When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

I’m really trying to dredge up what one might call intellectual and moral material. For example, when do you realize that you are an American? What age does that happen to you? When do you realize what religion your parents practice? When does it all become conscious? I was interested in exploring all of that.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn’t a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

Man is a universe within himself.

Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

Character is expressed through our behavior patterns, or natural responses to things.

Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

Cowardice… is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.

I think Buddhism should open the door of psychology and healing to penetrate more easily into the Western world.

What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

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.

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that, everyone’s had enough of me to last a month.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you’ll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

If you want to know your true opinion of someone, watch the effect produced in you by the first sight of a letter from him.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

Go on thinking that you don’t need to be read and you’ll find that it may become quite true: no one will feel the need tom read it because it is written for yourself alone; and the public won’t feel any impulse to gate crash such a private party.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

There are very few people who are going to look into the mirror and say, ‚That person I see is a savage monster;‘ instead, they make up some construction that justifies what they do.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

The young are permanently in a state resembling intoxication.

Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?

It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

I really have no interest in myself.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it’s true.

‚Kiss Land‘ wasn’t about what people wanted to hear on the radio. It was the state of mind I was in – introverted, like David Cronenberg’s ‚Naked Lunch.‘ You didn’t know if you were hearing a chorus or a verse. It was just my thoughts.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.