If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
The most radical thing you can do is introduce people to one another.
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator; among those I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.
On the relativity of distance: if in an all-but-empty restaurant somebody takes the table next to mine, he has come very close indeed — so close that a special reason must justify his choice. If the room is filled, the distance between two neighboring tables separates us sufficiently.
There are those who forget that death will come to all. For those who remember, quarrels come to an end.
I detest my past and everyone else’s. I detest resignation, patience, professional heroism, and obligatory beautiful feelings. I also detest the decorative arts, folklore, advertising, voices making announcements, aerodynamism, boy scouts, the smell of mothballs, events of the moment, and drunken people.
You will not become a saint through other people’s sins.
The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked to himself.
Your old self comes up again to be killed. It knows it is lying.
When a man has boils or scabies, he isn’t disgusted with himself; he puts his infected hand in his dish and he licks his fingers without any repugnance. But if he sees a small sore on someone else’s hand, he can’t swallow his food. It’s the same with moral blemishes: when you see defects such as indifference, pride, and lust in yourself, they don’t bother you; but as soon as you notice them in others, you feel hurt and resentful.
I never saw a wild thing Sorry for itself.
In a field, I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am, I am what is missing.
There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth.
It was the rhythm of all living, apparently, and for most people. Happiness, and then pain. Perhaps then happiness again, but now, with it, the awareness of its own mortality.
Flowers are without hope. Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow.
I thought it good fortune to go to the Magic Monastery for Christmas. But at the foot of the hill sat a blind beggar, and when I drew near to give him some money, I heard him ask, “Who will lead me into the heart of God?” I couldn’t go on. Who would lead him into the heart of God? I sat down in front of him. I took his hands. “Together,” I said. “Together we’ll go into the heart of God.”
Tell me how your hands fall and I will tell you what you will wave to next.
