Browse by: Quotation Source | Entire Living Book | The Search | The Sacred
Here you will read the innermost thoughts and feelings of inspired seekers who have gone before you. Some names you may know… others you will be glad to meet!
The first business of the philosopher is to part with self-conceit.
We are too fond of our own will. We want to be doing what we fancy mighty things, but the great point is to do small things, when called to do them, in a right spirit.
Sleep no more!
The soul of man does violence to itself, first of all.
But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
When I attained Absolute Perfect Enlightenment, I attained absolutely nothing. That is why it is called Absolute Perfect Enlightenment.
In living creatures, ignorance of self is nature; in man it is a vice.
What comfort, what strength, what economy there is in order — material order, intellectual order, moral order. To know where one is going and what one wishes — this is order; to keep one’s word and one’s engagements — again order; to have everything ready under one’s hand to be able to dispose of all one’s forces, and to have all one’s means of whatever kind under command — still order; to discipline one’s habits, one’s efforts, one’s wishes; to organize one’s life, to distribute one’s time… all this belongs to and is included in the word order. Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over oneself; order is power.
Character is constructed in the midsts of the tempests of the world.
The strength of any weakness within us is the degree to which it is feared.
His eyes can read men’s inmost hearts, and all the art of hypocrites cannot decide him. His sharp discernment sees things clear and true.
In whatever way people may praise us, they never teach us anything new.
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.
Having nothing, nothing can he lose.
Always check your inner state
with the lord of your heart.
Copper doesn’t know it’s copper,
until it’s changed to gold.
Your loving doesn’t know its majesty,
until it knows its helplessness.
If the beloved is everywhere,
the lover is a veil,
but when living itself becomes
the Friend, lovers disappear.
In the adversity of our best friends, we often find something which does not displease us.
The question at stake is no common one. It is, “Are we in our right sense or are we not?”
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. It may even be assumed that just as the unconscious affects us, so the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.
The mood of one who, seeing himself carried swiftly towards an event of mighty import, has nothing to do but wait — the mood in which philosophy vests an even-minded man with the utmost calm, and is ever so serviceable.
