Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

"If you hold a candle close to you, its flame rises. And if you hold it away from you, its flame shrinks. The same way you hold a candle close to you, keep all your plans, aspirations, projects, and dreams close to you too. Do not share your plans or goals until you complete them, because as you hold your candle away from you — envy, jealousy, and resentment may put out your flame before it grows."

"Before you were born, and were still too tiny for the human eye to see, you won the race for life from among 250 million competitors. And yet, how fast you have forgotten your strength, when your very existence is proof of your greatness."

"Beware of those who criticize you when you deserve some praise for an achievement, for it is they who secretly desire to be worshiped."

"Whenever you should doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower. Even though it plunges to life from beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty."

"You were born a winner, a warrior, one who defied the odds by surviving the most gruesome battle of them all - the race to the egg. And now that you are a giant, why do you even doubt victory against smaller numbers and wider margins? The only walls that exist are those you have placed in your mind. And whatever obstacles you conceive, exist only because you have forgotten what you have already achieved."

"To be successful, one has to be one of three bees - the queen bee, the hardest working bee, or the bee that does not fit in."

"Every flower blooms at a different pace."

"Beware of those who are bitter, for they will never allow you to enjoy your fruit."

"The number of ways to live in one lifetime is limitless. So why limit yourself?"

"I do what I do because I love God, as I love your children, as I love humanity, as I love peace, truth, and justice for all. I may not be a fan of religion, but I am a big fan of God. I choose not to subscribe to any one religion because I recognize truths in them all — both the truths and flaws. For anybody to believe that any father would want to see his children fighting is madness. It does not make the Creator happy to see anybody massacre any of his beautiful creations. If you must know the religion I choose, I choose LOVE. If you must know the name of my god, his name is Truth, or rather 'He Who is One, The One Who is All."

"Textbook intelligence is not true intelligence. It only marks a man good at memorization."

"One word absent from a sentence, or misinterpreted incorrectly, can change the entire meaning of a sentence. One word can change the meaning of everything. Before you believe anything about God or anybody, ask yourself how well do you trust the transmitter, translator or interpreter. And if you have never met them, then how do you know if the knowledge you acquired is even right? One hundred and twenty-five years following every major event in history, all remaining witnesses will have died. How well do you trust the man who has stored his version of a story? And how can you put that much faith into someone you don't know?"

"There is a secret a person with great knowledge discovers along the path to truth. That is, the more doors you open to the mysteries, the smaller you feel. And because you begin to feel smaller and smaller until your ego disappears, the more humble you become. Therefore, any man who behaves arrogantly with what little he knows, or claims to know all, only reveals to all that he really knows nothing. Real greatness does not reside inside those who feel large. The truly wise are meek."

"You may not understand issues that do not pertain to the heart, but be a master in areas that do. Nobody knows everything, and nobody can be a master of everything. Nobody was created perfect, and nobody should be measured according to perfection. It is the weight of your heart that matters the most in the end. All else is irrelevant."

"They say that wisdom is a dying flower, and I disagree. In a world covered in mud, the lotus still continues to grow. Even after mankind washes itself away from the surface of the earth, knowledge will still remain. Look no further than the bosom of Nature. It offers all the solutions needed to cure and unite humanity. Wise men only exist as interpreters and transmitters of Truth. Their time on earth is limited, but Nature's existence is eternal. Open books shall always exist for those with an opened eye and pure heart; for Truth can only be seen by those with truth in them."

"Empathy is the door to wisdom."

"The truly wise are meek. Yet being small and meek do not make one weak. Arming oneself with true knowledge generates strong confidence and a bold spirit that makes you a lion of God. The Creator does not want you to suffer, yet we are being conditioned by society to accept suffering, weak and passive dispositions under the belief that such conditions are favorable by God. Weakness is not a virtue praised by God. How could he desire for you to be weak if he tells us to stand by our conscience? Doing so requires strength. However, there is a difference between arrogance when inflating your ego, and confidence when one truly gets closer to God. One feels large, while the other feels small. Why? Because a man of wisdom understands that he is just a small pea in a sea of infinite atoms, and that in the end — we are all connected. And did you not know that the smaller a creature is, the bolder its spirit?"

"Truth is the preferred weapon of God, and censorship is the most abused tool of the Devil."

"The Creator favors the man who loves over the man who hates. If you teach hatred to your children, one day your child will have that hatred reflected back onto them, or onto you."

"Knowledge is strength. Ignorance is the kiss of death."