Jack Kornfield

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

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

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

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

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

Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

There is nothing to fear except fear it’s self.

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

No great deed is done by falterers who ask for certainty.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man’s intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man’s self a fair retreat: for if a man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way (s)he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

A few strong instincts and a few plain rules suffice us.

Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment is the treasurer of the one who is wise.