Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

“Obviously the truth is what’s so. Not so obviously, it is also so what.”

To be able to concentrate for a considerable amount of time is essential to difficult achievement.

Sometimes I write better than I can.

We live in our description of reality.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.

All things human are short lived and perishable.

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

“Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”

“Most of the time, we think we are our thoughts. We forget, or have never noticed, that there’s an aspect of our mind that’s watching these thoughts arise and pass away. The point of mindfulness is to get in touch with that witnessing capacity. Sometimes I ask students to imagine each thought as a visitor…

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.”

“We now have a strong desire for living combined with a strange carelessness about dying. We desire life like water and yet are ready to drink death like wine.”

The only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

Your inward conflicts express themselves in outward disasters.

The art of good decision making is looking forward to and celebrating the tradeoffs, not pretending they don’t exist.

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.”

The growth of understanding follows an ascending spiral rather than a straight line.

“Life shouldn’t be an ongoing struggle to see the glass half full, but rather an appreciation that there’s a glass at all.”

“Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.”

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”

“The destiny of nations depends upon the manner in which they feed themselves.”

No one can do everything. But everyone can do something.

“A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.”

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

Nothing happens next. This is it.

Basic goodness is good because it is unconditional, or fundamental. It is there already, in the same way that heaven and earth are there already.

Truth can come to you only when your mind and heart are simple, clear, and there is love in your heart; not if your heart is filled with the things of the mind.

There are no shortcuts in the human journey. As much as we dislike it, the mud in which we all swim is necessary to bloom.