“A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.”

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

I love everything that’s old, – old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, ‘Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

They say women and music should never be dated.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

A musk deer searches for the source of the fragrance of musk, but it won’t find it because the fragrance comes from within itself. Bliss is not to be found outside of us; it exists within us.

One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.

Grace is always present. You imagine it as something high in the sky, far away, something that has to descend. It is really inside you, in your heart. When the mind rests in its source, grace rushes forth, sprouting as from a spring within you.

By constantly keep one’s attention on the Source, the ego is dissolved in that Source like a salt-doll in the sea.

It [idolatry] nourishes mans ambition to domineer over his fellow man. Idolatry, therefore, is the source of all social and moral evil in the world.

The “I” thought is said to be the sum total of all thoughts. The source of the “I” thought has to be inquired into.

In the screwed-up life I’d been dealt, she was my only source of comfort.

Nobody doubts that he exists, though he may doubt the existence of God. If he finds out the truth about himself and discovers his own source, this is all that is required.