“To be dull is easy, to be active requires tremendous work.”

The practice of asanas purges the body of its impurities, bringing strength, firmness, calm, and clarity of mind.

We often fool ourselves that we are concentrating because we fix our attention on wavering objects.

Confidence, clarity and compassion are essential qualities of a teacher.

The decision to relax rather than to grip, even in the face of impatience or fear, is a conscious and brave choice.

Action is movement with intelligence. The world is filled with movement. What the world needs is more conscious movement, more action.

Willpower is concrete, not ethereal. When you do something, you demonstrate your willpower, and it becomes all the easier to have the same power of will the next time.

Health is a state of complete harmony of the body, mind and spirit. When one is free from physical disabilities and mental distractions, the gates of the soul open.

This practice of yoga is to remove the weeds from the body so that the garden can grow.

Activity and passivity must go together in asanas.

My Maman told me that only the crazy ones and the passionate ones accomplish anything in life.

As long as the body is not in perfect health, you think about it, and that prevents you from thinking of the mind. The sound mind is a sound body.

Live before you die, so that death is also a lively celebration.

Hard work and humility are essential for spiritual sadhana.

Why think of liberation at some future time? Liberation is in the little things, here and now.

Health begins with firmness in the body, deepens to emotional stability, then leads to intellectual clarity, wisdom and finally the unveiling of the soul.

Ignorance has no beginning, but it has an end. There is a beginning but no end to knowledge.

A large part of me is pure nebbish – plain, dull, uninteresting. There’s a more flamboyant part, too. Obviously.

[On a dull party:] It was a fête worse than death.

A fondness for reading changes the inevitable dull hours of our life into exquisite hours of delight.

Life is too short to spend it being angry, bored, or dull.

We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that’s the very next step to being dull.

The resurrection was God’s way of stamping PAID IN FULL right across history so that nobody could miss it.

If there is no dull and determined effort, there will be no brilliant achievement.

The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes.