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

If you put a spoonful of salt in a cup of water it tastes very salty. If you put a spoonful of salt in a lake of fresh water the taste is still pure and clear. Peace comes when our hearts are open like the sky, vast as the ocean.

Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.

Weigh the true advantages of forgiveness and resentment to the heart. Then choose.

Nobody knows why they were born or where they come from.

Knowledge and achievements matter little if we do not yet know how to touch the heart of another and be touched.

Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.

What is truly a part of our spiritual path is that which brings us alive. If gardening brings us alive, that is part of our path, if it is music, if it is conversation we must follow what brings us alive.

It is true that the heart has its seasons, just as a flower opens to the sunlight and closes to the night. We need to be respectful of those rhythms. But we can’t close down for long. It is our true nature to have an open heart.

Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.

May I be given the appropriate difficulties so that my heart can truly open with compassion. Imagine asking for that.

Live in joy, luminosity, and peace even among the troubles of the world. Remember who you are.

Love is based on our capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear, to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.

The willingness to empty ourselves and then seek our true nature is an expression of great and courageous love.

May you know the beauty of your own true nature.

Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it’s not like you’re going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.

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

Life is only precious because it ends, kid.

The life story of the five main characters and the secondary characters around them allows Jonathan Franzen to present the full impetus and extent of the world picture of the West at the end of the 20th century.

And my parents made me want i am. So what? We get stuff from our parents, but we also get stuff from the world around us. From people around us. And at the end of the day, we’re us.

At the end of the day, it’s a series of individual challenges played out against a team defense. It’s a psersonal test every time I step into the batter’s box: Can I do better than the last time? And that’s why I love it.

To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern … Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.