How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others.

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

The proper study of mankind is books.

I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.

There are things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

You know, my family and friends have never been yes-men: ‚Yes, you’re doing the right thing, you’re always right.‘ No, they tell me when I’m wrong, and that’s why I’ve been able to stay who I am and stay humble.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again – as I always am when I write.

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It’s a parallel thing in me.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

Don’t compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams.

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

Doing a show for three weeks is nothing like doing a show for seven seasons.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

As long as the people don’t fear the truth, there is hope. For once they fear it, the one who tells it doesn’t stand a chance. And today, truth is still beautiful… but so frightening.

Sweet is the memory of past troubles.

I’m too busy acting like I’m not Naive. I’ve seen it all, I was here first.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

Nobody knows me.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

Know your worth! People always act like they’re doing more for you than you’re doing for them.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.

I’m nobody, who are you?

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.

The more you know the less you need to say.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.

I will be unhappy if I know I have not accomplished something I should have done that was possible.

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.