Buddha

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

The less you respond to negative people, the more peaceful your life will become.

No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

The greatest impurity is ignorance. Free yourself from it. Be pure.

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up – they have no holidays.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

We’ve had the goddam Ages of Faith, we’ve had the goddam Age of Reason. This is the Age of Publicity.

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

I’m a bit superstitious about certain things, like what shoes to wear. If I wear the wrong shoes, the whole day may go wrong. Or if I don’t get to the bottom of the stairs before the door closes – stupid little things like that. Then I also have all the normal ones, like don’t walking under ladders and so on.

If you want to climb a mountain, begin at the top.

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

It is a naked city. Faith is not pampered, nor hope encouraged; there is no place to lay one’s exhaustion: but instead pinnacles skewer it undisguised against vacancy.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.

I feel the presence of a higher power. I believe that what you give is what you get. It’s universal law. I believe in the power of prayer and of words. I’ve learned that when you predict that negative things will happen, they do.

Thou shalt not commit adultry is a command which makes no distinction between the following persons. They are all required to obey it: children at birth. Children in the cradle. School children. Youths and maidens. Fresh adults. Older ones. Men and women of 40. Of 50. Of 60. Of 70. Of 80. Of 100. The command does not distribute its burden equally, and cannot. It is not hard upon the three sets of children.

The essence of Buddhism is, if you can, to help others. If not, then at least refrain from hurting others.

The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.

Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.