We need to be sincere in our practice, but at the same time we can't take ourselves too seriously.

The answer lies within ourselves. If we can't find peace and happiness there, it's not going to come from the outside.

Meditation is for you to realise that the deepest nature of your existence is beyond thoughts and emotions, that it is incredibly vast and interconnected with all other beings.

If we greet situations with a positive attitude, we will eventually create positive returns. If we respond with a negative attitude, negative things will eventually come our way.

In the very deep darkness of this world, little pinpoints of light show up very brightly and can shine a long way.

Our pure awareness is not male or female.

The first thing is to learn how to quiet the mind, relax the mind, and bring the awareness to the front so that we are conscious of what we're doing when we're doing it without all the commentary.

Develop confidence in your innate qualities and believe that these qualities will be brought to fruition.

The Buddha himself said, "I still use conceptual thinking, but I'm not formed by it." And that's the Buddha.

Even if one isn't a committed Buddhist, it just helps us become better human beings.

We have produced many of our problems through our confused mental states.

A touch of love makes everything better.

If a man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity for him, as you would for a man with broken legs.

Blame someone else and get on with your life.

And even our present acres of death will someday bloom again.

War will disappear only when men shall take no part whatever in violence and shall be ready to suffer every persecution that their abstention will bring them. It is the only way to abolish war.

the ultimate in longevity is the Christmas fruitcake. It is a cake made during the holidays with fruits that make it heavier than the stove it is cooked in.

The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create.

Santa Barbara is my hood. I mean, it's not much of a hood, but it is definitely like my hood. I claim Santa Barbara like I claim my family. I'm going to be married and buried there.

The newspaper journalists like to believe the worst; they can sell more papers that way, as one of them told me himself; for even upstanding and respectable people dearly love to read ill of others.

When something I can't control happens, I ask myself : where is the hidden gift, where is the positive in this?