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To live rightly in this world we must first become aware of it. The problem is a man’s false assumption that he is already aware, which leaves him no motive for investigation. Do not assume that the only existing world is that presented by the five senses and the surface mind.
We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.
Let each man think himself an act of God.
His mind a thought, his life a breath of God.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
The creation of a permanent ‘I’ must take place somewhere beyond the sphere of self-love. It must be brought into existence through a series of acts which cannot be initiated by self-love and so cannot start from the admiration of oneself. And for this reason many things are necessary before such acts can be self-initiated. The whole standpoint must change. The standpoint of materialism or sensualism cannot provide the right basis from which to start. Only the recognition that there are higher degrees of reality, and the emotions that such a recognition can rouse, can begin to give the right starting point. For such emotions do not lie in the sphere of the self-love.
If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.
Open up your inward sense, and see and hear.
He is the free man whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves besides.
God is gathering us out of all regions till he can make resurrection of our own hearts from the very earth, and teach us that we are all of one substance, and members of one another. For the one who loves his neighbor loves God, and the one who loves God, loves his own soul.
A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone.
The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep.
The common people are but ill judges of a man’s merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them.
In faith, man becomes certain that he has himself not in himself.
That our sanctification did not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God’s sake which we commonly do for our own.
The Void is that which stands right in the middle of “this” and “that.” The void is all inclusive, having no opposite. There is nothing which it excludes or opposes. It is a living void, because all forms come out of it and whoever realizes the void is filled with life and power and the love of all things.
When it’s easier to do evil, but you choose to do good, you are a true hero.
The slanderer is like one who flings dust at another when the wind is contrary; the dust does but return on him who threw it. The virtuous man cannot be hurt and the misery that the other would inflict comes back on himself.
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Confine yourself to the present.