“Ours is a society of denial that conditions us to protect ourselves from any direct difficulty and discomfort. We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death and loss and hiding from the basic truths of the natural world and of our own nature.”

The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.

At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?

To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Most of us have spent our lives caught up in plans, expectations, ambitions for the future; in regrets, guilt or shame about the past. To come into the present is to stop the war.

Wisdom says we are nothing. Love says we are everything. Between these two our life flows.

As we willingly enter each place of fear, each place of deficiency and insecurity in ourselves, we will discover that its walls are made of untruths, of old images of ourselves, of ancient fears, of false ideas of what is pure and what is not.

No amount of meditation, yoga, diet, and reflection will make all of our problems go away, but we can transform our difficulties into our practice until little by little they guide us on our way.

Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.

Since death will take us anyway, why live our life in fear? Why not die in our old ways and be free to live?

We each need to make our lion’s roar – to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears – to declare our right to awaken.

Use whatever has come to awaken patience, understanding, and love.

The waves do keep coming, so learn to surf.

Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be. Let your body relax and your heart soften. Open to whatever you experience without fighting.

Train your mind the same way you’d train a puppy: Be patient, be consistent, and have some fun along the way.

Attention to the human body brings healing and regeneration. Through awareness of the body we remember who we really are.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

Europe is overpopulated, the world will soon be in the same condition, and if the self-reproduction of man is not rationalized… we shall have war.

Absolute identity with one’s cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

Consul – in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

The true Mason takes full responsibility for the condition of his character and ever strives for its perfection.

There’s this idea that because I’m a heavyweight, I’m not supposed to be in condition, that I should take advantage of the fact that I can eat. But I train and eat well, and it shows when I step on the scales.

The world is conditioned to admire flowers. Keep watering your roots.

The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.

There is little sense in attempting to change external conditions, you must first change inner beliefs, then outer conditions will change accordingly.