We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.

I don’t ever want to be caught up in a system of thinking I can do one thing ‚cos that’s just… that’s just telling yourself a lie.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

It was morning; through the high window I saw the pure, bright blue of the sky as it hovered cheerfully over the long roofs of the neighboring houses. It too seemed full of joy, as if it had special plans, and had put on its finest clothes for the occasion.

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.

There are two kinds of people in this world. ‚I‘ people and ‚we‘ people. I’ve always tried to be a ‚we‘ person.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

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

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

Our personal intelligence is everlasting and divine.

Living animals are too eccentric in their movements, and the law of gravitation usually draws me from my seat upon them to a lower level; therefore, I am not an inveterate lover of horseback.

People should not make me out to be like Jesus; I don’t walk on water.

We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. That is our permanent state.

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.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

In one day, I have times where I’m feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.

Some days I totally appreciate everything that’s happening to me, and some days I feel everyone’s waiting for me to mess up.

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.

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

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.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

I’m not intelligent. I’m not arrogant. I’m just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club, and I made the cocktails and I made the sandwiches. I didn’t want to become a writer – it just happened.

You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

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

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

I’m not a god – I do bad things.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Please think of me like an endangered species and just observe me quietly from far away. If you try to talk to me or touch me casually, I may get intimidated and bite you. So please be careful.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

I am not the humblest person in the world. I admit that.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

I suppose we need not go mourning the buffaloes. In the nature of things, they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

People should make up their own mind about what they think of me.

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

I have observed that society in general always seems to honor its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

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.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.