, cautiously sprinkling grated Emmentaler, salt, pepper, taking care not to pop the yolk. I spread the white sun-dried tablecloth on the coffee table and set it with the fried egg, unsalted butter, blueberry jam, and a baguette I’d toasted in the oven. It was our favorite breakfast: simple, warm, sweet. As was his habit, he spread a thick layer of butter and jam on his baguette and dunked it into his coffee, and I plunked into my cup the teaspoon laced with jam, waiting for the sticky sweetness to melt into the hot, dark coffee.I still remember the sugary jam infusing the last drop of coffee and the moist crumbs of the baguette lingering at the roof of my mouth. And also his words, informing me that he wanted to design a new house that would contain the cooking school, his office, and our bedroom. Instead of replying, I picked up a firm red radish, sparkling with droplets of water, dabbed a little butter on it, dipped it in salt, and stuck it into my mouth. A crunch resonated from my mouth. Hoping the crunch sounded like, Yes, someday, I continued to eat it. Was that the reason I equated a fresh red radish with sprouting green tops, as small as a miniature apple, with the taste of love? But if I cut into it crosswise like an apple, I wouldn't find the constellation of seeds.
Kyung-ran Jo
I'd rather die than live without passion.
Jeon Jungkook
Regardless of what comes and goes on the stage, the stage is always just there. The people of the world are all actors, but if they own the stage, they become the masters. As masters, they will always be able to act on the stage.
Woo Myung
Only after Mom went missing did you realize that her stories were piled inside you, in endless stacks. Mom's everyday life used to go on in a repeating loop, without a break. Her everyday words, which you didn't think deeply about and sometimes dismissed as useless when she was with you, awoke in your heart, creating tidal waves.
Kyung-Sook Shin
You realize that you habitually thought of Mom when something in your life was not going well, because when you thought of her it was as though something got back on track, and you felt re-energized.
Kyung-Sook Shin
When he came home with the traditional gift of underwear bought with his first paycheck, she barely looked at it, and coldly shot at him, “What about what you were going to be?
Kyung-Sook Shin
It was in the work that she came closest to finding herself, by which we don’t mean gaining “self-knowledge” or understanding one’s “true nature” but rather how at some point you can see most plainly that this is what you do, this is how you fit in the wider ecology
Chang-rae Lee
He should have had more faith in himself rather than give in to his weaker qualities, in particular his overeagerness to please and aversion to conflict and a lifelong infatuation with hope, which had him dreaming more than doing
Chang-rae Lee
When we acknowledge our greatness and start living it, when we open our hearts to the natural kindness and caring for all beings that resides within us, all these necessary transformations can begin.
Ilchi Lee
I always ask myself one question: what is human? What does it mean to be human? Maybe people will consider my new films brutal again. But this violence is just a reflection of what they really are, of what is in each one of us to certain degree.
Kim Ki-duk
When someone studies well, has a successful career, or deals with difficulties well, people think he is a wise man. However, such successes do not mean that one is wise. True wisdom is to know with the consciousness of God.
Woo Myung
The Earth's health is the only standard that is all-encompassing enough to overcome the ethnic, cultural, religious, and national tensions that are rending the world asunder. Only the Earth can become the central axis around which which world peace can be spun, for no religion is more compelling, no single nation larger, and no peoples older than the Earth itself. For that to happen, the collective human consciousness must expand enough so that our highest identification is as Earth-Humans.
Ilchi Lee
It is time for us to open our eyes. It is time for us to awaken to new possibilities and make them real. It is time for us to awaken our dormant spirituality-first as individuals, then as whole nations, and finally as the whole of humanity-and raise up our collective consciousness.-Healing Society: A Prescription for Global Enlightenment
Ilchi Lee
I like "Julie Gold's song "From a Distance". Her song reminds me of the world as seen through an observer's eye. Seen from a distance, we are people in the same band playing music for everyone. We are artists who play the most beautiful instruments in the world - life.
Ilchi Lee
A "positive, open consciousness" means looking at something as it is, without coating it in your own ideas or emotions and, furthermore, looking for hope and potential I in it. Thus, when you consciousness is open, you can communicate easily with another person and accept positively that person's actions or suggestions. An open person fundamentally has respect for all life. Additionally, that person readily accesses cosmic information, because the door of their consciousness is open and they are able to receive needed ideas and inspiration easily This leads to new creation.
