Sayings and Words of Wisdom in English

Compiled and Edited by

David Holmes

Introduction

This is the kind of book you can open anywhere and, hopefully, after browsing a bit, over
a page or two, find an idea of interest to you. You shouldn’t read it cover-to-cover,
through and through, because the overall-jumble-of-ideas would only confuse you.

Students should focus on a single idea, one-idea-at-a-time, and interpret it, step-by-step
according to the following process:

• Scan through once to get the general idea

• Look-up any unfamiliar vocabulary
• Consider the relation of the parts to the whole
• Interpret the meaning so is clear in your mind
• Prepare to explain it in your own words.

If you are working in a group or a class, you can also go on to:

• Discuss the saying within a peer-group

• Exchange ideas and interpretations
• Until a general agreement is reached.

If you are working in a class, you can also speak about the intended meaning with the
help of a teacher in a general discussion.

There is nothing new in such a process. It is not only the way that poetry is taught but
also the way, for example, we explicate, texts in foreign languages, both ancient and
modern.

This book is intended to appeal to both native speakers of English and students of English
as a foreign language alike.

The text is not a list of English sayings originating in the English language, but rather a
compendium of sayings and words of wisdom, in English, from a wide spectrum of
linguistic traditions and cultures.

The sayings do not fit together into a consistent and unified-whole. Indeed, they often
contradict one another. This is to be expected, especially when we consider that a petty
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds and that the opposite of every truth is also
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true. It is remarkable, however, to see on how many points great minds think alike
irrespective of periods of time or places of origin.

Sayings in English

The first purpose of the quotations below is to introduce a selection of sayings, not only
of English origin, but borrowed from an oral heritage that reaches all the way back to the
Greeks and through a broad-spectrum of other cultures and languages as well. Such
quotations are often anonymous, because, while we remember the words, we forget who
said them. The reader will find they contain a lot of common sense and words of wisdom
which are well-worth pondering.

The second purpose is to give English speakers practice in saying short, expressions and
sentences to help improve their elocution skills, particularly: in pronunciation and use of
rhythm and meter, to make their spoken words more audibly intelligible. Remember,
even politicians and movie stars need coaching on how to better-use language to
communicate clearly and understandably.

One of the hardest things to teach and learn is how to get the natural feeling and rhythm
of a language right. One has to keep hearing and saying everyday common phrases, over
and over again, until their sounds and patterns become second nature. To expose speakers
to the natural sounds and rhythms, a native English speaker or coach should continue
repeating the sayings aloud, over and over, so the students can keep repeating what they
are hearing.

After spending sufficient time practicing and pronouncing the quotations, the participants
may then go on to discuss amongst themselves, in small groups, how to interpret the
sayings and what they think they mean. Finally, the members may interact to
communicate with their language coach to express, in their own words, what they have
come to understand through group-interaction. This is not easy, even for native speakers,
but it certainly helps everyone involved, both native speakers and students of EFL alike,
to improve their communication skills. Note, in the first few lines, the words have been
rhythmically divided/ into word units/ as an aid/ in helping/ to get/ the phrasing right.

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A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|R|S|T|U|V|W|Y|Z

A
• “Quotations”
• A bad plowman/ quarrels/ with his ox.
• A big tree/ attracts a gale.
• A bird in the hand/ is better/ than two/ in the bush.
• A boring husband/ knows where his slippers are/ but not/ where his wife/ may be.
• A burden/ that one chooses/ is not felt.
• A calm/ comes/ before/ the storm.
• A carpenter/ is known/ by his chips.
• A cat/ always lands/ on its feet.
• A cat/ has/ nine lives.
• A chain/ is only/ as strong/ as its weakest link.
• A change/ is as good/ as a rest.
• A child/ of neglect/ will be filled/ with defiance/ and disrespect.
• A closed-mouth/ catches no flies.
• A contented-person/ can never/ be ruined.
• A crown’s no cure for a headache.
• A diplomat thinks carefully before saying nothing.
• A door that is always open attracts few visitors.
• A false friend and a shadow attend only when the sun shines.
• A flattering-mouth works ruin.
• A fool and his money are soon parted.
• A friend in need is a friend in deed.
• A frog in a well-shaft still sees the skies.
• A good and loving friend can be trusted to the end.
• A good example is better than a bad sermon.
• A good example is something everyone can read.
• A good teacher makes him self progressively unnecessary.
• A grudge that is as good as forgotten is as good as forgiven.

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• A guilty conscience needs no accuser.
• A house divided cannot stand against itself.
• A house is not a home until it contains human love and warmth.
• A job worth doing is worth doing well.
• A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
• A kind smile and a pure heart will win over others from the start.
• A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.
• A leopard cannot change its spots.
• A liar never mentions his motives.
• A life cut short at sea is a tragic act of destiny.
• A little axe can cut down a big tree.
• A little bit too much is just enough for me.
• A little hunger keeps us on the cutting-edge.
• A little more than enough is already too much.
• A little thing can become a big one before you know it.
• A lot more blood will flow before hate lets go.
• A lot of time and energy are wasted on vain, empty hopes.
• A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
• A man is lost already who has lost his sense of shame.
• A man wearing a hood is usually up to no good.
• A man who cultivates strife cannot keep a wife.
• A man who desires revenge should dig two graves.
• A man who uses a cliché has nothing better to say.
• A man’s happiest moment is often his weakest.
• A marriage based on different goals will soon be wrecked upon the shoals.
• A mind bound to earth cannot conceive what may be beyond the planets.
• A nail that sticks up will get hammered-down.
• A need to control makes others very unhappy and you too.
• A new broom sweeps clean implies more than it first seems to mean.
• A new broom sweeps the path to doom.
• A noble gesture that is insincere always feels and looks a little queer.
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• A one-legged man can’t kick ass.
• A one-thousand year-old argument is not necessarily right.
• A pat-on-the-back that is insincere will seldom endear.
• A penny saved is a penny earned.
• A plea for justice when ignored will cause discord.
• A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
• A proverb is just something to say when you’re having a bad day.
• A proverb is one man’s wit and another man’s wisdom.
• A quarrelsome man has no good neighbors.
• A quiet conscience sleeps through thunder.
• A rolling stone gathers no moss.
• A short hug is sometimes better than a long talk.
• A simple slip of the tongue can let loose a whole cartload of dung.
• A slothful man never has time.
• A small leak can sink a big ship.
• A state of disaster is always temporary.
• A stein is a stein, and a rose is a rose, I suppose, I suppose.
• A stitch in time saves nine.
• A strong will is better than a vain wish.
• A stumble may prevent a fall.
• A thousand years of smiles can be wiped away by only one frown.
• A tilted-perception will result in a stilted-view.
• A tongue that speaks sweetly and harshly, to win its own way, is a double-edged
sword.
• A true friend walks in when the rest walk out.
• A whispered lie is as wrong as the one that thunders loud and long.
• A wise man avoids fear before it arises.
• A wise man would unlikely say he’s wise and more likely declare him self to be a
fool.
• A wish is a desire without an attempt to attain its end.
• Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

5
• Abstain from the desire to set the world on fire,
• Accolades and bright lights do not prevent lonely nights.
• Achievements are over the moment they’re attained.
• Achieving short-term tasks works better than setting long-term goals.
• Acquisitions change conditions and positions.
• Act as if you expect to get what you deserve.
• Act so as to respect yourself, not so that others respect you.
• Actions based on general rules are merely teaching tools.
• Actions speak louder than words.
• All generalizations are false, including this one.
• All good things come in threes.
• All men are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
• All rush; no hush.
• All that glitters is not gold.
• All things come to him who waits.
• All things must pass.
• Always ask yourself if what you’re getting is worth what you’re losing.
• Always wanting to win is just another form of sin.
• An act of primal lust evokes disgust.
• An act of repentance is s step on the road to acceptance.
• An affront from the front is better than an attack from the back.
• An empty sack cannot stand upright.
• An obsession for writing books is no less destructive than being distracted by
good looks.
• An obstinate man does not hold opinions; they hold him.
• An ounce of good intention is worth a pound of prevention.
• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
• An unborn burst of energy could change your destiny.
• An unfair advantage lost is an opportunity gained.
• An unfinished task on a list of things to do loses its urgency the longer it waits for
you.

