He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

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

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.

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.

I don’t spend that much time being introspective, believe it or not. All I know is that I grew up not questioning God because that’s how you are. God was there like the birds and the wind.

My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next.

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

I don’t really know that much about love, it turns out.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

God made me and broke the mold.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

When you love and accept yourself, when you know who really cares about you, and when you learn from your mistakes, then you stop caring about what people who don’t know you think.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

Sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side.

Pride deafens us to the advice or warnings of those around us.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

Have the humility to learn from those around you.

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

You don’t know what you can get away with until you try.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Philosophy is the highest music.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

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.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

I have practically no private life. I’m already used to this and ready for it. Yes, sometimes it is hard, but it is the choice I made.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

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

Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

It seems to me that terrestrial beings, as they become more autonomous, psychologically richer, shut themselves up in a way against one another, and at the same time gradually become strangers to the cosmic environment and currents, impenetrable to one another, and incapable of exteriorizing themselves.

It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.

My public is growing up just as I am. After all, I’m not 19 anymore and if I stick with the sex bit, who will be paying to see me when I’m 50?

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.