I think the discipline comes with turning that cellphone and Blackberry off and unplugging completely. You do that and you go through some withdrawals in the beginning. You start thinking, ‚Oh, do I need to do this? Do I need to do that?‘ You forget that we were doing just fine with the payphone.

I like to take it easy.

Sometimes I try to just sit at home and do something calmer and simpler and just be in my life. You know, not trying to solve a lot of things at once.

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.

I have inhaled, exhaled everything.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

There are techniques of Buddhism, such as meditation, that anyone can adopt.

With self-discipline most anything is possible.

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.

I need to keep working on myself for a while.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

The country would be a lot better off if we stopped having comment sections. And if we got rid of Twitter.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

We’ve fallen into a trap of ever-widening orbits of contact, and there is a total disregard for the present moment.

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God’s law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.

I like to let things breathe.

I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I’m praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I’m grateful that I’m heard.

I sometimes ask people, ‚Can you be aware of your own presence? Not the thoughts that you’re having, not the emotions that you’re having, but the very presence of your very being?‘ You become aware of your own presence by sensing the entire energy field in your body that is alive. And that is the totality of your presence.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be.

We go on in our pleasures thinking they’re going to last forever.

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.

Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.

We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

People tend to dwell more on negative things than on good things. So the mind then becomes obsessed with negative things, with judgments, guilt and anxiety produced by thoughts about the future and so on.

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice… No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.

My life is mine to remember.

I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

Everything is generated through your own will power.