Don't be too severe in criticizing people's faults; consider how much they can bear. Don't be too lofty in enjoining virtue, so people may be able to follow.

If those who give are conscious of their own generosity and those who receive feel indebted, they are no longer family but rather strangers doing business.

There is much meaning in the word endure. For example, when dealing with unstable human feelings and uneven pathways in life, without endurance to hold you up, you may fall into a pit in the brush.

Those who have come to an impasse should examine their original intentions; those who have succeeded should note where they are heading.

To notice people's deceptions yet not reveal it in words, to bear people's insults without showing any change of attitude-there is endless meaning in this, and also endless function.

If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?

Human affairs are like a chess game. Only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players.

Valuing unusual conduct is not as good as being careful about ordinary actions.

Attention is the mind's feet; if you do not control your attention strictly, it runs into misleading pathways.

If the mind is illumined, there is clear blue sky in a dark room. If the thoughts are muddled, there are malevolent ghosts in broad daylight.

In dealing with good people one should be magnanimous; in dealing with bad people one should be strict. In dealing with average people one should combine magnanimity and strictness.

They will set aside what they have believed about the world, divesting themselves of all preconceptions, all judgments.... They will do it, then they will send their minds out to seek the truth.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Awareness creates another world - an already existing world where you were not aware of its existence! It is an operation of ‘mature cataract’ surgery!

I like to be the one in charge of everything.

You might slow down a little bit, you might not jump as high as you used to, but I know what I'm doing and I'm fearless.

if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!

Few things are better in the world than a room full of librarians. I consider them literary heroes. The keepers and defenders of the written word.

The first spiritual quality we need to have is not faith; it is courage.

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, whereby, in her long remove, she discerneth God, as if He were nearer at hand.

If you want a confidence, act as if you already have it. Try the "as if" technique.