What you seek is seeking you.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.

The best revenge is not to be like that.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Confine yourself to the present.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

He who is brave is free.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

Associate with people who are likely to improve you.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

Only the educated are free.

Circumstances don't make the man, they only reveal him to himself.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.

Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Hope is a waking dream.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

Live to the point of tears.

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

We are our choices.

Commitment is an act, not a word.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

Remember that you must behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought round to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation.

Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such a kind as the author pleases to make it. If short, of a short one; if long, of a long one.

Be content, then, with being a philosopher in all things; and if you wish also to appear so to any one, appear so to yourself, and it will be enough.

If you wish your children, and your wife, and your friends to live for ever, you are stupid; for you wish to be in control of things which you cannot.

For what else is tragedy, but the sufferings of men, bewildered by their admiration of external things, represented in proper verse?

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

If you seek truth, you will not seek by any means to gain a victory by slander; and if you find truth, you will not fear being defeated.

Truth conquers by itself; opinion by foreign aids.

For these alone are each man's own property, which make his actions either shameful or noble.

Whose choices are unhampered, whose desires attain their end, whose aversions do not fall into what they would avoid.

You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for?

It was in this way that Socrates became what he was, by paying attention to nothing other than reason in everything that he encountered.

The condition and characteristic of a vulgar person is that he never looks for either help or harm from himself, but only from externals.

If any one compliments him, he laughs to himself at the person who compliments him; and if any one censures him, he makes no defense.

Do you wish to be praised by a man who curses himself three times every hour?

For to that which once exceeds a due measure, there is no bound.

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things.

When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.

Being and non-being produce each other. Difficult and easy complete each other. Long and short define each other.

Water gathers in the low places that people disdain. Therefore it is like the Tao.

Chase after money and security, and your heart will never unclench.

Can you let your body become as supple and yielding as a newborn child's?

We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.

We work with being, but non-being is what we use.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.

Yielding, like melting ice; simple, like uncarved wood; empty, like a valley; obscure, like muddy water.

Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return.

When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear. When intellectual cleverness arises, great hypocrisy begins.

When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism appears.

Give up learning, and you will be free from all your worries.

What is the difference between yes and no? What is the difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense!

Before the universe was created, there was something formless and perfect. It was pure, deep, solitary, and unchanging.

The heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement.

Do you want to improve the world? I don't think it can be done. The world is sacred. It can't be improved.

For every force there is a counterforce. Wherever an army is stationed, briars and thorns grow up.

The great Tao flows everywhere, both to the left and to the right. All things depend on it for life, yet it doesn't hold on to them.

Because it has no desires, it can be called small. Because all things return to it, it can be called great.

The Tao never acts, yet nothing is left undone.

Newborn children are soft and tender. When dead, they are stiff and hard. Ten thousand plants are soft and flexible. When dead, they are dry and brittle.

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Overman—a rope over an abyss.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for a God.

Can you give yourself your own evil and your own good and hang your will above yourself like a law?

Are you a slave? Then you cannot be a friend. Are you a tyrant? Then you cannot have friends.

To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying, but a mighty, human, all-too-human fundamental proposition.

Only where there is life is there also will: not will to live, but—so I teach you—will to power!

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.

In the end, one experiences only oneself.

To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both—a philosopher.

Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?

Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is continually growing.

Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse.

Where are your greatest dangers? In compassion.

Great debts do not make for gratitude, but for revenge; and if a little benefit is not forgotten, it becomes a gnawing worm.

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty commander, an unknown sage—he is called Self. In your body he dwells; he is your body.

Ten truths a day must thou find; else thou seekest truth in the night, and thy soul remaineth hungry.

How much truth does a spirit endure, how much truth does it dare? More and more that became for me the real measure of value.

Fear is the mother of morality.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

He who cannot lie does not know what truth is.

We praise or blame as one or the other affords more opportunity for our power of judgment to shine.

Remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of other-worldly hopes!

You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.

As the ocean 'waves', the universe 'peoples'. Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature.

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, with a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing.

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Since it is in the present and only in the present that you live, there is no other reality than present reality.

The primary illusion is that I am a separate, lonely center of consciousness and action, placed in a world that is not me.

The self is not a thing; it is a process, an ongoing happening.

The more you try to hold on to your life, the more elusive it becomes. It is like trying to clasp water in your hand.

Death is the indispensable companion of life, without which life would lose all its savor.

Without death, life would be like a book whose pages are endless, and therefore meaningless.

