There’s no way to remove the observer – us – from our perceptions of the world.

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

Many people in this world are still so identified with every thought that arises in their head. There is not the slightest space of awareness there.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

The Paralympic Games is about transforming our perception of the world.

Many people have an intense feeling about what they’re best at. Too often, they’re driven away from it by other people.

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.

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

Don’t ever play yourself.

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

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

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.

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

I’m getting a wrinkle above my eyebrow because I just can’t stop lifting it, and I love that you know.

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.

When you work as a humanitarian, you are conscious that politics have to be considered. Because if you really want to make an extreme change, then you have a responsibility.

I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

I don’t do things for the response or for the controversy. I just live my life.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

There is no unique picture of reality.

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

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 know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.