🌙 Reflective

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

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

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

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

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.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

Live to the point of tears.

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

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

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions.

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.

If it be the author's pleasure you should act a poor man, a cripple, a governor, or a private person, see that you act it naturally.

If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals in order to please anyone, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life.

So long as you are allowed to keep it, take care of it as an innkeeper takes care of the property of a guest.

Remember that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so.

When any one provokes you, know that it is your own opinion which has provoked you.

In banquets remember that you entertain two guests, body and soul: and what you give to the body you soon lose, but what you give to the soul remains forever.

Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen. Why do you wish to grasp the fruit before its season?

Nature has given to men one tongue, but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

Does your head ache? Be not hasty to curse. Does your ear ache? Be not hasty to lament.

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.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

If you would not be of an angry temper, do not feed your habit; give it nothing which may increase the disorder.

For habit is first weakened and then entirely destroyed.

And what is your safety? Never to disobey God, never to accuse Him, never to find fault with anything He has given, never unwillingly to do or suffer anything that is necessary.

Never praise or blame any man because of the things that are common to all, but only for his opinions.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?

Who, then, wishes to live in error? No one. Who wishes to live deceived, impetuous, dishonest, intemperate, complaining, abject? No one.

By one day's defeat and giving way, virtue is either lost or preserved.

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

When he is impeded or hindered, he blames only himself.

He walks about with caution, like sick men, fearful of disturbing anything newly formed, until it attains proper stability.

Nature has given us one tongue, but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.

Let not your mind be carried away by any sudden impression; but say, 'Wait for me a little, impression: let me see who you are, and whence you come; let me test you.'

Do you wish to please a man who does not please himself?

If you have assumed a character beyond your strength, you have both played that poorly, and neglected that which you might have filled with credit.

As you take care not to step upon a nail, or turn your foot; so likewise take care not to hurt the ruling faculty of your mind.

If you exceed this, you must inevitably be carried forward to the precipice: just as in the case of a shoe, if you go beyond its fitness to the foot, it comes first to be gilded, then purple, and then studded with jewels.

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

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

When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.

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

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

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

Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep to the original oneness?

Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing, acting with no expectation, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue.

We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable.

Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear.

The ancient masters were profound and subtle. Their wisdom was unfathomable.

Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the right action arises by itself?

Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return.

If you don't realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow. When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant.

The best leaders are those the people hardly know exist.

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

Other people are bright and confident; I alone seem dim and bewildered. Other people are clever and purposeful; I alone seem dull and clumsy.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn, let yourself die.

The Master doesn't display himself, therefore people can see his light. He doesn't assert himself, therefore he is recognized.

He who stands on tiptoe doesn't stand firm. He who rushes ahead doesn't go far.

If you tamper with it, you will ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you will lose it.

There is a time for being ahead, a time for being behind; a time for being in motion, a time for being at rest.

Whoever relies on the Tao in governing men doesn't try to force issues or defeat enemies by force of arms.

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

Even the finest weapon is an instrument of fear; a civilized man will not use it unless he is forced to, and then with sadness and restraint.

It accomplishes its work, but claims no credit. It dresses and feeds all things, but doesn't claim to be their master.

If you want to take something, you must first give it. This is called the subtle perception of the way things are.

Fish cannot leave deep waters, and a country's weapons should not be displayed.

That the soft overcomes the hard, and the yielding overcomes the rigid: everyone knows this, yet no one can put it into practice.

Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

In loneliness, the lonely one eats himself; in a crowd, the many eat him. Now choose.

Can you be your own judge and the avenger of your own law? Terrible is it to be alone with the judge and the avenger of one's own law.

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.

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.

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been injured.

The charm of knowledge would be small if so much shame did not have to be overcome on the way to it.

In the end, one experiences only oneself.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

What do you love in others? My hopes.

Whom do you call bad? Him who always wants to put to shame.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.

He who has nothing to hide does not need to speak.

There is an innocence in admiration: it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might one day be admired.

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 times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleepeth the unreconciled.

The mother of excess is not joy, but joylessness.

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

I teach you the friend in whom the world standeth complete, a capsule of the good—the creating friend, who hath always a complete world to bestow.

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusions.

By thoughts I mean specifically chatter in the skull: perpetual and compulsive repetition of words, of reckoning and calculating.

Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all, unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not within the power of the will.

If you try to capture water in a bucket, it stagnates. If you let it run free in the river, it remains pure and alive.

Human beings are simply unable to live happily without accepting the fundamental insecurity of existence.

