“Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty.”

The genuinely spiritual person is one who has lost all desire to be anyone but exactly who he is, without labels and without apologies. He is what he is and that’s all there’s is to it. Such a man is undivided, uncomplicated and contented.

We cannot be free of nagging desires through suppression. This is like trying to keep a rubber boat beneath the water. But we remove compulsive desires altogether by understanding their nature.

Freedom begins as we become conscious of it.

Interpretation blocks reception while masquerading as reception. Rightness does not need interpretation; it requires simple acceptance and nothing else.

All heartache is caused by wrong viewpoints.

The outer storm ceases the moment the inner storm ends, for they are the same storm.

An obvious fact about negative feelings is often overlooked. They are caused by us, not by exterior happenings. An outside event presents the challenge, but we react to it. So we must attend to the way we take things, not to the things themselves.

Aloneness is a wise teacher. Kierkegaard remarked that one sign of spiritual maturity was the ability to be comfortable when alone.

Self-knowledge is the great power by which we comprehend and control our lives

Society is like a crowd in carnival costumes with everyone fearful that others will see through his disguise.

Don’t look for someone in whom to believe. Believe in yourself. The only authentic authority is your own original nature.

The world consists of imaginary people, claiming imaginary virtues and suffering from imaginary happiness.

All we have to do is to receive what we are given…We are given the naturalness to love someone, to be calm in crisis, to ignore self-defeating suggestions, to be pleasant, forgiving, tender, helpful, unworried, brave, energetic.

We clearly realize that freedom’s inner kingdom cannot be touched by exterior attacks.

If you call one thing good, you must call its opposite bad. If you think it wonderful to make a big profit in your business, you will also think it terrible if you incur a large loss. The idea is to live above the opposites.

Awareness of your weakness and confusion makes you strong because conscious awareness is the bright light that destroys the darkness of negativity. Detection of inner negativity is not a negative act, but a courageously positive act that makes you a new person.

I didn’t feel self conscious ’cause my sisters and I all had thick brows, and by the time I got to the age that I could be self conscious about them, they were in style!

There’s no such thing as a self-made man. I’ve had much help and have found that if you are willing to work, many people are willing to help you.

Everyone in society should be a role model, not only for their own self-respect, but for respect from others.

I think a toxic message in a lot of Christianity has been that the self has to be annihilated in order for God to be found. I think that has been a toxic message.

Wait for those unguarded moments. Relax the mood and, like the child dropping off to sleep, the subject often reveals his truest self.

I came to a clear internal realization that there was nothing I could do as a separated self that would ever fulfill me.

The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.

There is such wonderful balm in self-imposed sacrifice.