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The custom of frequent reflection will keep their minds from running adrift, and call their thoughts home from useless, inattentive roving.
I have a body on which other bodies act, and which acts reciprocally upon them. This reciprocal action is certain; but my will is independent of my senses. I can either consent to, or resist their impressions. I am either vanquished or victor, and can perceive clearly within myself when I act according to my will, and when I submit to be governed by my passions. I always have the power to will.
There is an unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a voluntary student.
Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depends upon the future. We let go of the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance — and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus.
Better is he that restrains his anger, as Solomon says, “than he that takes a city,” for anger leads astray even brave men.
All powerful souls have kindred with each other.
God loveth those who are pure. Naught in the Bayan and in the sight of God is more loved than purity and immaculate cleanliness… God desireth not to see, in the Dispensation of the Bayan, any soul deprived of joy and radiance.
He indeed desireth that under all conditions, all may be adorned with such purity, both inwardly and outwardly, that no repugnance may be caused even to themselves, how much less unto others.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.
When the whole world is running headlong towards the precipice, one who walks in the opposite direction is looked at as being crazy.
This is the sum of duty: Do naught unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
The bamboo shadows
Sweep the steps
But raise no dust.
One who excels at moving the enemy deploys in a configuration to which the enemy must respond. He offers something that the enemy must seize. With profit he moves them, with the foundation he awaits them.
The highest good can only be beheld by those who are very pure in spirit, and can only be tasted when the passions are as they should be. This is why Saint Augustine prays: “O Lord, let me taste in my will what I know in my mind, and feel through love what I grasp through awareness.”
If we would put some slight stress on ourselves at the beginning, then afterwards we should be able to do all things with ease and joy.
From this difference between the new and the old man, which is a difference as real as that between heaven and earth, several lessons of great instruction may be learned.
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
What frightens you? Stand then and be free. If the sun comes down, the moons crumbles into dust, systems after systems are hurled into annihilation, what is that to you? Stand as a rock; you are indestructible… so break this chain and be free forever. What frightens you, what holds you down? It is only ignorance and delusion; nothing else can bind you… Therefore, if you dare, stand on that.
