Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

I’m very type-A, and many things in my life are about control and domination, but eating should be a submissive experience, where you let down your guard and enjoy the ride.

Every day is a gift from God. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow, so that tells me to see the good in this day to make the most of it.

The simplification of anything is always sensational.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

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.

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

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

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.

I believe God’s keeping the records, and I believe you will be rewarded even in this life. Somehow, some way, God will make it up to you. It may be He protected you from an accident you never knew. You can’t give God something without God giving you more in return, whether it’s peace or joy or satisfaction.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

People don’t realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.

When someone bestows something on you, no matter how true it is, when someone says, ‚Sexiest Man Alive,‘ I’m honestly going, ‚Thank you. Right on.‘ For me, it’s never canceled out anything, it’s never made me go, ‚Does this make me less talented of an actor?‘

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world.

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make – and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn’t quite work.

The U.S.S. George H. W. Bush is a great thing in my life. It’s amazing. A great honor.

I’ve been blessed in that regard through and through. So I’m just thankful for this opportunity to play the game that I love and share that with the world.

We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple and always consonant to itself.

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Money doesn’t make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

The more you know the less you need to say.

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.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.

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.

I guess I’m living in the present more than the past.

I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.

He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

I’m an atheist and I thank God for it.

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.

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar playing music for people.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

This is not a bad life.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

I’ve been in beautiful landscapes where one is tempted to whip out a camera and take a picture. I’ve learned to resist that.

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

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

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.