“Little by little deep inside us, the diamond shines, the eyes open, the dawn rises, we become what we already are.”

I could characterize nearly any spiritual practice as simply this: identify and quit, identify and quit, identify and quit. Identify the myriad forms of limitation and delusion we place upon ourselves, and muster the courage to quit each one.

The cause of all our personal problems and nearly all the problems of the world can be summed up in a single sentence.

The gap between our sincere values and our actual behavior is the source of all self-hatred.

Like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight, there’s no need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky.

Until we reflect basic kindness in everything we do, our political gestures will be fleeting and fragile.

This is the first step toward understanding the process of real, lasting change: simply knowing with certainty that you can do whatever you need to do.

Without loving and caring for others, most of us stand little chance of communing with God/the Divine Wisdom, no matter how many years we may spend in silent prayer.

Simple kindness may be the most vital key to the riddle of how human beings can live with each other in peace…and care properly for this planet we all share.

Little by little, deep inside us, the diamond shines, the eyes open, the dawn rises, we become what we already are.

We pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, have a good laugh about human nature, and get on with our journeys.

We’re all doing time. As soon as we get born, we find ourselves assigned to one little body, one set of desires and fears, one family, city, state, country, and planet.

You may study with the highest teachers, but you will find no one but yourself teaching you. You may travel the world over, yet find nothing but yourself, reflected the world over.

So if you now find yourself in a cell, take heart that of all the teachers in the world, out of all the places in the world, you still have with you the only ultimate ingredient of your journey: yourself.

I became quietly seized with that nostalgia that overcomes you when you have reached the middle of your life and your father has recently died and it dawns on you that when he went he took some of you with him.

I was always amazed at how beautiful the light was. At different times of the day the landscape becomes a different place. Dawn and dusk, it’s a different place.

The dawn of knowledge is usually the false dawn.

What started as a whisper Slowly turned into a scream Searching for an answer Where the question is unseen I don’t know where you came from And I don’t know where you’ve gone Old friends become old strangers Between the darkness and the dawn

Why is it that the finish line always tends to appear just after the point at which we most want to give up? is it the universe’s way of reserving the best for those who can give the most? What I do know, from nature, is that the dawn only appears after the darkest hour.

The single sculler, alone on the river at dawn, or spotlighted in his lane during a race, is th emost romantic, the most quixotic figure in all rowing.

Dawn has power to fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision.

Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction.