Customer Reviews

The Essence of Wisdom

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This lovely short volume contains nuggets of wisdom each of which could provide a day's worth of contemplation.Many of the sources come from non-western sages and mystics.There are many books of wise quotes out there but few as profound and beautiful as this carefully selected volume of mystical profundity.

I like Stephen Mitchells REAL books very much !

Unfortunately this is NOT a real book. It is mostly blank space
with one quotation per page -- most of which are very, very brief.

Many of the quotations are just fine, others seem to have been chosen because they sound wise (but, in fact are not).

Spend your money on a nicely bound blank notebook and start copying down the best of the truly wise statements you find in your own reading. You will end up with a much more substantial and substantive collection than Mitchell has provided. He could easily have assembled this "book" in one or two hours.

For those who never read well-known authors from the various wisdom traditions, then this tiny pamphlet might be a modest start. Other than that it seems mainly to be a way for Stephen Mitchell to increase his income with no effort whatever.

I'm a huge fan of Stephen Mitchel, ever since reading his translation of the Tao de Ching when I was in college. This is a wonderful collection of poems and thought provoking quokes from all the greats, cutting across all religions and cultures. Here's one of the last ones: The place is here; the way leads everywhere (Dogen). From the introduction I think the collection progresses from more simple to more complex. They're all terrific!

If you want a daily uplift but find little time to read in the morning, use this book. Each thought could be a discussion for the day. Thoughts that will help guide you with every decision you make. Each wisdon quote a little deeper a little closer your to spiritual peace. The mix of Masters quoted in here is proof to me that the message remains the same only the messagers change.

A good amount of the quotations in this book are not insightful in any way and make very, very little sense, if any at all. Some are self-contradicting and an actual detriment to true wisdom. All but a few quotes struggle to find fluidity and are very jerky in presentation. Upon further research as to the origins of the original quotes, translated by myself and other authors, I found that translator/"author" Stephen Mitchell completely fumbled many of the translations so much that I think he doesn't comprehend the source material at all; as if he only "meant" to sound insightful, yet the meaning is anything but. I get the feeling that his grasp of either wisdom or the English language is weak at best.

He even biffed some quotes that were originally written in English (Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Blake).

In addition to my aforementioned gripes, there are only 4 quotes in the entire book that take up more than half a page. In total there are 100 different quotes from only 46 sources.

One thing I did like is the biographical references included at the books end. Overall, the feeling I get is that the people who say this book is great are those that won't admit when something doesn't make complete sense for fear of losing face. I get most of what the "author" was trying to portray in the quotations, and so will most people, but I expect more from a mere compilation.