When the mind is empty, silent, when it is in a state of complete negation – which is not blankness, nor the opposite of being positive, but a totally different state in which all thought has ceased – only then is it possible for that which is unnameable to come into being.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

It doesn’t take long to become aware of the presence of the CIA in Laos.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.

The soul is your innermost being. The presence that you are beyond form. The consciousness that you are beyond form, that is the soul. That is who you are in essence.

Many times, we miss out on God’s best because we give up too soon. We don’t realize how close we are to victory.

Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

There are many, many Christians who practice Buddhism, and they become better and better Christians all the time.

I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

I’ve learned through my own relationship with God that He’s not expecting me to be perfect; He wants me to do my best to be in His will and take steps of faith as He leads me, through His Word and the promptings He speaks to my heart.

We think too much and feel too little.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

I have inhaled, exhaled everything.

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

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

The wisest hustler can suddenly fall for the worst tramp and lose all of his money on her. The hustler is aware of his own weaknesses and openings to con. This awareness is his edge.

You practice mindfulness, on the one hand, to be calm and peaceful. On the other hand, as you practice mindfulness and live a life of peace, you inspire hope for a future of peace.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

I think it’s horrible that people have to be told. Don’t smoke! Everybody knows it’s bad for the health. But they have to forbid it.

I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now about the Third World.

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.

Sexism is everywhere, bro. I don’t know if it’s ever not somewhere.

Work as if you were to live a hundred years. Pray as if you were to die tomorrow.

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

Meditation is not to avoid society; it is to look deep to have the kind of insight you need to take action. To think that it is just to sit down and enjoy the calm and peace, is wrong.

The funny thing is, all my friends are short. I wasn’t aware of tall people till I got to high school. I didn’t know they existed. I was sheltered.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

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.

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.

Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.

Sometimes God will deliver you from the fire, and other times God will make you fireproof.

The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

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.

Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.

I don’t carry the burden of the past or the madness of the future. I live in the present.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God’s law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.

If you’re not careful to think and speak words of faith, worry will creep in, and it will not only steal your peace and joy, it will steal your ‚today.‘ The present is the greatest gift God ever gives us. So hold on to the peace that’s yours in Christ. Don’t let it go.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not – silence is the sharper sword.

You have to stay fresh and blank in your mind when you go out to bat. You complicate things, and you’re gone.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

I groan daily under a body of sin and corruption. Oh for the time when I shall drop this flesh, and be free from sin!

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.