Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.

Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough

To a brave man, good and bad luck are like his left and right hand. He uses both.

Watch the mind as it tries, in every moment, to co-opt experience by translating it into a story. It tries to draw you away from experience into a mental world that simulates experience. If it succeeds, that story becomes your experience.

Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, or mine.

We transcend suffering, not because our problems are solved, but because we experience a level of consciousness in which nothing is missing, a way of being that doesn't depend on the conditions of our mind, body, and life situation.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Do not believe in anything
simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything
simply because it is spoken
and rumoured by many.
Do not believe in anything
simply because it is found written
in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything
merely on the authority
of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions
because they have been handed down
for many generations.
But after observation and analysis,
when you find that anything agrees with reason
and is conducive to the good
and benefit of one and all,
then accept it and live up to it.

So it is that every person you meet, each soul who crosses
your path and affects you - wonderfully and terribly,
briefly or for a lifetime - is here for that reason, and
every relationship you engage in is but a small scene in a
vast, ever-unfolding human panoply that is being endlessly
enacted for the purpose of your soul's development. When
you recognize this, you will suddenly, breathtakingly see
that each person has been brought to you with a high and
elegant purpose, that each soul has come to touch your soul
and teach it, that each relationship exists to hasten your
own soul's beautiful awakening. No longer is anyone a
tranger; no longer can any of your relationships be seen as
failures or mistakes.

We usually do not look into what is really there in front of us. We see life through a screen of thoughts and concepts, and we mistake those mental objects for reality. We get so caught up in this endless thought-stream that reality flows by unnoticed. We spend our time engrossed in activity, caught up in an eternal flight from pain and unpleasantness. We spend our energies trying to make ourselves feel better, trying to bury our fears. We are endlessly seeking security. Meanwhile, the world of real experience flows by untouched and untasted