Eugen Herrigel Quotes

#1. In the classic Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel's teacher urged him always to take his next shot unburdened by previous failures to hit the target; as he improved, his teacher urged him not to be influenced by his successes either, to stay in the present moment.

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

#2. The Master's warning that we should not practice anything except self-detaching immersion.

Eugen Herrigel

#3. This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose.

Eugen Herrigel

#4. This means that the mind or spirit is present anywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place. And it can remain present because, even when related to this or that object, it does not cling to it by reflection and thus lose its original mobility.

Eugen Herrigel

#5. You ain't living unless your living high

Lazaro Cesar Ruiz Sr.

#6. The man, the art, the work--it is all one.

Eugen Herrigel

#7. A lot of people believe in reading reviews. If I get too focused on some detail of what they've said about me, I'm going to end up shooting myself in the foot.

Kevin Bacon

#8. Future hipsters will love me ironically.

Mindy Kaling

#9. If you want to meet someone who can fix any situation you don't like, who can bring you happiness in spite of what other people say or believe, look in a mirror, then say this magic word: 'Hello.'

Richard Bach

#10. You must learn to wait properly.

Eugen Herrigel

#11. You must act as if the goal were infinitely far off.

Eugen Herrigel

#12. We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and...wherever they go in this wide domain...will truly feel, 'Here I am at home.

Winston Churchill

#13. She was the sort of girl called "bonny" - not beautiful, but lively and nicely made, with something about her that took the eye.

Diana Gabaldon

#14. You must learn to wait properly ... By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself and everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension

Eugen Herrigel

#15. Far from wishing to awaken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft.

Eugen Herrigel

#16. A dream deferred is a dream denied.

Rachel Cohn

#17. You worry yourself unnecessarily. Put the thought of hitting right out of your mind!

Eugen Herrigel

#18. How important my books are or anybody's books are, I don't know. I don't think they are terribly important I think that they make people contented during the period they are reading them and this is worth something is to take care of somebody for a couple of hours.

Kurt Vonnegut

#19. In the case of archery, the hitter and the hit are no longer two opposing objects, but are one reality.

Eugen Herrigel

#20. The hand that guides the brush has already caught and executed what floated before the mind at the same moment the mind began to form it, and in the end the pupil no longer knows which of the two-mind or hand -was responsible for the work.

Eugen Herrigel

#21. Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.

Eugen Herrigel

#22. I don't care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don't have an intuitive feeling for equations.

Stephen Hawking

#23. The more a human being feels himself a self, tries to intensify this self and reach a never-attainable perfection, the more drastically he steps out of the center of being.

Eugen Herrigel

#24. The effortlessness of a performance for which great strength is needed is a spectacle of whose aesthetic beauty the East has an exceedingly sensitive and grateful appreciation.

Eugen Herrigel

#25. The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfillment, but brace yourself for failure.

Eugen Herrigel

#26. Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing.

Eugen Herrigel

#27. Assuming that his talent can survive the increasing strain, there is one scarcely avoidable danger that lies ahead of the pupil on his road to mastery.

Eugen Herrigel

#28. Archery is still a matter of life and death to the extent that it is a contest of the archer with himself;

Eugen Herrigel

#29. I see all of them. All the colors.

Lois Lowry

#30. Being able to wait without purpose in the state of highest tension ... without continually asking yourself: Shall I be able to manage it? Wait patiently, as see what comes - and how it comes!

Eugen Herrigel

#31. It had been a surprise - and yeah, okay, a pleasure - to realize how very good he was at being bad.

Marcus Sakey

#32. When I first started playing golf, I was heavily into softball and basketball.

Paula Creamer

#33. The spider dances her web without knowing there are flies that will get caught in it. The fly, dancing nonchalantly on a sunbeam gets caught without knowing what lies in store. But through both of them "It" dances. So, too, the archer hits the target without having aimed-more I cannot say.

Eugen Herrigel

#34. The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede.

Eugen Herrigel

#35. You must not lie about trilobites, nor yet about time.

Richard Fortey

#36. You cannot wait until everything becomes better before you decide to have a good attitude. You have to be the best you can be right where you are.

Joel Osteen

#37. He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort, and also of letting inspiration come to him through meticulous observation.

Eugen Herrigel

#38. Her sweet little cry like that of angel among demons

James Dashner