We think that we must become acquisitive — though we call it by a better-sounding word. We call it evolution, growth, development, progress, and we say it is essential.
The future is made of the same stuff as the present.
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
It is one of the few consolations of this planet that houses cannot move.
One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world. . . . We are born in the morning and die in the evening; the man we saw yesterday is no longer with us today. . . . Think of what might happen today, this very moment. . . . Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow, you will fall seriously ill; find your body racked with unendurable pain; die suddenly, cursed by some unknown demons; meet misfortune at the hands of robbers; or be slain by someone seeking vengeance. Life is indeed an uncertain thing. . . . It is absurd to plan your life, intrigue maliciously against others, and spend your time in fruitless pursuits. . . .
It is written that when a man is hanged, he ejaculates. Is this ultimate proof that something good always comes from a stressful experience?
Most things come and go, however good to watch; a few things stay and matter to the end. Rain, for instance. . . .
Alas, the world is full of enormous lights and mysteries, and man shuts them from himself with one small hand!
There are too many distractions. You should enter a ball park as you would enter a church.
How easily we slide into thinking of our prayers as the “real” prayer. What is the “real” prayer — the grace we say at the table, or the meal that follows it? And if we pray at all times, as we should, our eating and drinking will be real prayer. . . . Gratefulness will turn the whole meal into prayer, for after we pray our prayers, we will pray our soup, salad and dessert, and then pray another set prayer at the end as a reminder to continue to pray even after the meal. . . . It is not prayers that count, but prayerfulness.
A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has aroused him in vain.
When you say “yes,” you get thirty blows of my staff; when you say “no,” you get thirty blows of my staff just the same.
The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it.
Longing performs all things.
There can be no love if one does not remain oneself with all one’s strength.
There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman. I won’t stand for that.
I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