The sensation of 'I' is not in fact separate from the experience of 'now'.

Words are like signposts: they point to the city, but they are not the city.

Money is a measure of wealth, but not wealth itself. You cannot eat dollar bills or drink gold.

The game of life is not a battle between good and evil; it is a play between light and shadow, which together make the picture.

Light cannot exist without darkness, nor solid without space. They go together like crest and trough of a wave.

The great problem of civilization is that we take the symbols for the reality.

Hospitals should be arranged like night clubs: places where people go to celebrate life and heal with joy, rather than grim temples of fear.

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

There are no mistakes in nature. There are only events.

You cannot touch the world without the world touching you in return.

The root of all human anxiety is the attempt to hold your breath indefinitely.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.

I have learned that beyond the surface, there is another world; and beyond our daylight lies a profound darkness of the stars.

The spirit of the depths from time immemorial and for all the future possesses a greater power than the spirit of this time.

Dreams open into that primordial cosmic night that had its being long before there was any ego consciousness.

The word 'belief' is a difficult thing for me. I don't believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. I know. I don't need to believe.

The self is not only the center, but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious.

We should not pretend that we understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

The most vital need of the modern soul is for a sense of meaning.

Without meaning, the life of man is an unendurable torment.

The serious problems in life are never fully solved. If ever they should seem to be so, it is a sure sign that something has been lost.

I am wiser than this man; for neither of us appears to know anything great and good, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I neither know nor think that I know.

Real wisdom is the property of the divine, and human wisdom has little or no value.

The highest form of knowledge is not to imagine that one knows what one does not know.

I attend as a midwife to the soul; the god compels me to foster the birth of truth in others, while withholding from me the power to produce it myself.

Let us follow the argument wherever, like a wind, it may lead us.

My barrenness of wisdom is no defect, but an invitation for truth to take birth in those who listen.

To be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not; for it is to think that one knows what one does not know.

I only wish that wisdom were of a kind that could flow from that which is full into that which is empty, if we only touched each other.

He who knows what is right will do what is right, for no one voluntarily chooses that which he knows will harm his own nature.

The god appointed me to the duty of leading the philosophical life, examining myself and examining others.

I have never been anyone's teacher, but if anyone wishes to hear me speaking and pursuing my mission, I have never begrudged him the opportunity.

I spend my whole life in going about, persuading you not to care for your bodies or your wealth, but first and foremost to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.

Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor, while caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?

It is the greatest good for an individual every day to converse about virtue, and to test oneself and others.

To prefer the preservation of the body over the integrity of the soul is to choose a gilded cage over eternal freedom.

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

The soul takes nothing with her to the other world but her education and culture; at the beginning of the journey, this alone helps or harms her.

One must never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any human being, no matter what one has suffered at their hands.

Doing wrong is worse than suffering wrong, and escaping punishment when one has done wrong is the greatest of all evils.

If I were forced either to do wrong or to suffer wrong, I would choose to suffer rather than to do wrong.

He who would truly fight for justice, if he would survive even for a short time, must lead a private rather than a public life.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it.

To live unjustly is to carry a festering wound within the core of one's own being.

Know thyself and be temperate—these two injunctions are in truth one and the same.

God has attached me to this city as to a great and noble horse which is sluggish by reason of its size and needs to be stirred by a gadfly.

Those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying, and they fear death least of all men.

The body is the source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere necessity of food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being.

If we would have pure knowledge of anything, we must be quit of the body; the soul in herself must behold things in themselves.

You may bury my body however you please, if only you can catch me, and I do not slip away from you.

The soul, being immortal and having been born many times, and having seen all things that exist, has learned all things.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live. Which is better only the divine knows.

Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; pay it and do not neglect it.

The greatest blessing granted to human beings is love, when guided by the yearning for divine wisdom.

He who has not the spirit of philosophy will wander through life as a stranger in his own home.

I am not only now but always a man who obeys nothing in me except the reason that seems best to me upon reflection.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions when severed from the anchor of reason.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with complete and perfect virtue.

The good of man is a functioning of the soul in accordance with reason, or not without reason, and this functioning must be lifelong.

The activity of philosophical contemplation is admittedly the pleasantest of all virtuous activities; its pleasure is marvelously pure and enduring.

He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life.

Every craft and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

A life of mere sensual indulgence makes human beings slavish in their tastes, preferring the life of grazing cattle.

The life of money-making is a life of constraint, and wealth is clearly not the good we seek; for it is merely useful for the sake of something else.

