The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one’s self.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

I think that, ah, I’m a very goofy sort of person in many ways.

Of those beings who live in ignorance, shut up and confined, as it were, in an egg, I have first broken the eggshell of ignorance and alone in the universe obtained the most exalted, universal Buddhahood.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

My philosophy is it’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

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.

Let not the 12 million Negroes be ashamed of the fact that they are the grandchildren of slaves. There is dishonor in being slave-owners.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.

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?

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

All of our problems start in our minds.

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

I’ve always been really, really aware of my insecurities – really, really aware. I never developed that thick skin that keeps you from letting things get to you.

I don’t think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I’m enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

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

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.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

My weak spot is laziness. Oh, I have a lot of weak spots: cookies, croissants.

How do I confront aging? With a wonder and a terror. Yeah, I’ll say that. Wonder and terror.

I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

I really haven’t had that exciting of a life. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life. So I pretty much like to make it up. I’d rather tell a story about somebody else.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

Vanity is but the surface.

I’m selfish.

I’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.

As long as I live, I will never forget that day 21 years ago when I raised my hand and took the oath of citizenship. Do you know how proud I was? I was so proud that I walked around with an American flag around my shoulders all day long.

I have great respect for the past. If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going. I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.