Without stirring abroad, One can know the whole world; Without looking out of the window One can see the way of heaven. The further one goes The less one knows.

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

I confused things with their names: that is belief.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.

Do everything as in the eye of another.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

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

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

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.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

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.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

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.

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?

With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

A life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. There will be sleeping enough in the grave.

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

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.

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

I’ve been to those places where it’s ‚poor, pitiful me.‘

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.

There was a while when I was feeling like, ‚Damn, if I’d just been born black, I would not have to go through all this‘.

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it’s like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can’t really speak on it, because I wasn’t there. I don’t feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.

A lie cannot live.