Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.

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.

It is not well to make great changes in old age.

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

Don’t get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Every day is a gift from God. Learn to focus on the Giver and enjoy the gift!

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

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.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

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.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.

Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.

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

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell about thee: Yet who would live, and live without thee!

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you’re waiting for the elevator – instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons and also in the right manner at the right moment and for the right length of time.

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

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don’t allow our bodies to heal, and we don’t allow our minds and hearts to heal.

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.

Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: ‚Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?‘ They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom… in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.