6
• Analyzing the process of events over a short time does not bring long-term
results.
• Anger blows out the lamp of the mind.
• Anger is often more harmful than the injury it causes.
• Another name; another life.
• Anxiety trauma begins in the womb and continues into the tomb.
• Any focus on base talk lowers the level of the mind.
• Any form of addiction is a drag.
• Any form of dependence is a hindrance to freedom.
• Any morality based on dread and fear make dependent actions appear odd and
queer.
• Any move you make may be your next mistake.
• Any religion that teaches man to do the good is good.
• Apologies are not enough.
• Are the constructs of the mind real?
• Are you bragging or complaining?
• As empires fall and nations crumble, simple monks remain humble.
• As soon as a man is born, he begins to die.
• As the old birds sing, so the young ones twitter.
• As water flows under a bridge, so the past emerges into the present and on into
the future.
• As yea sow, so shall yea reap.
• As you climb up the ladder, the things you acquire on your way up will weigh you
down.
• Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.
• Askers question; doers know.
• Asking someone to give you time is like promising to pay when you have money.
• Assume your enemy will do his worst to hurt you, and you’ll probably be right.
• At sixty, you’ll know more than you knew before and more than you’ll ever know
again.
• Avarice and greed foster human need.

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 • Average is as close to the bottom as it is to the top.
• Aversion and derision are at the root of division.
• Avoid focusing more on those you hate than on those you love.
• Avoid making mistakes you will regret for the rest of your life
• Avoid profiting from the folly of others.
• Avoid stress and hastiness in order to create the right conditions for success.
• Avoid the dark in the park; stay out in the bright light.
• Avoid the effects of greed; take only what you need.
• Avoid the will to kill.

B
• Bad examples make us want to be good examples.
• Be careful not to pay more for a thing than it is worth.
• Be careful not to slip on the pebbles in the path.
• Be careful what you wish for, or you might get it.
• Be fair and act on the square.
• Be gracious in defeat.
• Be impassive in the face of fate.
• Be rotten to the core no more.
• Be sure your sins will find you out.
• Be the change you wish to see in the world.
• Be the first to the field and the last to the couch.
• Be too strict on yourself and you won’t be flexible.
• Be true to yourself.
• Be undefeated even in defeat.
• Be unrelenting in your quest to do your best.
• Beat the hell out of a child and the good will go with it.
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
• Beauty is only skin-deep.
• Before healing others, heal thy self.
• Before you let yourself go, be sure you can get yourself back.
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• Before you threaten anyone, try asking politely.
• Before you try to change the world, try to change yourself.
• Beggars cannot be choosers.
• Begging for mercy and accepting defeat are two different things.
• Being inflexible makes you break.
• Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see.
• Believing is not the same as doing.
• Below consciousness, unconscious urges lurk and lie, waiting to obscure your
self-image.
• Better a slip of the foot than a slip of the tongue.
• Better a thirst for knowledge than a quest for money.
• Better ask the way than go astray.
• Better be a poor girl with little prospective than a dirty, old man who’s lost his
objective.
• Better be careful a hundred times than careless once.
• Better the devil you know than the one you don’t
• Better to be a beggar, thin and lean, than a rich man ruled by hate and spleen.
• Better to be a free man on your knees than a king in chains.
• Better to be a live coward than a dead hero.
• Better to be a member of the bar than just a patron of one.
• Better to be clear and clean than mean and lean.
• Better to be diagonally-parked in a parallel-parked universe.
• Better to be ruined by criticism than praise.
• Better to suffer defeat than have blood on your hands.
• Better vanquished and on bended-knee than to have killed for victory.
• Beware of he who wants more than you have to give.
• Beware of the one who seems to care.
• Beware of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
• Beyond the horizon is another horizon.
• Birds of a feather flock together.
• Bite the frost before the frost bites you.

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 • Bless those who would curse you.
• Blood is thicker than water.
• Bones last longer than moans and groans.
• Boredom: the desire for desires.
• Boxing and life have a similar symmetry.
• Boys will be boys.
• Bread is the opium of the people.
• Break the downward spiral and regain control of your life.
• Burn more energy than you consume.
• Burning clarity dissolves disparity.
• Burning thirst and desire for knowledge will not be quenched just by going to
college.
• By the time you are ready to reach your goal, the goal-posts will have moved.
• By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.