There is no contradiction between spontaneous freedom and disciplined skill; they are the two sides of the same coin.

To know reality you must look at it directly, not through the screen of symbols, words, and numbers.

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

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

If you realize that you cannot force yourself to be good, you will begin to understand what real goodness is.

The reason we do not see it is that we are looking with our eyes wide open in the wrong direction.

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

Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown: that is the true address of the sage.

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

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself.

To find out what is truly individual in ourselves, profound reflection is needed; and suddenly we realize how uncommonly difficult the discovery of individuality is.

Midlife is the time to let go of an overdominant ego and to contemplate the deeper significance of human existence.

The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.

My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you—are you there? I have returned, I am here again.

What we do not make conscious emerges in our lives as destiny.

They then dwell in the house next door, and at any moment a spark may cross and set fire to his own house.

Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down, below the surface of the average conscience, a still small voice says to us: something is out of tune.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Every mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother, and every mother extends backward into her mother and forward into her daughter.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life.

That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy—these are undoubtedly great virtues. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, is within me?

What if I should discover that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness—that I myself am the enemy who must be loved?

The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories.

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

A healthy person does not torture others—generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

The therapist must at all times be prepared to admit that the patient may be right.

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.

We must be able to stand alone before we can truly stand together.

The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well.

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.

To know that which you know, and that which you do not know—this is the true nature of understanding.

An unconsidered opinion is like an untamed beast; only through rigorous cross-examination does it yield true understanding.

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.

True understanding begins when one is stripped of the conceit of knowledge.

Speak, that I may see you; for the soul reveals its stature through the words it chooses.

Contentment is natural wealth; luxury is artificial poverty.

A life devoted solely to accumulation is a life lived in exile from the spirit.

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.

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

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul; let your speech be pure and true to the measure of reality.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue—to the end we should hear and see more than we speak.

Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.

A genuine friend is another self, mirroring the virtue and striving of one's own spirit.

Other men live to eat, while I eat only to live.

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.

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.

Can anything be more ridiculous than for a man to be in love with what harms him and hostile to what benefits him?

The comic and the tragic lie alongside each other; he who knows how to write the one should also know how to write the other.

Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of; for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again.

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

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

Envy is the ulcer of the soul.

A city where the citizens obey the laws is happy in peace and invincible in war.

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.

All true learning is nothing other than recollection, the awakening of what the soul already carries within itself.

Love is the pursuit of whole, the longing to be restored to that original unity from which we fell.

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

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.

Temperance is the health of the soul; without it, all other virtues are as water poured into a broken sieve.

It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one simply to save face.

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

For one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one sunny day; and so too one day or a short time does not make a man blessed and happy.

Those who wish to succeed must ask the right preliminary questions.

No one would choose a life of possessing all good things on condition of being solitary, for man is a social being and naturally disposed to live with others.

Misfortune reveals those who are not really friends.

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.

To appreciate the beauty of a day, one must have experienced the chill of the night.

In all things moderation is best; for excess and deficiency alike ruin virtue.

Temperance and courage are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.

It is the mark of an honorable man to remember benefits received, but to be reluctant to remember those he has conferred.

Shame is an ornament to the young, but a disgrace to the old.

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

We praise a man who feels angry on the right grounds and against the right persons, and also in the right manner and at the right moment and for the right length of time.

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

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit.

To be friends with many people in the way of perfect friendship is impossible, just as it is impossible to be in love with many people at once.

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

True friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, people cannot know each other until they have eaten the proverbial salt together.

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

The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake alone.

Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain that they are their own, and because the bringing of them forth is more painful.

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

The presence of friends in misfortune is a complex thing; their sympathy relieves our grief, yet it pains us to see them grieving for our sake.

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Change in all things is sweet, for our nature is not simple, but compound.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked.

Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Therefore, we can predict his future only within the large framework of a statistical survey referring to the whole group; the individual personality remains essentially unpredictable.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but the last of the human freedoms.

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

In love, a human being encounters another in their unrepeatable wholeness.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life.

It is not suffering itself that destroys human beings, but suffering without purpose.

No one can relieve another of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

A door of happiness opens outward; anyone who tries to pull it inward only shuts it more tightly.

Man is responsible for recognizing the demands that reality makes on him at every single moment.

Boredom is now bringing to psychiatrists more problems to solve than distress is.

Sunday neurosis is that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over.

In the concentration camps, we watched our comrades behave either like animals or like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which is actualized depends on decisions, not on conditions.

