The more you live in the present moment, the more the fear of death disappears.

If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me – I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.

Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.

I really believed that fear is contagious.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

Death will be a great relief. No more interviews.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

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.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

They died hard, those savage men – like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.

I am two with nature.

When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.

Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret.

There are many things that happen every day that we could murmur about if we let ourselves go there. But they really aren’t worth the effort it takes to get upset and gripe about it.

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots.

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

This is love: the flowering of love is meditation.

When you combine boring with fear, you have fun.

If you’re in this business and you are scared, then you better do something else.

Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them.

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.

I pray while driving. I pray while working, and while relaxing.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

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.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

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

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

Nothing can be by itself alone, no one can be by himself or herself alone, everyone has to inter-be with every one else. That is why, when you look outside, around you, you can see yourself.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

Fear is real, but so is love.

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

I never make conscious decisions.

Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.

Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.