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The mason employed on the building of a house may be quite ignorant of its general design, or, at any rate, he may not keep it constantly in mind. So it is with man: in working through the days and hours of his life, he takes little thought of its character as a whole… It is only when we come to view our life as a connected whole that our character and capacities show themselves in their true light; that we see how, in particular instances, some happy inspiration, as it were, led us to choose the only true path out of a thousand which might have brought us to ruin.
The very discovery of these hidden things is in itself a purifying experience! The soul needs to discover what is inside. The self nature needs to see what it really is, and what it is like, right to the very bottom.
That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the great stoical doctrine, “Obey thyself.” That which shows God in me, fortifies me.
Every man has within himself a continent of undiscovered character.
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
No tongue can tell Your secret
For the measure of the word obscures Your nature
But the gift of the ear
Is that it hears
What the tongue cannot tell.
There is no path to truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery. What is formulated is not true. You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself. You must set out to discover yourself, but not according to any plan or pattern, for then there is no discovery.
There is no greater mystery than this, that we keep seeking reality though in fact we are reality. We think that there is something hiding reality and that this must be destroyed before reality is gained. How ridiculous! A day will dawn when you will laugh at all your past efforts. That which will be the day you laugh is also here and now.
Those who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but, at the same time, best know how to prize them the most. But no company is far preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues.
No negative state has the right to rule over your life.
A happy life is joy in the truth.
Men must be aware of the wisdom and the strength that is in them if their understanding is to be expanded.
Nothing leads to good which is not natural.
My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.
There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.
Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.
For my part, I would rather there were less of such excitement and transport, less of mere thrilling emotion, so that a man were diligent and rightly manful in working and in virtue, for in such exercises do we learn best to know ourselves.
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so them, for this is the law and the prophets.
The very gods envy the bliss of him who has escaped from the floods of passion and has climbed the shores of Nirvana… He is like unto the lotus which grows in the water, yet not a drop of water adheres to its petals. The man who walks in the noble path lives in the world, and yet his heart is not defiled by worldly desires.
