Jack Kornfield

The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.

It is possible to be free and loving no matter what your circumstances.

We have only now, only this single eternal moment opening and unfolding before us, day and night.

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

He was doing missionary work. But from the outset he had little success in convincing his charges of their responsibility for a sin committed at the beginning of creation, one which, as they understood it, they were ready and capable (indeed, they carried charms to assure it) of duplicating themselves. He did no better convincing them that a man had died on a tree to save them all: an act which one old Indian, if Gwyon had translated correctly, regarded as “rank presumption”.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and bad.

Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature – if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you – know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.

I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.

It all depends on you. You can go on sleeping forever, you can wake up right this moment.

Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.

You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Do that which is assigned to you and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

Virtue is too often merely local.

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.