American author (1923-2010)
The universe is continually at its work of restructuring itself at a higher, more complex, more elegant level. The novelty, the new, more complex order, doesn't emerge from the present in a steady stream, nor at all places at the same rate. It comes, as all things do, in rhythmic waves; there will always be times and places of scarcity and stagnation and retrogression. Still, the long-term direction is clear. The intention of the universe is evolution.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
Perhaps we'll never know how far the path can go, how much a human being can truly achieve, until we realize that the ultimate reward is not a gold medal but the path itself.
GEORGE LEONARD
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term Fulfillment
At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silent pulse of perfect rhythm, made up of wave forms and resonances, which is absolutely individual and unique, and yet which connects us to everything in the universe.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
Competition is the spice of sports; but if you make spice the whole meal you'll be sick.
GEORGE LEONARD
attributed, Transformations: Your Inner Guide to Self-Exploration
The subtle dance of the body joins us to the world.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
Everything was God, holy; as God is total, so the driftwood branch was holy. This must be the stuff religion is made of.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
What if you're practicing wrong? Then you get very good at doing something wrong.
GEORGE LEONARD
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term Fulfillment
Mastery is a journey, and that the master must have the courage to risk failure.
GEORGE LEONARD
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term Fulfillment
Perhaps the safest prediction we can make about the future is that it will surprise us.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
It's fitting, then, that we begin this exploration of ourselves and of the world with music, and more specifically with a musical quality called vibrato. This pulsation that wells up within the sounded note can lead us to what is most spontaneous and creative in human life, and possibly even to deeper mysteries--to powers of knowing and doing which we have lost or given away during the epoch of civilization, and which perhaps we may now regain.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
What a pity it is that war, with its terrible suffering and devastation, should often be more vivid than peace. In war, your comrades mean everything to you, life is unsure and thus precious, and you know that the sword is raised above you. Now it is peace. Your friends still mean everything, life is still precious, and look--why didn't you notice it?--there's the sword, still raised above you.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Way of Aikido: Life Lessons from an American Sensei
We might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The best games are not those in which all goes smoothly and steadily toward a certain conclusion, but those in which the outcome is always in doubt. Similarly, the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. Every important call is a close one. We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth. We really wouldn't want it any other way.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
The more you move in rhythm with someone, the closer you become with that person.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Silent Pulse
At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Life We are Given: A Long-term Program for Realizing the Potential of Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul
Running, close companion to death, summons us to the most vivid acts of life. Our ancestors (we have forgotten) ran for food and for love, love and lust. For us, a prime symbol of sexuality is the automobile. For the ancients it was the chase, the foot race. Satyr and nymph, maiden and god, hot pursuit. The mythic hunters, Diana and Atalanta, available only to the males, men or gods, who could outrun them; death to all others.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Ultimate Athelete
There is a human striving for self-transcendence. It's part of what makes us human. With all of our flaws we want to go a little bit further than we've gone before and maybe even further than anyone else has gone before.
GEORGE LEONARD
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-term Fulfillment
Some martial artists claim the use of ki for far more powerful, indeed devastating, purposes. Maybe you've heard stories about the kung fu master whose open-hand strike is so fiery that it brands a handprint on the far wall. Or the qigong practitioner who can flip an attacker head over heels merely by gesturing from across the room. Despite personal experiences involving seemingly miraculous events, I've learned to exercise a certain skepticism when I hear such tales. But can I say without any doubt at all that they never happen? No. Life is too multifarious, too surprising for that.
GEORGE LEONARD
The Way of Aikido: Life Lessons from an American Sensei