A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

I never make conscious decisions.

It is better to be deceived by one’s friends than to deceive them.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

The true and the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

I really have no interest in myself.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.

People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

Every time you think the problem is ‚out there,‘ that very thought is the problem.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

I am tough, but deep inside my toughness, I like to let people know I’m an old-fashioned mama’s boy.

As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

‚Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

There may not be one Truth – there may be several truths – but saying that is not to say that reality doesn’t exist.

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

I have never left another senator out to dry. Never.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

If someone lies, well, you had a choice to trust that person or not. I think the way my father raised me, well, he trusted everybody. And that worked for him.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

Man’s enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.