Benjamin Hoff Quotes - 77 quotes

Benjamin Hoff is an American author best known for his books "The Tao of Pooh" (1982) and "The Te of Piglet" (1992), which introduce Taoist philosophy through the characters of A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. Hoff was born in 1946 and grew up in the Portland, Oregon neighborhood of Sylvan, where he de... show more

 I am me and you are you.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 When we take the time to enjoy our surroundings and appreciate being alive, we find that we have no time to be bisy backsons anymore.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 According to Lao-Tse, the more man interfered with the natural balance produced and governed by the universal laws, the further away the harmony retreated into the distance. The more forcing, the more trouble. Whether heavy or light, wet or dry, fast or slow, everything had its own nature already within it, which could not be violated without causing difficulties.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 In China, for example, the teahouse is a real social institution. Throughout the day, families, neighbors, and friends drop in for tea and light food. They stay as long as they like. … "You’re important. Relax and enjoy yourself." That's the message of the teahouse. What's the message of the hamburger stand? Quite obviously, it's: "You don't count; hurry up."

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Let's put it this way: if you want to be healthy, relaxed, and contented, just watch what a busy backson does and then do the opposite.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Taoist understanding changes what others may perceive as negative into something positive. From the Taoist point of view, sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The essence of the principle of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret know to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 From the state of the Uncarved Block comes the ability to enjoy the simple and the quiet, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 …in China, scholars were generally Confucianist in training and orientation, and therefore often spoke a somewhat different language from the Taoists, who tended to see the Confucianist scholars as busy ants spoiling the picnic of life.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Scholarly Owl ... the Academician, the dry-as-dust, absentminded professor. Far from reflecting the Taoist ideal of wholeness and independence, this incomplete and unbalanced creature divides all kinds of things into little categories and compartments, while remaining rather helpless and disorganized in daily life.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 "Well," said Owl, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said Pooh. "For I am a Bear of very little brain, and long words bother me."

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 … and one sometimes gets the impression that those intimidating words are there to keep us from understanding. That way, the scholars can appear superior, and will not likely be suspected of not knowing something. After all, from the scholarly point of view, it's practically a crime not to know everything.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 To the desiccated scholars, putting names on things is the most vital activity in the world. Tree. Flower. Dog. But Don't ask them to prune the tree, plant the flower, or take care of the dog, unless you enjoy unpleasant surprises. Living, growing things are beyond them, it seems.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The ... desiccated scholar is one who studies knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and who keeps what he learns to himself or to his own small group, writing pompous and pretentious papers that no one else can understand, rather than working for the enlightenment of others.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 When you know and respect your own inner nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don't belong.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 As we have likely recognized by now, no two snowflakes, trees, or animals are alike. No two people are the same, either. Everything has its own inner nature.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Once you face and understand your limitations, you can work with them, instead of having them work against you and get in your way, which is what they do when you ignore them, whether you realize it or not.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 So rather than work against ourselves, all we need to do in many cases is to point our weaknesses or unpleasant tendencies in a different direction than we have been.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Literally, Wu Wei means "without doing, causing, or making." But practically speaking it means without meddlesome, combative, or egotistical effort… Wu Wei means no going against the nature of things; no clever tampering; no monkeying around.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 When we learn to work with our own inner nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of Wu Wei. Then we work with the natural order of things and operate on the principle of minimal effort. Since the natural world follows that principle, it does not make mistakes.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don't belong.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least they do when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, "This isn't supposed to be happening this way," and trying hard to make it happen some other way. If you're in tune with The Way Things Work, then they work the way they need to, no matter what you may think about it at the time.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 All it really is, though, is being sensitive to circumstances.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The Wu Wei approach to conflict-solving can be seen in the practice of the Taoist martial art T'ai Chi Chi'uan, the basic idea of which is to wear the opponent out either by sending his energy back at him or by deflecting it away, in order to weaken his power, balance, and position-for-defense. Never is force opposed with force; instead, it is overcome with yielding.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The Wu Wei principle underlying T'ai Chi Chi'uan can be understood by striking at a piece of cork floating in the water. The harder you hit it, the more it yields; the more it yields, the harder it bounces back. Without spending energy, the cork can easily wear you out.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 GON OUT BACKSON BISY BACKSON Rabbit didn't know what a backson was - in spite of the fact that he is one.… You see them almost everywhere you go, it seems. On practically any sunny sort of day, you can see the backsons stampeding through the park, making all kinds of loud breathing noises. Perhaps you are enjoying a picnic on the grass when you suddenly look up to find one or two of them just ran over your lunch. Generally, though, you are safe around trees and grass, as backsons tend to avoid them. The prefer instead to struggle along on asphalt and concrete, in imitation of the short-lived transportation machines for which those hard surfaces were designed. Inhaling poisonous exhaust fumes from the vehicles that swerve to avoid hitting them, the backsons blabber away to each other about how much better they feel now that they have gotten outdoors. Natural living they call it.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 For a reward, perhaps, our busy backson religions, sciences, and business ethics have tried their hardest to convince us there is a great reward waiting for us somewhere, and that what we have to do is spend our lives working like lunatics to catch up with it. Whether it's up in the sky, behind the next molecule, or in the executive suite, it's somehow always farther along than we are - just down the road, on the other side of the world, past the moon, beyond the stars.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 A way of life that keeps saying, "Around the next corner, above the next step," works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good that only a few get to where they would naturally have been in the first place - happy and good…

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Those who think that the rewarding things in life are somewhere beyond the rainbow.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Of course, real progress involves growing and developing, which involves changing inside…

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Practically speaking, if timesaving devices really saved time, there would be more time available to us now than ever before in history. But, strangely enough, we seem to have less time than even a few years ago. It's really great fun to go someplace where there are no timesaving devices, because when you do, you find that you have lots of time.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Li's favorite way of travelling was what he called "walking lightly." ... When asked for his major secret, though, he would reply, "inner quiet".