C
• Can there be a hole in a whole that is still a whole?
• Carelessness and neglect make us lose respect.
• Castles in the air dissipate, like grains of sand, in never-never land.
• Casual sex is just a natural reflex.
• Change your thoughts, change your mind.
• Changing your appearance does not change yourself.
• Character is easier kept than recovered.
• Character is the sum total of all of our choices.
• Charity begins at home.
• Cheating death is an endurance test.
• Children grow up. They think you’re stupid, and, then, they’re gone.
• Choose only the battles you can win.
• Choosing your own learning tasks is better than doing what the teacher demands.
• Cleanliness is close to godliness.
• Clouds that thunder do not always rain.
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• Cocky bantam roosters, fighting for territory, end up in the pot.
• Come into this world with nothing; leave this world with nothing.
• Common sense is native genius.
• Compulsion evokes revulsion.
• Compulsions of the heart can be constructive or destructive.
• Conceive of yourself as mostly water and empty space.
• Concentrate on one thing at a time.
• Confidence betrayed brings justice delayed.
• Conquest without contribution is inconsequential.
• Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels good.
• Considered opinion is oxymoronic.
• Consistency is the only option.
• Constancy only lasts for a fleeting second.
• Constant persistence breaks self-resistance.
• Control uncontrolled response.
• Conventional wisdom is an oxymoron.
• Courage, like the tide, comes and goes.
• Covetousness of a penny brings misery to many.
• Craft must be clothed, but truth can go naked.
• Craving is always hungry for more.
• Creativity is absence of a frame of mind.
• Crooked-tooth, twisted-truth.
• Crows everywhere are black.
• Cruelty attracts cruelty, as like attracts like.
• Culture creates social conventions within local dimensions.
• Culture is a tool, not a rule.
• Cunning men deal in generalizations.
• Curiosity killed the cat.
• Curses, like chickens, come home to roost.
• Cut out the cancer of irritation at its root.
• Cut out the cause before you regret the effect.
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D
• Dastardly deeds are better soon-forgotten than well-remembered.
• Death is the great equalizer.
• Death makes you better than you really are.
• Death only comes once; it’s an opportunity not to be missed.
• Death while only at arm’s length is yet out of reach and beyond control.
• Deeds are fruits; words are leaves.
• Deep resentment and bitter hate sour feelings and determine fate.
• Democracy leads to mediocrity.
• Derision springs from division.
• Despair that the world is not fair, and you’ll come under the curse of something
worse.
• Desperate times call for desperate measures.
• Different strokes for different folks.
• Dirt and clutter block the mind and the gutter.
• Dirty tricks leave lasting pricks.
• Discoveries are often made by not following directions.
• Discretion is the better part of valor.
• Disparity is often caused by a lack of clarity.
• Divide and conquer.
• Division cannot be swept away in a day.
• Do not accept what is corrupt or compromised, work your way through it.
• Do not leave until tomorrow what you can do today.
• Do not mistake kindness and patience for weakness and stupidity.
• Do not offend, or you’ll regret it in the end.
• Do others see you the way you do?
• Do the actions of man work in accordance with some divine plan?
• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
• Do what I like, not like I do.
• Do what I say; not what I do.
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• Do you wish to be immortal when you pass through life’s portal?
• Doing nothing good is an evil in itself.
• Doing what is new is not necessarily good for you.
• Don’t accept a dare; avoid the scare.
• Don’t allow your thoughts to flutter in the gutter.
• Don’t assume silence indicates agreement.
• Don’t attack, hold back; don’t fight, sit tight.
• Don’t base hopes on trust: trust rusts.
• Don’t be a back-stabber.
• Don’t be a creature of comfort.
• Don’t be afraid to take the leap.
• Don’t be cheeky.
• Don’t be scared of your own shadow.
• Don’t be surprise if one day you wake up and find yourself dead.
• Don’t be surprised to wake up and see me gone.
• Don’t be the one to drive a wedge in the crack in your own defenses.
• Don’t be too quick to judge.
• Don’t be too sweet lest you be eaten up.
• Don’t believe everything that you read.
• Don’t believe everything you hear.
• Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
• Don’t bother to try to control the will of another.
• Don’t burn your bridges behind you.
• Don’t cast a shadow over those who have come to bury you.
• Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
• Don’t cross the bridge before you come to it.
• Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
• Don’t defecate on your own doorstep and then say that the world stinks.
• Don’t delay what you can start today.
• Don’t despair; smile and care; grin and bear.
• Don’t destroy the thing that can save you.
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• Don’t direct your actions to please your critics; direct your actions to please
yourself.
• Don’t do what you wouldn’t admire.
• Don’t drag your knuckles on the floor as you go out the door.
• Don’t dwell on the trouble you’ve been to; think of the trouble you could still get
into.
• Don’t fill your head with empty hopes.
• Don’t find faults; find solutions.
• Don’t fish off the company pier.
• Don’t flip into a rage and run off the page.
• Don’t get mired too deep in things you want to keep.
• Don’t get too big for your breeches.
• Don’t judge others by yourself.
• Don’t just stand there twiddling your thumbs and clicking your gums.
• Don’t just stand there, do something!
• Don’t kill the cash cow.
• Don’t kill the messenger.
• Don’t let people get you down.
• Don’t let yourself be led down the primrose path.
• Don’t let yourself get caught in the grasp of anything you can’t let go of.
• Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.
• Don’t live to eat, eat to live.
• Don’t look at what I can’t do; look at what I can do.
• Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.
• Don’t make new friends pay for what old ones did on an earlier day.
• Don’t mistake lack of action for lack of understanding.
• Don’t neglect the small tasks by doing only the big ones.
• Don’t pay more for a thing than its worth.
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
• Don’t rehearse your speech in advance; speak truly at the moment, and leave it to
chance.

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• Don’t risk your life on a roll of the dice.
• Don’t rock the boat.
• Don’t rush off in a huff.
• Don’t say what you think about; think about what you say.
• Don’t seek acceptance, if you’re not yet ready to give it to others.
• Don’t set yourself up for a letdown.
• Don’t speak with a forked-tongue.
• Don’t speak with tongue-in-cheek.
• Don’t spend ninety percent of your time worrying and only ten percent enjoying
yourself.
• Don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong.
• Don’t stir up a hornet’s nest.
• Don’t stir up thoughts in others that can return to harm you.
• Don’t take justice into your own hand; let nature do it for you.
• Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.
• Don’t talk useless chatter about things that don’t matter.
• Don’t think about you’d like to do to others; consider what they would do if they
knew.
• Don’t throw out the baby with the bath-water.
• Don’t try to be a big fish in a small pond; be deeper than the pond.
• Don’t try to control the path of others, when you cannot control your own.
• Don’t try to look heroic; try to remain stoic.
• Don’t try to play both ends against the middle.
• Don’t try to set the world on fire; just do what you admire.
• Don’t try to treat the symptom; instead, cut out the root of the cause.
• Don’t try to walk before you crawl.
• Don’t use a lot where a little will do.
• Don’t view the world through rose-colored glasses.
• Don’t wash your dirty linen in public.
• Don’t wish your life away.
• Don’t work too hard to solve the wrong problem.

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 • Don’t worry if you failed an exam as long as you learned a lesson.
• Don’t worry; worry never fixes anything.
• Doubt is the beginning and the end of all wisdom.
• Dream boats don’t float.

E
• Easily got, easily given.
• Education can’t buy common sense.
• Eliminate all the habits that do harm to you and, then, start anew.
• Emotional need feeds on greed.
• Enough is as good as a feast.
• Envy shoots at others but hits itself.
• Even a lion is helpless to prevent himself from being irritated by flies.
• Even what is methodical can be diabolical.
• Events of importance often eventuate from trivial causes.
• Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
• Every addiction causes affliction.
• Every cloud has a silver lining.
• Every imperative is a new step commanding you to do good or evil.
• Every man is a latent volcano waiting to erupt.
• Every man is his own worst enemy.
• Every man is the architect of his own destiny.
• Every ship, no matter how precious the cargo, carries rats in its hold.
• Every solution creates new problems.
• Every thing that we want to hang on to flits away on the wings of time.
• Every time you tell a lie, a bit of truth must die.
• Every valuable idea is offensive to someone.
• Everybody you meet knows something you don’t.
• Everyone is reliable until the first time they screw-up.
• Everyone knows what is good, but few do as they should.
• Everything done in a hurry has its root in worry.
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 • Everything is for nothing.
• Everything is in change in progress, and you, too, are changing in the process.
• Everything that is put together falls apart, sooner or later.
• Everything that you become attached to will cause you worry and pain.
• Everything we get is a loss of something else.
• Everything will come together or fall apart, regardless of what you do.
• Everything you worked for can disappear in a moment because of words said in
haste.
• Evil likes to provoke; the more passive you are the more you will be provoked.
• Exercise the body as well as the mind.
• Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
• Experience is something you don’t get until after you need it.
• Extravagance teaches frugality.
• Extreme circumstances demand extreme measures.

F
• Face shows one thing; heart hides another.
• Failing to plan is planning to fail.
• Failure is the path of least persistence.
• Faith can move mountains.
• Faith must be converted into actions.
• Falling down is easier than getting up.
• False praise is half slander.
• Familiarity breeds contempt.
• Far-off fields look greener.
• Fast and furious kills the curious.
• Fear of being alone makes us talk on the phone.
• Fear the womb; then, fear your doom; then, fear your tomb
• Feeling sorry-for-yourself is a form of self-indulgence.
• Feigned humility and false-pride line up on the same side.
• Fiction is stranger than fact.
17
 • Fifty-thousand years ago no one knew how nature would suffer and what man
might do.
• Fight less; love more; foster peace; avoid war.
• Find the right questions before deciding the answers.
• Finding oneself is a misnomer.
• First love muddles and befuddles.
• First think; then, speak.
• First, we make our habits; then, our habits make us.
• First, you want a kiss, and then you want more, and then a whole family to love
and adore.
• Follow the golden mean.
• Follow your nose into the pinch of the door of death.
• Following the path of least resistance makes men and rivers crooked.
• Food and drink are a poor substitute for what you really want.
• For some, reality is an illusion.
• For the sake of earning a living, we forget to live.
• Forced-peace needs grease.
• Forewarned is forearmed.
• Forgetting yourself is a paradox that can be resolved on two levels.
• Forgive and forget.
• Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.
• Forming your own opinion is not easy to do when all of the thinking depends on
you.
• Freedom from wanting to be at one with the gods leads even beyond the gods.
• Friendship is something to be shared rather to give or to get or to own or retain.