Ilchi Lee
There is an old saying that goes 'Start by plucking a hair, end by killing a man'. It is also said, 'Two hands must meet to make a sound'. The atrocities that happened here weren't carried out by strangers - it was us, the people who'd once lived together harmoniously in the same village.""They say it was the superstitious freaks who did it.""No, it was Satan who did it.""Come now, what sort of a ghost is that?"Ryu Yosop replied, "It is the black thing that lives in the heart of every man.
Hwang Sok-yong
Our tainted world looms within us, every one.
Chang-rae Lee
Now I know that anytime you see a “no trespassing” sign, it means you’ve got to go in and take a look.
Kyung-Sook Shin
I always worried because whenever a drought struck, an accursed storm of blood always followed.
Bo-Young Kim
White is associated with purity because the entire spectrum is functioning in unity. White is a healing color. White is appropriate for weddings because the unity of male and female symbolizes the unity of allness.
Tae Yun Kim
Let us give future generations the gift of Earth citizenship by first giving it to ourselves.
Ilchi Lee
Since we human beings are the cause of the environmental problems that we face today, we can also be the solution. We just need a shift in our thinking. We just need to move away from the paradigm of competition and domination. Then this world will not end. In fact, the world will prosper and return to its original place as the cradle of self-discovery and the advancement of human spirituality. And such a world is a true democracy.
Seung Heun Lee
Add these affirmations:"Bright LifeParticles are energizing my body.""Every cell in my body vibrates with energy and health.
Ilchi Lee
The stars are in your favor, darling, you can't be horrible. Nope, they won't let you.
Suki Kim
Let a sweltering heat... love... rose up relentlessly.
Sooyeon Won
I am a dumb piece of meatand I rot everydaymy flesh gives a rotting smelland people say it's the smell of lifeand they come to meand watch me rotand get happy and upset and annoyed and disgusted and maybe sometimes feelcompassionbut they don't realize they are rotting too.
Daul Kim
It's not that I can't express myself,it's that I still feel present when I'm not expressing myself.
Kim Myungsoo
At the time, I remained relatively calm before that spectacle of horrors, which is perhaps the most telling indication of just how desensitized I had become. The more I witnessed such atrocities and rubbed shoulders with death, the more I desired to stay alive, no matter the cost.
Kang Chol-Hwan
To not have your suffering recognized is an almost unbearable form of violence.
Andrei Lankov
In this difficult era the most valuable commodity is the unfailing turn of the hours and how they retrieve for us the known harbor of yesterday.
Chang-rae Lee
When you express "purity" which is the truth about yourself, you feel a love for yourself that is expressed by self-respect, self-esteem, and self-confidence!
Tae Yun Kim
For at some point, each of us will be asked to embody what we feel and know.
Chang-rae Lee
Don't let your emotions get the best of you and blind you from the truth.
Seohyun
Even if you are alive somewhere, the absence of the other person who used to be there beside you obliterates your presence. Everything in the room, even the stars in the sky, can disappear in a second, changing one scene for another, just like in a dream.
Hwang Sok-yong
(Blurb) Throughout Human Acts the ghost memory of the boy Dong-Ho wanders, refusing to disappear, and so in turn other characters refuse to stop asking 'Why?' Why does power exert itself with brutality? Why does the state silence the enquiries of the bereaved?Why does remembrance pose such a threat to the powerful?
Han Kang
Her endeavor was misguided and wrong and maybe plain crazy, akin to someone waking up one day and deciding he’s going to scale Kilimanjaro because he can’t stop imagining the view from the top, the picture so arresting and beautiful that it too soon delivers him to a precarious ledge, where he can no longer turn back. And while it’s easy to say this is a situation to be avoided, isn’t this what we also fear and crave simultaneously, that some internal force which defies understanding might remake us into the people we dream we are?
Chang-rae Lee
Red stimulates and excites your nerves, pulse rate and blood circulation, and lends energy to your entire system. When you are fatigued, lethargic or sluggish for any reason, red has an energizing influence.
Tae Yun Kim