We become just by performing just acts, temperate by performing temperate acts, and brave by performing brave acts.

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.

The best and most delightful thing for a man is to live in accordance with reason, for reason more than anything else is man.

Neither by nature nor contrary to nature do virtues arise in us; rather, we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean relative to us, determined by rational principle.

Self-indulgence is justly censured, because it belongs to us not as human beings, but as animals.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice is the principle of order in political society.

Without virtue, man is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony.

To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing the kind of things a man chooses or avoids.

It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

Between friends there is no need of justice, but people who are just still need the bond of friendship.

To be loved is near to being honored, and honor is what most men covet; but true friendship is chosen for itself alone.

When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they still need friendship; and the highest form of justice seems to have the character of friendship.

To perceive is to suffer; for to be conscious is to be touched by the friction of existence.

All men by nature desire to know.

It is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.

Nature does nothing in vain.

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The soul never thinks without an image.

All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

Your duty is to be, and not to be this or that. 'I am that I am' sums up the whole truth; the method is summed up in 'be still.'

You do not have to struggle to reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides Him from you.

All life is Yoga. The whole world is a manifestation of the Spirit.

Hidden nature is secret divinity. Man is a transitional being; he is not final. For in man and high beyond him rise the radiant degrees of the divine consciousness.

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

Strength is Life, Weakness is Death. Expansion is Life, Contraction is Death. Love is Life, Hatred is Death.

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.

Comfort is no test of truth. Truth is often far from being comfortable.

When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.

External nature is only internal nature writ large.

All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so all paths lead to Thee.

Give up all desire for fruit; do the work for the sake of the work, because it is good.

The soul has neither sex, nor caste, nor nation. It is infinite, eternal, and free.

Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.

The goal of all nature is freedom; freedom is the only condition of growth and development.

He who sees the Supreme Lord dwelling equally in all beings, the imperishable in things that perish, he truly sees.

Whatever is true makes for light; whatever is false brings darkness.

Truth requires no defense; it stands by its own light.

Truth is like a vast tree, which yields more and more fruit the more you nurture it.

Truth resides in every human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth as one sees it.

Truth is the ultimate sovereign. Where Truth is, there is God.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Morality is the basis of things, and truth is the substance of all morality.

The soul is not conquerable by external chains.

The path of truth is as narrow as it is straight.

Truth needs no external badge; it validates itself.

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.

The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.

Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.

Men are cruel, but Man is kind.

The shadow of the flower upon the ground is not the flower.

The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.

Joy is the realization of the truth of oneness.

To the birds of the air, the sky has no frontiers.

Truth is not a commodity to be hoarded, but a light to be shared.

The highest prayer is a life lived in harmony with truth.

Truth is beautiful in its simplicity; falsehood alone requires ornament.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.

One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand.

A mind that is full of conclusions is dead; it cannot learn.

Order is not conformity; real order comes only when there is freedom from disorder.

The moment you have a conclusion, you cease to inquire.

Living is in the present; dying is in the future. Live with death as your constant companion, and you will live intensely.

You are the world, and the world is you.

True revolution is the psychological revolution of the individual.

The observer is the observed.

Insight is immediate; it does not take time.

The mind that questions everything is the only mind that truly learns.

Truth cannot be bought with words or rituals.

The mind free of dogma is the mind of true compassion.

When you cease to defend yourself, you become invulnerable.

The eternal is uncovered when the temporary is understood.

Do not follow another; be a light unto yourself.

Do not seek answers; understand the question deeply.

The soul has no frontiers except those built by fear.

Walk alone in your truth, and you will never be lost.

Freedom is the first and last step of wisdom.

The root of all suffering is attachment.

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.

Better it is to live one day seeing the Supreme Truth than to live a hundred years without ever seeing it.

Do not look for a sanctuary outside of yourself.

All conditioned things are impermanent; when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.

Let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present, and cross to the further shore.

Truth is timeless; it belongs to no single age.

A single word of truth outweighs oceans of deceit.

The middle path avoids all painful extremes.

The highest happiness is the peace of Nirvana.

Truth shines like the full moon in a clear night sky.

The light within is deathless and forever pure.

The question 'Who am I?' is not meant to get an answer, the question 'Who am I?' is meant to dissolve the questioner.

There is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free will, neither path nor achievement. This is the final truth.

The mind is only a bundle of thoughts. The 'I'-thought is the root. When the 'I'-thought is traced back to its source, the mind vanishes.