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Share in the accounts and discoveries of the many individuals who, just like you, set out to find new, true answers that could stand up to the test of passing time with its ever-changing conditions. Welcome these inward and uplifting thoughts as if they were your own, for in one sense… they are.
The mind is the master over every kind of fortune; it acts in both ways, being the cause of its own happiness and its own misery.
Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.
To learn to look away from oneself is necessary in order to see many things.
If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.
This is a country whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. You do not find it by travelling but by standing still. Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.
In every enterprise, consider where you will come out.
Consider, O discerning man, that you are the image of God and the bond of all creation, both of the heavenly and the terrestrial beings, and whenever you bend your head to worship and glorify God, all the creations, both heavenly and terrestrial, bow their heads with you and in you, to worship God. And whenever you do not worship and glorify Him, all the creations grieve over you and turn against you, and you will fall from grace.
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.
We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
If you devote your time to study, you will avoid all the irksome things of life, and you will not long for the approach of night, being tired of the day, and you will not be a burden to yourself, and your company will be acceptable to others.
The endurance of darkness is preparation for great light.
The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.
The path of self-knowledge has this aim in view, for no one can know himself unless he turns inwards away from sense-perception, and unless he learns what to seek for. By oneself this is impossible. A man cannot get to know himself alone. His imagination stands in the way. There is no sufficient point in himself from which he can view himself aright, no sufficient knowledge. The establishing of this point is a matter of long work upon oneself with the assistance of those in whom this point is already established.
The musicality of being holds both unending joy and infinite sorrow
It is the delicate touch of longing for the infinite
It is the tears of pain in the eyes of the worshiper
It is the sacrifice, at last rewarded
With a crown of roses, or thorns.
It holds the mystery of all beings who strive without knowledge
The infinite cycles of meaningless pain
The cares and woes of a thousand lives
Can one look at them, and listen without pity?
I touch them, I call them unto me
Those of little faith, and of great
Those who cry forever and those that laugh hysterically
The poor, the maimed, the lacking, the unhappy
The many parts each person must play.
I call them unto me, and I say:
Take all, take all, take everything and more
Your unhappiness is unbounded, take from me
And be at peace.
They scream, they cry, their tears are unending
The many forms of misery which all beings are heir to
Haunt me in the night.
There are beings of joy, of wonder, of enjoyment
There are sensual heavens, and pleasure-filled paradises
Yet where may those who suffer and grieve go
Those for whom the illusion of separateness
Is the truest reality?
Ropes and coils of evil deceptions
Locks and bars and endless loneliness
Before joy comes sorrow, before knowledge, pain
Before the thrill of enlightenment
Am I, who aid the wounded.
I share their grief, I hold them in my arms
I shed my tears, that they may realize they are not alone
In the vast depths of the infinite universe
There is one who cares.
Let us put the ideas of our mind, just as we put things of the laboratory, to the test of experience.
I do not wish to live what is not life.
‘Tis well, ’tis well; no more: Be not as extreme in submission as in offence.
Suffering, if it does not diminish love, will transport you to the furthest shore.
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
We would desire few things ardently if we had a perfect knowledge of what we were desiring.
True prudence is the knowledge of what to do and what not to do. One who possesses it never refrains from virtuous works and is never pierced by the deadly arrow of vice. Thus, he who understands words of prudence knows the difference between what is insidious, structured for deception and what reminds us quietly about the best way to live life.
There is no reason for despair. You need not fancy it is impossible to regulate your life in accordance with abstract ideas and maxims… the first thing to do is to understand the rule; the second thing is to learn the practice of it. The theory may be understood at once by an effort of reason, and yet the practice of it acquired only in the course of time.