G
• Get down to waking yourself up.
• Getting what you want doesn’t make you happy; wanting to give makes you
happy.
• Girls and boats are the toys of old boys.
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 • Give credit where credit is due.
• Give people more than they want and do it with all your heart.
• Give what you want to receive.
• Go against the law of supply and demand, and few will understand.
• Go with the flow.
• Goals grow further away the closer we come to them.
• God give me strength to accept the things I cannot change.
• God has more important things to do than win the lottery for you.
• God is the spirit felt in the silence of the desert.
• God save me from myself.
• Good at something is better than good-for-nothing.
• Good fences make good neighbors.
• Good intentions are of little use until put into practice.
• Good is not good enough when better is expected.
• Good things come to those who wait.
• Good weight and measure are heaven’s treasure.
• Good-for-nothings share everything in common.
• Government is just one big conspiracy to bleed the people.
• Gray hair is a sign of age not wisdom.
• Great minds think alike.
• Greed breeds need.
• Grieving is good until it gets us to where we can let go.
• Growing old is mandatory; growing-up is an obligation.
• Guilt and blame are not the same.

H
• Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of enemies.
• Habit is like a soft bed: easy to get into, hard to get out of.
• Hanging in angst over the abyss is the converse face of a state of bliss.
• Happiness is a choice, not a condition.
• Hardship is a test that brings out our best.
19
• Harshly-uttered words, said in haste, cut to the quick, and leave a bitter taste.
• Haste makes waste.
• Hate loves to sparkle and crackle, like a biting, vicious jackal.
• Hatred is as blind as love.
• He laughs best who laughs last.
• He that lives on hope will die fasting.
• He that marries for money will earn it.
• He that sows iniquity will reap sorrow.
• He who angers you conquers you.
• He who has asked the first question may have asked his last.
• He who is driven by hate lives in a primal state.
• He who is greedy of gain troubles his own house.
• He who is ruled by rancor will wreak havoc on the lives of those he loves.
• He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
• He who needs a lot of words to say something is just confused about what he
wants to say.
• He who saves in little things can be liberal in great ones.
• He who seldom says a kind word has seldom heard a kind word.
• He who shows malice to a neighbor will cause his own house to fall.
• He who smiles in a crisis has found someone else to blame.
• He who speaks too highly of himself underestimates the perceptivity of his
listeners.
• He who tries hard not to worry bites his fingernails.
• He who would avoid being eaten avoids the land of the cannibals.
• Heaven and hell collide in the body in which they reside.
• Hell is other people.
• Help others learn to help themselves.
• Hindsight is easier than foresight
• Hindsight is twenty-twenty.
• History repeats itself.
• Home is where the heart is.

20
 • Honesty is the best policy.
• Hope is a beggar who becomes lean and leaner.
• Hostility and malice can soon destroy a palace.
• Hot love is soon cold.
• How are fixed-objects fixed?
• How can I understand another when I can’t even understand myself?
• How can the devil succeed when there is so much courage in the world?
• How can you control others, when you cannot control yourself?
• How can you find yourself when there is no self?
• How can you know the whole without becoming it?
• How can you seize the day when you cannot grasp the moment?
• How you look depends on who is looking and what he is looking for.
• Humility does not mean you think less of yourself but that you think of yourself
less.
• Humility goes before honor.
• Hurry, worry, scurry, flurry, fury.
• Hurt me and hurt me some more; what doesn’t kill me makes me strong to suffer
more.

I
• I am more lonely when we are together than when I am alone.
• I am not my brother’s keeper.
• I am not the me that I think you see.
• I believe it is imperative for other people to obey the law and pay taxes.
• I don’t fit into this century, and it won’t be long before nobody else does either.
• I don’t stand a ghost of a chance without you.
• I feel like I’m carrying the burden of the whole world on my shoulders.
• I feel like something someone found in the ashes of a fire.
• I get along better with people when I know they are not there.
• I have nothing to say, and that’s what I’m saying.
• I invested ten years of my life in my ex-wife.
21
• I know I won’t be happy until I reach zero.
• I may have a sage look in my eyes, but I am not yet so wise.
• I may yet be what I have not become.
• I spent all my money on booze and women, and I wasted the rest.
• I want to do it just because people think I can’t.
• I’ll do anything for you, anything you want me to.
• I’m not going back to nothing: I’ve been there.
• I’m saving for a rainy day.
• I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.
• I’m washed-up and wasted; I’m cooked-and-basted.
• I’ve been in trouble all my life and now I’m in trouble with my wife.
• I’ve got no fight in me anymore, and my body is telling me it’s time to lie down
and die.
• If a committee were asked to design a horse, they would come up with a camel.
• If anyone’s going to cause a problem around here, it’s going to be me!
• If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.
• If branches never fight on a tree, why is there so much human diversity?
• If death brings surcease of suffering and sorrow, it is a good in itself.
• If everybody wants, wants and wants, who will there be to give?
• If everything is about what you want, you’ll soon be the only one around.
• If fear wins, you lose.
• If god had given us two hearts, they would have been in conflict.
• If god lived on earth, people would break his windows.
• If Gods were just they would also punish you for what you didn’t do.
• If I could allow my mind to speak, it would scream and screech and squeak.
• If I had known I’d live so long, I’d have taken better care of myself.
• If I’d been born in the past, the odds are I’d have been a slave and not a king
• If it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it.
• If it’s possible something could happen, to crush and humiliate you, it’s going to
happen.
• If life’s a bitch, what is death?

22
• If looks could kill, I’d be dead already.
• If love has its place in the order of things, why does it cause so much disorder?
• If man were born pristine, his actions would be clean.
• If misery is allowed to grow as if there is no tomorrow, tomorrow will end in
sorrow.
• If money could go where it wanted, it would try to get away from you.
• If money could talk it would say, ‘Goodbye.’
• If one man helps another and a third one knows about it, that’s one too many.
• If only I had known I would end up so alone.
• If pain makes you grow, why am I not enormous?
• If people behaved like dogs, their behavior would be more predictable.
• If people cannot stop lying to themselves, how can they be honest with one
another?
• If pigs had wings, all in the world could fly.
• If spirits can return, then we need not so fear death.
• If the need to control takes hold of you, you’ll have more enemies than you think
you do.
• If the sea changes but the horizon doesn’t, can appearance be permanent?
• If the shoe fits, wear it.
• If wishes were horses then beggars might ride.
• If you can’t believe it, you can’t achieve it.
• If you can’t change yourself, how can you change others?
• If you can’t control your passions, your passions will control you.
• If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
• If you could read the thoughts of your mate, you would surely show him the gate.
• If you dig deep, don’t be surprised at what turns up.
• If you don’t love yourself, how do you expect anybody else to love you?
• If you focus only on what is bad, you’ll drive yourself mad.
• If you happen to lose, don’t lose the lesson gained.
• If you have a deep-seated need, it will gnaw in your gut and feed.
• If you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all.

