When enlightened people are so poor that they cannot help others, if they speak a word to awaken the confused or to resolve a problem, there is also boundless merit in that.

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.

The nature of revolutions is to sweep the reluctant along.

Thoughts which have no chance of succeeding do not take the trouble to come into your head at all.

Baking cookies is comforting, and cookies are the sweetest little bit of comfort food. They are very bite-sized and personal.

Nothing is harder to resist than a bit of flattery.

When love is involved no sacrifice is too great.

Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.

Justice is like the kingdom of God--it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning.

Any idiot can be brave, but courage is about knowing what's at stake, and moving forward anyway.

I drink too much. The last time I gave a urine sample it had an olive in it.

When we talk about GOD, we’re like a school of fish, discussing the possible existence of the sea.