If every day you practice walking and sitting meditation and generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration and peace, you are a cell in the body of the new Buddha. This is not a dream but is possible today and tomorrow.

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.

I’ve learned not to look at reviews. Early on, I did. I was always curious.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

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.

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

Many people in this world are still so identified with every thought that arises in their head. There is not the slightest space of awareness there.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

Nothing will work unless you do.

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

I am a walking piece of art every day, with my dreams and my ambitions forward at all times in an effort to inspire my fans to lead their life in that way.

I don’t want to look sloppy, because then I feel sloppy.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.

There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

If we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows – pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music… That would be so much cheaper than bombs.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

Our Creator expects His children everywhere to educate themselves.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

As a human being, anger is a part of our mind. Irritation also part of our mind. But you can do – anger come, go. Never keep in your sort of – your inner world, then create a lot of suspicion, a lot of distrust, a lot of negative things, more worry.

I’m like a recovering perfectionist. For me it’s one day at a time.

In Buddhist culture, offering food to the monk symbolizes the action of goodness, and if you have no opportunity to support the practice of spirituality, then you are somehow left in the realm of darkness.

Oh, come, Divine Physician, and bind up every broken bone. Come with Thy sacred nard which Thou hast compounded of Thine own heart’s blood, and lay it home to the wounded conscience and let it feel its power. Oh! Give peace to those whose conscience is like the troubled sea which cannot rest.

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

God created man, but I could do better.

Never complain. Never explain.

I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated.

I want the concentration and the romance, and the worlds all glued together, fused, glowing: have no time to waste any more on prose.

Writing is like anything else – the more you do it, the better you get at it, the easier it comes, and the less concerned you’ll be about what’s going to happen to it, where it’s going, what it sounds like, whether it’s right.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

When you are learning about a martial art, it is about respect.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.

If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

And obviously, from our own personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge.

Wow, I get to wake up again? Ok. You have to make good with what you’ve got.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

Character is power.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

We make war that we may live in peace.

What one has to do usually can be done.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.