23
• If you have only one leg to stand on, you may be toppled easily.
• If you refuse to choose, you might lose.
• If you ride a wild horse into a wild fire, you’ll soon expire.
• If you share it, you gain merit.
• If you stray into the swamp, you’ll come out dirty.
• If you think that life is a bore, wait ‘til death comes knocking on your door.
• If you truly stand for what you stand, the world will understand.
• If you try to block nature, you’ll become the obstacle in its path.
• If you wait for permission, you’ll never get anything done.
• If you want a good servant, serve yourself.
• If you want eggs, get a chicken.
• If you want to call the tune, you’ll have to pay the piper.
• If you want to catch a thief, hire one.
• If you wouldn’t admit it, don’t do it.
• If you’re always smiling, people will think you are stupid.
• If you’re broken, it’s because you are brittle.
• If you’re doing something good, there’s no need to stop and talk about it.
• If you’re looking for someone who knows everything, ask a teenager.
• If you’ve been cheated by your friends, you’ve been keeping the wrong company.
• If you’ve never run aground, you’ve never sailed around.
• If your feelings for yourself are stronger than those for others, you’ll do them
harm.
• If your lust be rusty, sleep and dream of me.
• If your mean motives become more clean, you’ll become better than you have
been.
• Ignorance becomes violence when found-out.
• Ignorance is no excuse.
• Ill-gotten gains are true losses.
• Imposed-force kills creativity.
• Impurity threatens security.
• In a land where everyone lies, the truth chokes up and dies.

24
• In a moment of time, you can make a mistake that lasts a lifetime.
• In order to back something, you need a backbone.
• In rough seas, you have to heave-to and hope for the best.
• In search of the way in a sky with no path, we may soon fly astray.
• In stormy seas, we can’t do as we please.
• In the beginning, came the event, then, the word, then, the idea. Is a word an event
or idea?
• In the quest of the beast, primordial instincts are released.
• In this world, only the road to perfection exists.
• Individual liberty should not compromise collective responsibility.
• Instead of having just one more, take one less.
• Is a paradox still a paradox once it is resolved?
• Is anything as solid and sequential as it seems?
• Is purity to be regained or attained?
• Is silence the absence or the opposite of noise?
• Is the glass half-empty or half full?
• Is the glass half-empty or twice as big as it needs to be?
• Is the structural order of the universe set in concrete?
• Is time just a construct or a tool of the mind?
• Islam is a religion of peace and tranquility.
• It appears that we seldom tell the truth to our peers.
• It does no good to count to ten and, then, fall into a fit of anger again.
• It does no harm to try to do what does no harm.
• It is always faster falling down than climbing up.
• It is in the nature of the heart to tear itself apart.
• It only takes one bad apple to spoil a whole basket.
• It should be you who determines what you do.
• It takes a lot of freedom to truly do what is good for you.
• It takes double the energy to swing and miss as it does to swing and hit.
• It takes more energy to make a hateful face than a nice smile.
• It takes more than courage to beat the odds.
25
• It takes more than might to always be right.
• It takes only a moment for love to turn to hate, but half a lifetime to abate.
• It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
• It’s a sign of ill-will to listen only in order to find something to contradict.
• It’s a wise child that knows his own father.
• It’s best not to stir up a hornet’s nest.
• It’s better to give a little too much than a little too little.
• It’s better to give than to receive.
• It’s better to go against the flow than run with the pack.
• It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
• It’s easier to deal with effects of bad actions than it is to is avoid our original
intentions.
• It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.
• It’s easier to stem the stream than dam the river.
• It’s easy to be wise after the event.
• It’s easy to get bricked-in when you’re back’s against the wall.
• It’s hard for a leopard to change its spots.
• It’s hard to be freed from grasping-need.
• It’s hard to take a piss while balancing on a tightrope over the abyss.
• It’s never crowded along the extra mile.
• It’s never too late to let go of hate.
• It’s no good having principles if you don’t follow them.
• It’s not ‘til you’re over sixty than you begin to understand what misspent youth
means.
• It’s not always prudent to say what’s on your mind.
• It’s not life that stinks, its people.
• It’s not only in the henhouse that life is unfair.
• It’s not the light but the darkness that blinds you.
• It’s surprising the things you can do when you have no choice.
• It’s surprising the things you can say when you have no voice.
• It’s the empty can that makes the most noise.

26
 • It’s too late to cover the well when the child has already fallen in.
• It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

J
• Jealousy is a disease of the weak.
• Just a little kiss can cause a lot more than just a moment of bliss.
• Just around the bend, the cycle may end.
• Just as the monkey needs the jungle to prevail, the sea horse needs coral to attach
its tail.
• Just as the object is an apparition, so is the knowledge coming from it.
• Just because everybody does it doesn’t make it right.
• Just because everyone else is ungracious doesn’t mean you should be that way
too.
• Just because you appear to be lying in clover doesn’t mean it’s over.
• Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
• Just do what you must to do what is just.
• Just remember how lucky you are to get a free trip around the sun.
• Justice and judgment often lay worlds apart.
• Justice is the right of the weak.

K
• Keep crouched-low to slip through the tight spots.
• Keep up courage; keep up heart; do your best to do your part.
• Keep weak people at arm’s-length, so they can’t pull you down and sap your
strength.
• Knowledge expands out-of-hand; wisdom comes into focus.

L
• Languages and literature evolve to bridge the gap of cultural isolation.
• Law is born of despair of human nature.

27
• Learn to desire no more than you require.
• Learn to listen to listen to learn.
• Learn to say more in fewer words.
• Learning is best when put into practice.
• Learning to lose helps men learn to win.
• Let bygones be bygones.
• Let go of your pride or shame will follow.
• Let go of your spiritual burden and lose some weight.
• Let not the sun go down on thy wrath.
• Let sleeping dogs lie.
• Let your dirt accumulate or wash it away; the course you choose determines your
day.
• Lie down with dogs; get up with fleas.
• Lies mesmerize; promises hypnotize; expectations arise; hope dies.
• Lies tranquilize.
• Life inevitably sets upon an old and ailing-man like a pack of hungry wolves.
• Life is a breathless, rigorous race through a short time and a narrow place.
• Life is beautiful, delicate and fragile.
• Life is like a ladder: every step is either up or down.
• Life is often stranger than fiction.
• Life is what you make it.
• Life would be more fun if it were over before it had begun.
• Life, when it is written, reads better than it was.
• Like attracts like.
• Like crude, mineral ore, the mind must be refined.
• Like father, like son.
• Limiting yourself a little leads to less excess.
• Little by little and few by few, people see the harm they do.
• Little good to gain fame and lose yourself in the process.
• Little jugs have big mouths.
• Live and let live.
28
 • Live by the sword, die by the sword.
• Live fast, die young.
• Live for today, for tomorrow never comes.
• Live in addiction, die in affliction.
• Live in excess, die in excess.
• Look before you leap.
• Look on the bright side.
• Looks can be deceiving.
• Lose control of your temper, and it will take control of you.
• Losing a friend is like losing a finger.
• Love doesn’t always arrive on time.
• Love is a temporary form of insanity.
• Love is a verb, not a noun.
• Love is blind; death is kind.
• Love is like sunlight, but you can’t have sun without shadows.
• Love is the extremely difficult realization that something besides your self is real.
• Love should not be something you want to get but something you want to give.
• Love that’s never been tested by temptation is not tried-and-true.
• Love thy neighbor as thyself.
• Love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness and mercy make this miserable life
livable.
• Love, hate, sorrow, joy and harsh words can destroy.
• Love’s first fallacy is its first fit of jealousy.
• Lust obliterates trust.