No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of 'pure race.'

To be responsible means to be selective, to distinguish between the essential and the inessential.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation.

Humor allows a human being to put a distance between himself and his predicament, rising above his sorrow if only for a few seconds.

The human capacity for self-detachment enables man to look at himself, judge himself, and even laugh at himself.

Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be wiped out. Having been is also a kind of being, perhaps the most secure kind of being.

Every moment holds thousands of possibilities, but we can only choose one to make real; all the others are lost forever.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

Death gives life its true seriousness and urgency. If we were immortal, we could postpone every decision forever.

A person does not merely adapt to conditions; he actively creates his destiny through how he interprets them.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, if one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Human beings have a tendency to perceive only what accords with their pre-existing interests.

It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.

We notice only what we have names for, and pass by the rest unseen.

Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech. On the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers.

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.

Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible.

A philosopher is just a man who thinks in an unusually obstinate way.

To know the truth requires a willing surrender of preconceived prejudices before the court of practical experience.

We must live today by what truth we can get today, and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

Whatever discoveries have been made in the region of self-love, there remain many uncharted territories there.

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that at last we are disguised to ourselves.

We would often be ashamed of our best actions if the world only saw all the motives which produced them.

We easily forget our faults when they are only known to ourselves.

If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting them in others.

Self-love increases or diminishes the good qualities of our friends in proportion to the satisfaction we receive from them.

Nothing is given so profusely as advice.

Old men love to give good advice to console themselves for no longer being able to set bad examples.

True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.

It is as easy to deceive oneself without perceiving it as it is difficult to deceive others without being found out.

We are never so easily deceived as when we think we are deceiving others.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.

A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.

Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others.

If we had no weaknesses, we should not take so much pleasure in observing those of other men.

We are ashamed of having been deceived by our enemies and betrayed by our friends, yet we are often content to be so by ourselves.

We always love those who admire us, but we do not always love those whom we admire.

Almost all the world takes pleasure in paying small debts; many show gratitude for moderate benefits; but almost everyone is ungrateful for immense ones.

It is easier to be wise for others than for oneself.

Most men expose themselves to danger enough in war to save their honor, but few are willing to expose themselves as much as the success of the enterprise requires.

Fortune turns everything to the advantage of her favorites.

We should often be sorry if our wishes were granted.

Moderation in good fortune is only apprehension of the shame that attends upon intoxication with success.

The calm or agitation of our temper does not depend so much on the vast affairs of life as on a commodious or disagreeable arrangement of little things.

We are never so ridiculous through the qualities we have as through those we pretend to have.

There are bad people who would be less dangerous if they had no good qualities at all.

The most subtle folly is produced by the most subtle wisdom.

Few people know how to be old.

To be too much dissatisfied with oneself is a weakness; to be too much satisfied with oneself is a stupidity.

We confess our faults in order to repair by our sincerity the damage they have done us in the opinion of others.

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear.

Most women weep for their lovers not because they loved them so well, but to appear more worthy of being loved.

We take more pains to persuade others that we are happy than we do in trying to be so ourselves.

It is easier to appear worthy of the positions one does not hold than of those one does.

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

The highest form of human intelligence is to observe without evaluating.

Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something.

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.

Do not go to the garden of flowers! O friend! go not there; in your body is the garden of flowers.

Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya, Jivo Brahmaiva Naparah. (Brahman alone is real; the universe is phenomenal; the individual self is non-different from Brahman).

Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah. (Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations and modifications of the mind).

As the letter 'A' is the first of all alphabets, so the Eternal Lord is the first of all the worlds. (Kural 1)

Dream, dream, dream. Dreams transform into thoughts and thoughts result in action.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

Talk to yourself once in a day, otherwise you may miss meeting an intelligent person in this world.

Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success, and above all, love.

The fire that warms us can also consume us; it is not the fault of the fire.

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

Experience is the only teacher we have. We may talk and reason all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it.

Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being?

Do not figure out big plans at first, but begin slowly, resolve upon your ground, and then keep on expanding.

Work as if you were a master, not as a slave. Work through love, not through compulsion.

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

Expansion is life, contraction is death. All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.

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

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.

Character is the aggregate of all your daily choices.

True greatness is humble; small minds alone are arrogant.

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

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.

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

Whenever you are in doubt, apply the talisman: recall the face of the poorest person you have seen and ask if your next step will be of any use to them.

There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.

The real seat of taste is not the tongue, but the mind.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface cleaner than before.

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolishing forms. It requires change of heart.

Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.