I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

World belongs to humanity, not this leader, that leader or that king or prince or religious leader. World belongs to humanity.

There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.

Here’s something that’s contrary to popular belief: I actually don’t like thinking. I think people think I like to think a lot. And I don’t. I do not like to think at all.

I feel like I write so that people can think of it as theirs. If my song is exactly about your life right now, then it is – I don’t even want to say that it’s mine, because it’s yours.

To live is to think.

I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

When I was married, I definitely went through a lying period.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

I saw a picture of myself when I came out of the hospital. I didn’t recognize myself.

All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

Honestly, I’ve been thinking lately about how boring I am. When I do get time to myself, I watch TV.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

As you think, so shall you become.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

I don’t know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything. I personally do not think I’m a great gift to the world. I’ve been very fortunate.

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

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‚The Big Trail‘ had been a success and launched me as a star.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history, looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion.

Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

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

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

Consider a tree for a moment. As beautiful as trees are to look at, we don’t see what goes on underground – as they grow roots. Trees must develop deep roots in order to grow strong and produce their beauty. But we don’t see the roots. We just see and enjoy the beauty. In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree.

Why regret anything? Where does it get you to regret anything you’ve ever done in your life? It gets you nowhere. It’s a pathetic emotion that you can wallow in.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Be as you wish to seem.