The world is its own magic.
Real practice has no purpose or direction, so it can include everything that comes.
To accept some idea of truth without experiencing it is like a painting of a cake on paper which you can not eat.
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine. – Shunryu Suzuki
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.
Preparing food is not just about yourself and others. It is about everything!
When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
Syllables govern the world.
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
We should distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
A man cannot free himself by any self-denying ordinances, neither by water nor potatoes, nor by violent possibilities, by refusing to swear, refusing to pay taxes, by going to jail, or by taking another man’s crops or squatting on his land. By none of these ways can he free himself; no, nor by paying his debts with money; only by obedience to his own genius.
Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.
Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others… This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Philosophy when superficially studied, excites doubt, when thoroughly explored, it dispels it.
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
Usually the modest person passes for someone reserved, the silent for a sullen person.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret.
Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.
I’ve never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them.
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
