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Explore all of the quotations in our Living Book…
Happiness is not something you acquire. Love is not something you produce. Love is not something that you have. Love is something that has you.
Peace of mind! That is something essential to any enjoyment of the present moment, and unless its separate moments are enjoyed, there is an end to life’s happiness as a whole. We should always recollect that today comes only once, and never returns. We fancy that it will come again tomorrow, but tomorrow is another day, which, in its turn, comes only once.
A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself. All real good or evil that can befall him must be from himself… The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint man with himself. He is not to live to the future as described to him, but to live in the real future by living to the real present. The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
If all the trees on earth were pens, and if there were seven oceans full of ink, they would not suffice to describe the wonders of the Almighty.
To love only what happens, what was destined. No greater harmony.
To assist human beings in their search for wisdom was the purpose of the incarnation.
Peace of mind produces right values,
right values produce right thoughts.
Right thoughts produce right actions
and right actions produce
work which will be a
material reflection
for others to see
of the serenity
of it all.
Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.
The chief of our concerns is that of ourselves, yet how often have we not been told by the inner voice, that to pursue our own interests at the expense of others would be to do wrong! So we imagine that we are sometimes obeying the impulse of nature, but all the while we are resisting it. In listening to the voice of our senses, we turn a deaf ear to the dictates of our heart.
It lies in our own power to attune the mind to cheerfulness.
More and more our sincere seeker realizes his need to do nothing except to be an aware person from moment to moment. In one flash of insight he banishes the awful compulsion to scheme, protect, avoid, revise, attack, grab, cling, retreat, resist, regret, worry, expect, struggle, insist, demand, crave, battle, blame, apologize, persuade, believe. The whole terrible burden is cleared away. In its place he has quiet awareness.
I have no inclination to assault myself; it would be of no use. You may do it yourselves if you choose — I refuse.
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
If I were to discover that a certain kind of stone by the pond-shore was affected, say partially disintegrated, buy a particular natural sound, as of a bird or insect, I see that one could not be completely described without describing other. I am that rock by the pond side.
We are not ourselves.
Talkative people listen to no one, for they are ever speaking. And the first evil surrounding those who do not know the meaning of silence is that they hear nothing.
The principles of this authentic religion are entirely natural to man, so that the instant they are communicated to him they are received as ideas long familiar and self-evident… These principles are quite simple, understandable, and few in number.
Each heart is a world. You find all within yourself that you find without. The world that surrounds you is the magic glass of the world within you.
If you observe, you will see that there is an interval between two thoughts, between two emotions. In that interval, which is not the product of memory, there is an extraordinary freedom from the “me” and the “mine,” and that interval is timeless.
