David Brooks

Learning Zen is a phenomenon of gold & dung. Before you learn it, it’s like gold; after you learn it, it’s like dung.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

Adam was the luckiest man; he had no mother-in-law.

Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.

A cult is a religion with no political power.

Do not learn how to react learn how to respond.

I believe a man is better anchored who has a belief in the Supreme Being.

[on enlightenment] Body and mind dropped off.

Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.

Harmonizing opposites by going back to their source is the distinctive quality of the Zen attitude, the Middle Way: embracing contradictions, making a synthesis of them, achieving balance.

It’s all God’s will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.

Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind.