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.

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

Confine yourself to the present.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

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

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

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.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

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

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.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.

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

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.

I’m living in the present, thinking about the past, hoping for the future.

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; it is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased.

My life is mine to remember.

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

Meditation helps me to calm down.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

I like to take it easy.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

As a human being, anger is a part of our mind. Irritation also part of our mind. But you can do – anger come, go. Never keep in your sort of – your inner world, then create a lot of suspicion, a lot of distrust, a lot of negative things, more worry.

There is so much that people take for granted.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

I have the habit of attention to such excess, that my senses get no rest – but suffer from a constant strain.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don’t see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.

If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. It means to think of something over and over.

When I’m dancing, I’m not thinking about anything. I am here. I am totally there. You know? And the feeling is a sensation of being away from myself. My soul dances with the angels, and my body dances with my wife.

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

Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

The fewer the words, the better the prayer.

Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.