M
• Maintain the balance of opposites and try to stay on the middle road.
• Make haste slowly.
• Make stumbling blocks into stepping-stones.
• Malice drinks its own poison.
• Malice in your heart can tear your life apart.
29
• Man is locked in the prison of his own narrow vision.
• Many an evil deed has been done in the name of love.
• Many are called but few are chosen.
• May all your words be spoken with grace and with a smiling face.
• Mediocre is as far from the top as it is from the bottom.
• Mediocrity knows nothing but itself, but genius recognizes genius.
• Meditating for an hour gives you power.
• Men of wisdom agree in the main, and when they can’t, they think again.
• Men of wisdom mostly agree, regardless of orientation or nation.
• Men who expect a kick in the groin go about stooped.
• Mend your ways before it is too late.
• Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
• Mind your manners and mend your ways.
• Miracles do happen.
• Misery loves company.
• Missionaries may steal the souls of others without saving their own.
• Money can buy everything but good sense.
• Money comes, money goes; where it goes, nobody knows.
• Money is what you get for your sweat.
• Money smells funny.
• Monkey does as monkey sees.
• More backbone and less wish-bone.
• Most things are easier to say than to do.
• My friends, there are no friends.
• My half is usually three-quarters.

30
N
• Nationalism is just a local prejudice.
• Nature is not sustainable if it’s not maintainable.
• Nature makes dirt and washes it away, only to replace it with the dirt of another
day.
• Nature requires little, fancy much.
• Necessity is the mother of invention.
• Neither blame nor praise yourself.
• Never answer a question with a question.
• Never base a decision on a mood of the moment.
• Never ever think you’re clever.
• Never fear the end is near.
• Never invest more than you can walk away from.
• Never judge a person based on his relatives.
• Never let anybody convince you that you’d be stupid not to steal.
• Never look a gift horse in the mouth.
• Never overstep the line.
• Never put off ’til tomorrow what you can do today.
• Never reject another’s regard or respect.
• Never rest ‘til good be better and better best.
• Never say die.
• Never say, never.
• Never trust a language that is full of allusion and illusion.
• Never trust a language that is full of conceits and deceits.
• Never trust anyone over thirty-five.
• Never trust anyone under thirty-five.
• Never underestimate the fickle finger of fate.
• No act of kindness is performed in vain.
• Nobody is expendable.
• No good deed goes unrewarded nor bad deed unpunished.
31
• No man is an island.
• No man is free who is a slave to the flesh.
• No matter what you do, nothing will go as you want it to.
• No medicine can change the look of a mean face.
• No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
• No one ever knows himself or what he is capable of doing, good or bad.
• No one is good at everything, but everyone is good at something.
• No prejudice has ever been able to prove its case in the court of reason.
• No river can return to its source.
• Nobody ever tells the whole truth about himself.
• Nobody is above the law.
• Nobody is indispensable.
• None are as blind as those who will not see.
• Not everything that glitters is gold.
• Not knowing where your mind is going can be better than knowing where it is
staying.
• Not to know what happened before you were born is to remain a child all of your
life.
• Nothing done in a hurry is ever done right.
• Nothing prevails forever, and all glory is but futile.
• Nothing remains constant except change itself.
• Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
• Nowadays we find we are getting a lot more of a lot less.

32
O
• Of that which you know speak; of that which you do not know be silent.
• Old habits die hard.
• Old men should stop and think and speak in rhymes to avoid offence in
troublesome times.
• On this moment hangs eternity.
• Once a sense of derision has arisen, it is not so easily forgiven.
• Once burnt, twice shy.
• Once degradation begins, the process of nature wins.
• Once the die is cast, the moment of opportunity is past.
• Once words fly, it’s too late to catch them.
• Once you are outside your own door, the hardest part of your journey is behind
you.
• One cannot afford to court discord.
• One day at a time; one thing at a time.
• One good turn deserves another.
• One man’s meat is another man’s poison.
• One step at a time.
• Only a fool hates what he knows nothing about.
• Only love can exacerbate hate.
• Only the eagle can stare at the sun without burning its eyes.
• Only the good die young.
• Only you can decide if you’ve something to hide.
• Opportunities, like eggs, come one at a time.
• Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose responsibility.
• Out-of-sight, out-of-mind.
• Out of the frying-pan into the fire.
• Out of time, out of mind.
• Overdo a diet, and the whole body runs-riot.

33
P
• Paradoxes resolved are problems solved.
• Parents should remember how they bore their children.
• Patience exploited is virtue voided.
• Patience in a moment of anger saves a hundred sorrows.
• Patience may bring its own reward, but too much patience creates discord.
• Peace of mind is a different thing from a lack of war.
• Penny wise, pound foolish.
• People always want what they can’t have.
• People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.
• People are more apt to make a safe decision than a right one.
• People can feel how you see and hear how you feel.
• People don’t appreciate what they have until it is taken away.
• People don’t want what is given; they want what they can’t have.
• People will continue to sell their votes as long as dogs eat excrement.
• People with power to make and enforce the rules should make fairer and better
rules.
• Perceive the nature-less-ness of nature and transcend the goal of transcendence.
• Personal motives should promote the common good.
• Perverse attracts perverse.
• Perversion of what’s right makes men fight.
• Physician, heal thyself.
• Pick the battles you can win.
• Placing the blame is easier than taking it.
• Politicians are interested in people the way fleas are interested in dogs.
• Practice makes perfect.
• Practice on the days that end in ‘y.’
• Practice until you start getting it right, and keep on practicing until you can’t get it
wrong.
• Practice what you preach.
• Prepare for calamity not yet in the bud.
34
 • Pride comes before the fall.
• Pride that dines on vanity sups on contempt.
• Principles should be practiced rather than held.
• Procrastination is the thief of time.
• Prove your teachers wrong and show the world that you are not so stupid after all.
• Proverbs are like butterflies, some are caught and some fly away.
• Proverbs are the daughters of experience.
• Proverbs are the lamp of speech.

R
• Rancor and resentment foster the opposite of contentment.
• Reality can be hell when you are only visiting.
• Reality is stranger than fiction.
• Realizing mistakes is vain when it can’t undo pain.
• Remember our environment is not separate from our selves.
• Replace indifference with care and dullness with light.
• Resentment and contentment cannot reside peacefully in the same soul.
• Respectability and virtue are two different things.
• Responsibility and sincerity are prerequisite to liberty, equality and fraternity.
• Revenge is a dish best served-cold.
• Rules are made to be broken.

S
• Sarcasm is an indirect way of expressing one’s personal pain and disappointment.
• Saying and doing are two separate things.
• School is important because it allows us a showcase to act-out and be
independent.
• Search and ye shall find.
• Seasoned-sailors reef sail before an impending-gale.
• Second-best is not good enough.

35
• Seeking fortune and fame is just a social game.
• Self-governance must be based on trust.
• Selfish lust preys on innocent trust.
• Selfishness blinds one to the needs of others.
• Senators can be criminals, but criminals cannot be senators.
• Setting out on a course that we cannot reverse is a self-imposed curse.
• Shall we hang the holly or one another?
• Shoot with a camera not with a gun.
• Short-term gain is short; long-term gain is long.
• ‘Should’ is a word you use for things we never do.
• Shut down your mind for an hour to let it restore its source of power.
• Silence has the loudest-voice.
• Silence is golden. Speech is silver.
• Silence is often misinterpreted but never misquoted.
• Silence is the hardest argument to refute.
• Silent right is the balm of wrongful spite.
• Slow but sure will endure.
• Slow up and cool down.
• Small words spoken in haste can cause devastation and waste.
• Smiling-Jack will stab you in the back.
• Smitten by desire, pants on fire.
• Smooth seas do not make good sailors.
• So as you sow, so shall you reap.
• So far, so good is not good enough.
• So-called good taste is usually based-on-waste.
• Social stratum is not a required desideratum.
• Some men go through the forest and see no firewood.
• ‘Some other time.’ Some of the best times I’ve ever had where other times.
• Some people have no power except for the ability to annoy and hurt others.
• Some people’s sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.
• Some would rather die than see the object of their envy live.
36
• Some would rather see the end of the world than see the world better-off without
them.
• Some would rather see their object of desire destroyed rather than see anyone else
have it.
• Sometimes it is better to wait and do nothing than to do something that leads to
disaster.
• Sometimes man seems to have a desire to determine the nature of all things.
• Sometimes things that are taken away are things that get in the way.
• Sometimes we are forced to do things we should have done of our own free
volition.
• Sometimes, it is better to lose than have blood on your hands.
• Sometimes, less of one man is more than enough.
• Sometimes, not telling what you know is a sin against virtue but prevents harm to
others.
• Sometimes, the only way you can give is to be able to take.
• Sometimes, what we are seeking lies just up the mountain, but we neglect to look
there.
• Sometimes, you have no choice but to ride out the storm.
• Sometimes, your best is not enough.
• Sooner or later everybody gets replaced.
• Sorrow-shared is sorrow-halved.
• Speak of the devil, and then he appears.
• Spend a couple of hours in splendid seclusion as a lead-up to the dawn.
• Sprout strong shoots that become deep roots, before you try to reach up high into
the sky.
• Start off the way you mean to carry on.
• Stay in-tune with the cycles of the moon.
• Steady but sure wins the race.
• Steal from my horse, and you steal from me.
• Stepping over the line is seldom an act of design.
• Sticking your nose in other’s affairs can get you thrown downstairs.

