The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.

It’s my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.

I know lots of people who are educated far beyond their intelligence.

All schools, all colleges have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge.

Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the even nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.

I do not seek. I find.

A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.

I learned something recently: Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living…

If you miss the present moment you miss your appointment with life. That is very serious.

Zen practice is at bottom the act of giving oneself, of entering wholly, into one’s actions. As this giving becomes more and more complete, one’s practice and one’s life both attain an ever deeper degree of integrity and reality.

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides.

At the moment that you look with your eyes wide open, everywhere you will find differences, an infinite variety.

In the march of events, we notice the rise and fall, and we generally look toward the rise, forgetting the fall. Both are necessary, and both are great. This is the nature of the universe.

You will always be getting praise and blame, but do not let either affect the poise of the mind: follow the calmness, the absence of pride.

Try to approach God with your crying heart. It will awaken your soulful, spiritual consciousness.

When one past thought has ceased and a future thought has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn’t there a consciousness of the present moment? Well, that’s what naturally peaceful awareness is.

Be universal in your love. You will see the universe to be the picture of your own being.

Recognizing the sacred begins, quite simply, when we are interested in every detail of our lives.

I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company. I tell my students to try to know molecules, so well that when they have some question involving molecules, they can ask themselves, What would I do if I were that molecule? I tell them, Try to feel like a molecule; and…

Through moral observance you attain a certain measure of purification of the mind; only then can you step into spiritual life.

Before they become a tangible reality, all phenomena are seeds. The wise man takes great care of seeds.

A wise man makes his own decisions; an ignorant man follows public opinion.

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and difficult as that.

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

The best causes tend to attract to their support the worst arguments.

Remember… hope is a good thin, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.