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 If we add up all the rewards in our lives, we won't have very much. But if we add up all the spaces between the rewards, we'll come up with quite a bit.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The Christmas presents once opened are not so much fun as they were while we were in the process of examining, lifting, shaking, thinking about, and opening them.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 That doesn't mean that the goals we have don't count. They do, mostly because they cause us to go through the process, and it's the process that makes us wise, happy, or whatever.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 What could we call that moment before we begin to eat honey? Some would call it anticipation, but we think it is more than that. We would call it awareness. It's when we become happy and realize it, if only for an instant. By enjoying the process, we can stretch that awareness out so that it's no longer only a moment, but covers the whole thing.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Piglet was so excited at the idea of being useful that he forgot to be frightened anymore.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The play-it-safe pessimists of the world never accomplish anything, because they don't look clearly and objectively at situations, they don't recognize or believe in their own abilities, and they won't stretch those abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 More often than not, the things we need are there already; all we have to do is make use of them.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 A lot of people try to buy happiness and importance in the same sort of way.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 It's sometimes referred to as the snowball effect, which can remind you of the time you pushed that little ball of snow along, and it got bigger, and bigger until it go so big you couldn't stop it…

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Now the principle [the snowball effect] can work negatively or positively. It can promote cynicism as easily as it can encourage hope.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 An empty sort of mind is valuable for finding pearls and tails and things because it can see what's in front of it. An overstuffed mind is unable to. While the clear mind listens to a bird singing, the stuffed-full-of-knowledge-and-cleverness mind wonders what kind of bird is singing.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Knowledge and cleverness tend to concern themselves with the wrong sorts of things, and a mind confused by knowledge, cleverness, and abstract ideas tends to go chasing after things that don't matter, or that don't even exist, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is right in front of it.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 ... after discarding the emptiness of the big congested mess, we discover the fullness of nothing.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will chose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child's mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the forest.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 We can no longer afford to look so desperately hard for something in the wrong way and in the wrong place.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 To Lao-Tse, the world was not a setter of traps but a teacher of valuable lessons.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Quite often, struggling like a scholar over relatively unimportant matters can make one increasingly confused.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 That doesn't mean that we need to stop changing and improving. It just means that we need to recognize what's there.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Cleverness, after all, has its limitations. Its mechanical judgments and clever remarks tend to prove inaccurate with passing time, because it doesn't look very deeply into things in the first place.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 I have certain limitations, and I know what they are. … There's nothing wrong with not being able to whistle, especially if you're a fish. But there can be lots of things wrong with blindly trying to do what you aren't designed for.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

  The way of self-reliance starts with recognizing who we are, what we've got to work with, and what works best for us.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Sooner or later, we are bound to discover some things about ourselves that we don't like.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 In the story of the ugly duckling, when did the ugly duckling stop feeling ugly? When he realized that he was a swan. Each of us has something special, a swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Cleverness, as usual, takes all the credit it possibly can. But it's not the clever mind that's responsible when things work out. It's the mind that sees what's in front of it, and follows the nature of things.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 But down through the centuries, man has developed a mind that separates him from the world of reality, the world of natural laws. This mind tries too hard, wears itself out, and ends up weak and sloppy.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 He works when he works, works when he exercises, and, more often than not, works when he plays.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The busy backson is always going somewhere, somewhere he hasn't been. Anywhere but where he is.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can't save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 We can stop our desperate clinging to hollow life substitutes, and set ourselves free.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 ... you use respect to build respect...

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The power of a clear mind is beyond description.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 "It's today!" squeaked Piglet. "My favorite day," said Pooh.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 It means that Tao doesn't force or interfere with things, but lets them work in their own way, to produce results naturally.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Do you really want to be happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you've got.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 From the Taoist point of view, while the scholarly intellect may be useful for analyzing certain things, deeper and broader matters are beyond its limited reach.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 If we do things in the wrong sort of way, it makes us miserable, angry, confused, and things like that.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 Enjoyment of the process is the secret that erases the myths of the great reward and saving time.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 No matter how useful we may be, sometimes it takes us a while to recognize our own value.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 A tree as big around as you can reach starts with a small seed; a thousand-mile journey starts with one step.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 What is it about fresh snow, clean air, pure water? Or good music? As Claude Debussy expressed it "Music is the space between the notes."

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 … learn to value wisdom and contentment.

- Benjamin Hoff

Share

 From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness.

- Benjamin Hoff

Missing Reference

Share