if... says: 'Do not be greedy, be generous', you may inwardly interpret this in such a manner that you will develop a greed for generosity

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.

The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.

When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

No practice exists in isolation.

If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

Anybody or anything may stand between you and knowledge if you are unfit for it.

Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.

If you really want to learn, do not be surprised if someone tries to teach you. And do not lightly reject the method.

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing. When we have made it the next wish is to change again.

A man who says he has never been scared is either lying or else he's never been any place or done anything.

Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk.

I want to be a pretty corpse.

There is no finer guitarist than Kenny Burrell

I wasn't attractive when I was growing up, and I don't think I am now.

I mean, sports are big, big, big business.

A lie doesn't become truth, wrong doesn't become right and evil doesn't become good, just because it's accepted by a majority.

I would let my kids watch this stuff way before I'd let them watch something like 'Full House' that I think would make them stupid.