Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

Yeah, I like to keep myself interested – I’ll kind of throw myself into some area that I don’t completely know or understand, that I’m not adept at, so I’m forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There’s a good feeling that comes from that.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

You can always tell when a man’s well informed. His views are pretty much like your own.

A lie cannot live.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

Anyone can have a good day, but you have to be able to perform on a bad day.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

No man was ever great by imitation.

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

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

You’ve got to invest in the world, you’ve got to read, you’ve got to go to art galleries, you’ve got to find out the names of plants. You’ve got to start to love the world and know about the whole genius of the human race. We’re amazing people.

Over a 10-year period, 99 out of 100 new entrepreneurs will fail. Only one will be left standing as others get pushed out of the market or burn out from working so hard. It’s really sad.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

You were not created to just get by with an average, unrewarding, or unfulfilling life. God created you to leave your mark on this generation.

Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

One of the very important characteristics of a student is to question. Let the students ask questions.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

I have done one thing that I think is a contribution: I helped Buddhist science and modern science combine. No other Buddhist has done that. Other lamas, I don’t think they ever pay attention to modern science. Since my childhood, I have a keen interest.

I am a grafter.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing little things well.

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

To me, constructive criticism is when people take ownership of their ideas. That’s why I don’t listen to anything that’s anonymous. But it’s hard; when there’s something hurtful out there, I still want to read it over and over and memorize it and explain my point of view to the person.

The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Little things affect little minds.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

A man’s character is his fate.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.