37
 • Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.
• Still waters run deep.
• Stop building castles in the air.
• Stress and confusion are the twin sisters of distress and delusion.
• Strip existence to the bone; get rid of everything you own.
• Suffer in silence.
• Swallowing pride never choked anyone.

T
• Take care of the little things and the big things will look after themselves.
• Take what people have to say with a grain of salt.
• Talk is cheap.
• Talking comes naturally; silence requires wisdom.
• Tax cuts help best when you give them to taxpayers.
• Tell me who you love, and I’ll tell you who you are.
• Temper gets us into trouble; pride keeps us there.
• Temptation to borrow leads to sorrow.
• Terror based on hate is a cry for compassion that is heard too late.
• The ashes of lust turn into dust.
• The axis of burning is forever turning.
• The best cure for a short temper is a long walk.
• The best reward of love is the experience of loving.
• The best way to learn something is to teach it.
• The best way to solve your problems is to help someone else solve theirs.
• The bigger they are the harder they fall.
• The body is but a bone cage that deteriorates with age.
• The body is but a container that returns back into nature when the soul goes its
way.
• The calm are quiet and the proud are loud.
• The cause of your bother is not rooted in another.

38
• The characteristics that attract us to a person are the ones that eventually drive us
nuts.
• The clock is the biggest illusion of the industrial age.
• The coming of wisdom is not sudden but gradual.
• The darkest hours are just before the dawn.
• The devil dances in empty pockets.
• The devil is in the details.
• The difference between bad and good is often misunderstood.
• The ding-dong-of-doom started in the womb.
• The doors of wisdom are never shut but seldom opened.
• The early bird catches the worm.
• The earth is becoming more and more like a hairless ball covered with millions of
fleas.
• The elders have eaten sour grapes and the children have set their teeth on edge.
• The end of wrath is the beginning of repentance.
• The evil people do to you may not be as bad as the evil they do to themselves.
• The evil you do will come back to you.
• The eye of the truth can look straight through the heart of a lie.
• The falling flower drifts back to the branch, a butterfly.
• The first hundred years are the hardest.
• The first million is the hardest.
• The foolish are idle; the wise are diligent.
• The fox is in the henhouse.
• The glutton gobbles mutton as the swine swills wine.
• The goal is right before you, though you think it’s far away.
• The gods are not dead; they just transcended eternity and disappeared into
Nirvana.
• The good and kind are pure of mind.
• The grass is always greener on the other side.
• The greatest fear is fear itself.
• The greatest gift you can give your child is your time.

39
• The greatest loss is to lose the ability to smile.
• The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
• The greatest wealth is contentment with little.
• The greedy sow the seeds of their own ruin.
• The guts of the deceased are decomposed in the belly of the beast.
• The hand is faster than the eye.
• The heart at rest is not an immoveable object.
• The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.
• The heavy burden of service to others is seldom easy to bear.
• The hen continues to seek food for the brood, regardless of her mood.
• The history of the past is repeated in the present.
• The hunger for knowledge is a desire which one day will also expire.
• The knowledge we have is only fleeting.
• The law misused is a right abused.
• The longer you keep your temper, the more it will improve.
• The mind forgets traumatic events, but the body remembers them.
• The minds of noble men are undermined by passion.
• The moment you begin to feel proud, you lose the virtue of achievement.
• The more emotional you get, the more you get yourself upset.
• The more people, the more rules; the more rules, the more fools.
• The more that you acquire, the more time and money you require.
• The most eloquent truths remain unspoken.
• The most important thing that happens in class is that the student is thinking.
• The need to love always has a shadow-side.
• The next-best-to thing to abstinence is faithfulness.
• The object of your contempt would most-likely harm you if he could.
• The old cannot remember and the young cannot listen.
• The one that got away will get caught another day.
• The one thing I cannot tolerate is intolerance.
• The only certainty is uncertainty.
• The opposite of selfishness is selflessness.
40
• The opposite of warm and nice is cold-as-ice.
• The path of glory can be vain and gory.
• The pen is mightier than the sword.
• The pleasure of love lasts but a minute; the pain of love for a lifetime.
• The pleasure of wanting things is usually over at the moment you get them.
• The potentiality of ignorance is beyond comprehension.
• The price of hating others is to love your self less.
• The reality is there is no reality.
• The reason we have no prophets is that wise men live in seclusion.
• The rights of man demand we do for others all we can.
• The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
• The road to success is off-the-beaten-path.
• The root of terror is human error.
• The seed of need is greed.
• The selfish are lonely because they love themselves only.
• The sense of satisfaction from redressing a wrong never lasts long.
• The smallness of your wants, makes you the greater than your greatest needs.
• The strongest man is he who stands alone.
• The sum is more than the total of its parts.
• The sun and the moon too shall pass.
• The team that out-performs its competition wins.
• The thing that interests us the most is ourselves.
• The thing you have to fear most is fear itself.
• The thing you have to fear the most is yourself.
• The tiger reacts through instinct only; the dragon fears its own strength.
• The tongue can do more harm than the sword.
• The truth is just a lie that has not been discovered yet.
• The truth is that there is no truth.
• The twins of ignorance and stupidity generate arrogance and insolence.
• The way of the world is often absurd.
• The way you play your part shows the inclination of your heart.
41
• The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
• The wolf loses his teeth but not his inclinations.
• The words of the wise are full of surprise.
• The world does not change; only man’s perception of it does.
• The world needs rhymes, to be repeated in stressful times.
• The worst-form of obeisance is self-obsession.
• The worst-mistake is to be afraid of making one.
• There are no holy places, only holy moments.
• There are thousands of ways of showing thankfulness.
• There can be little learning if there is no teaching.
• There is no denying the irresistible nature of god’s grace.
• There is no harm in trying.
• There is no sport in hurting me; it is so easy.
• There is no such thing as an instant success.
• There’s a fine-line between lust and crime.
• There’s a gentle sadness in the plight I’m in.
• There’s a lot of free cheese in a mouse trap.
• There’s more to life than just living.
• There’s no fool like an old fool.
• There’s no future in living in the past.
• There’s no help for the wicked.
• There’s no one who wouldn’t hurt you, if it would help them.
• There’s no return ticket from the state of lost innocence.
• There’s no way to counter the weakness of the flesh except through selflessness.
• There’s nothing as fragile as a woman’s reputation.
• There’s sometimes time for a quick change between cause and effect.
• They should build a monument to dreams that didn’t come true.
• Things always appear better on the other side of the fence.
• Things may come to those who wait, but its better to persevere than hesitate.
• Things were much-more-simple back before the flood.
• Think about what you’ll say before you say what you think.
42
• Think straight; talk straight; act straight.
• Thinking about thinking is better than excessive drinking.
• Thinking beyond your own personal needs helps you avert inadvertent bad deeds.
• This could be the first moment of the rest of your life.
• This is as good as it gets.
• Those close to the top of the mountain don’t look down on those starting from the
bottom.
• Those ruled-by-hate and animosity mistrust generosity.
• Those who act with morality do not fear mortality.
• Those who always lie find it hard to recognize the truth.
• Those who contrive lie to survive.
• Those who hold themselves in high-esteem look down on others.
• Those who learn to hold their horses and their tongue are much less likely to be
hung.
• Those who sleep with dogs rise with fleas.
• Those who think they are the best are often the worst.
• Those who use the law to cheat sow the seeds of their own defeat.
• Those who victimize were once themselves victimized.
• Those who want money more than friendship will find the road to riches rocky.
• Those who want respect more than knowledge need to learn to respect knowledge
more.
• Those who wear a hang-dog face are asking to be put out of their misery.
• Those with unwholesome, hidden motives don’t trust kind words.
• Those you love and trust-the-most may hate one-another more than they love you.
• Those you love are often the one’s who pay for the mistakes you make.
• Thou shall not weigh more than thy refrigerator.
• Though things may come to those who wait, it is better to persevere than to
hesitate.
• Thoughts based on delusions lead to false conclusions.
• Threats cause frets.
• Through developing others, we develop ourselves.

