William Penn

Where charity keeps pace with grain, industry is blessed, but to slave to get, and keep it sordidly, is a sin against Providence, a vice in government and an injury to their neighbours.

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.

Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.

Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel.

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast.

Friends are true Twins in Soul; they Sympathize in every thing, and have the Love and Aversion. One is not happy without the other, nor can either of them be miserable alone. As if they could change Bodies, they take their turns in Pain as well as in Pleasure; relieving one another in their most adverse Conditions.What one enjoys, the other cannot Want. Like the Primitive Christians, they have all things in common, and no Property but in one another.

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.

Zazen is an activity that is an extension of the universe. Zazen is not the life of an individual, it’s the universe that’s breathing.

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

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.

Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?

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 the end, only three things matter: How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

Buddha means awareness, the awareness of body and mind that prevents evil from arising in either.

I’m essentially agnostic. I don’t have a problem with God. I have a problem with religion. I’ve chosen to live my life without the certainties of religious faith. I think they’re dangerous. Music is something that gives my life value and spiritual solace.

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

Mind your thoughts, as they become your words. Mind your words, as they become your actions. Mind your actions, as they become you.

I take the kids to church and Sunday school. They love it. I really think it’s important for a child to feel that there are things that are bigger than your life out there.

A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.

Well, I don’t know, but I’ve been told the streets in heaven are lined with gold. I ask you how things could get much worse if the Russians happen to get up there first; Wowee! pretty scary!

Zen is not an art, it’s not a religion. It’s a realisation.