In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

To be awake is to be alive.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

I like to let things breathe.

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down .

Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

You might not have the things you want, but if you check carefully, you got all you need.

Be of love a little more careful than of anything.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.

I’m perpetually lonely.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available – more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future in order to get more.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

Every man is his own hell.

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.

I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.