There is one thing in life that you can always rely on: life being as it is.

We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us.

Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.

Meditation practice is simply moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others.

But opinions, judgments, memories, dreaming about the future—ninety percent of the thoughts spinning around in our heads have no essential reality.

With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn. Whether you stay home or work in an office or whatever, the next teacher is going to pop right up.

All I can be is who I am right now; I can experience that and work with it. That's all I can do. The rest is the dream of the ego.

It's of no use to look back and say, "I should have been different." At any given moment, we are the way we are, and we see what we're able to see. For that reason, guilt is always inappropriate.

Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.

Practice has to be a process of endless disappointment. We have to see that everything we demand (and even get) eventually disappoints us. This discovery is our teacher.

Body tension will always be present if our good feeing is just ordinary, self-centered happiness. Joy has no tension in it, because joy accepts whatever is as it is.

Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" is the only personal development book that does not mention it.

Just because everybody uses language, that doesn't mean that they can write even tolerable prose.

The thing that differentiates man from animals is money.

I think it no accident that most of those emigrating to America in the 19th century identified with the Democratic Party. We are a heterogeneous party made up of Americans of diverse backgrounds.

Don't believe anyone who says, "I alone can fix it." Americans don't say, "I alone can fix it." We say, "We'll fix it together!"

My show was revolutionary, ground-breaking. When I came on the scene, people were not doing a thing.

We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive.

Even if this earth is only a vestibule, we ought undoubtedly to make such a use of its blessing that we are assisted rather than delayed in our journey.

Misplaced hate makes disgrace the races.

I work hard. The staff and crew see how much energy I put into this project, and it makes them step up.