43
• Time and tide wait for no man.
• Time is of the essence but water is more essential.
• Time leaves mind behind.
• Time passes and hurt heals; blood flows and then congeals.
• Time passes like a shadow.
• Time to be bored with fire and sword.
• Time will kill you for sure, but if you use it wisely, you will not fear death.
• To be sure of your friends, you have to keep changing them.
• To be the best, outrun the rest.
• To belittle is to be little.
• To borrow or to lend is to risk losing a friend.
• To develop wisdom implies developing something that is already there.
• To err is human.
• To find the truth, you have to follow the lies.
• To see is to believe.
• To think more highly of yourself than you do of others is making your second
mistake.
• To those in the know, life is nothing but one big show.
• To walk in another man’s footsteps is to stand in his shadow.
• Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.
• Too little food and too much time.
• Too many cooks spoil the broth.
• Too much education leads to too much regulation.
• Too much focus on wealth destroys the mental health.
• Too much freedom leads to anarchy.
• Too much generosity endangers both the giver and the receiver.
• Too much mercy engenders injustice.
• Too much self-assurance provokes resistance.
• Too much stress obstructs progress.
• Touch others with noble intentions, the way you would have them do if they
touched you.

44
• Trivializing for an hour wastes a lot of power.
• True self-confidence should be based-on good intentions.
• Trust is the mother of deceit.
• Truth seeks no corners.
• Try being gracious in the main, and, when that doesn’t work, try again.
• Try hard; live hard; die hard; leave a good-looking corpse.
• Try to be bigger than the stone that is crushing you.
• Try to be more than what or goes into or comes out of your mouth.
• Try to concentrate on what you’re doing, and don’t think about anything else.
• Try to keep your head when those about you are losing theirs.
• Trying to be something you are not will make both you and others feel distraught.
• Trying to keep greed within maintainable bounds is like trying to get a pig to wear
a bib.
• Trying to keep up with the heart will slow you down.
• Trying to unscrew the inscrutable.

45
U
• Under a democracy you’ve got to do what others do, even when you don’t want
to.
• Understanding a solution is easier than solving the problem.
• Unfinished tasks cause stress; better finish and then rest.
• United we stand; divided we fall.
• Unity means to be at peace-with-yourself in a state of focus and purity.
• Unless you eat your heart in sorrow, you cannot taste your life.
• Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural trouble.
• Unprincipled zeal makes sinners squeal.
• Unto the pure all things are pure.

V
• Velocity slows faster going up than it speeds up going down.
• Verbal abuse can kill the golden goose.
• Violence begets violence.
• Virginity and maternity are forms of divinity.
• Virtue is its own reward.

W
• Waiting is much more strenuous than doing.
• Wanting is just another form of pain we would be better-off without.
• War is a symptom rather than a cause.
• War is not a media event that you can stop by using the remote.
• Waste not; want not.
• Wasting a lot of money is an effective way of learning that it does not bring
pleasure.
• Watch your willow doesn’t turn to poison oak.
• Watch yourself, not your watch.
• We all remain children at heart until our death.

46
• We are digging our graves with our forks and spoons.
• We are the killers; we breed war.
• We forget what we want to remember and remember what we want to forget.
• We get too soon old and too late wise.
• We have won the world but lost our souls.
• We learn through suffering.
• We learn to ride out the storm in heavy seas.
• We never know the worth of water ‘til the well is dry.
• We never recover from our first lover.
• We sleep better at night with the doors and windows locked-up tight.
• We spend more time worrying than planning.
• We’re jungle creatures; the dark is all around us.
• Well-honed is half mown.
• What costs little is little-valued.
• What goes around comes around.
• What goes up must come down is only true for physical bodies.
• What goes up must come down.
• What happens when an irresistible force meets an immoveable object?
• What has never been said can still make you dead.
• What I have I no longer want, and what I want I can no longer have.
• What is accepted in the general view should not be the basis of what you do.
• What is common sense is seldom common practice.
• What is compulsive is repulsive.
• What is easily given is easily taken away.
• What is given with good intent should not be taken for-granted.
• What is just is; it’s not what you want it to be.
• What is so important that it cannot wait?
• What seems all right to the world may be all wrong.
• What seems so important at the moment will pass the way of all things.
• What seems to happen by happenstance may be predetermined by fate and
chance.
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• What started out as a seeming-saga is turning into an epic of monumental
proportions.
• What the ear can hear may cause a tear.
• What the eye does not see, the hand cannot take.
• What we love, we come to resemble.
• What you cannot condone, you’d better postpone.
• What you cannot control can control you.
• What you desire and then acquire is taken-for-granted and replaced by another
desire.
• What you do comes back to you.
• What you feel that you want to say is often better-kept for another day.
• What you give is what you get.
• What you see is not what you get; it changes its reality once you have acquired it.
• What you see is what you get.
• What you were before matters less than what you can become.
• Whatever is said in anger is said in vain.
• Whatever you choose to do, choose to do it well.
• Whatever you say can be used against you.
• When anything you say can cause stress, it’s better to say nothing.
• When are you going to start living the life that you still have left?
• When being a friend, always be sure do the good you intend.
• When death comes knocking on your door, you can’t avoid him any more.
• When evil is brought into the light, it loses its power and fright
• When flights of fancy reach their end, they crash-land.
• When hopes are dashed, dreams are smashed.
• When I think of you, the stress comes back, and I don’t know what I should do.
• When jealousy gets you by the throat, the devil also has a hold on your coat.
• When man’s instincts are released, he behaves like a beast.
• When mistrust enters, love departs.
• When money is the bottom line, quality is compromised every time.
• When old men become weak of mind they speak in aphorisms.

48
• When one door shuts, another opens.
• When setting goals, factor-in the fact that the goal-posts move, the closer we
approach.
• When someone tries to get your goat, just let go and float.
• When the finger of death points at you, you’d better be sure you know what to do.
• When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
• When the moon if full, it begins to wane.
• When the path becomes clear, persevere.
• When the tree falls the baby will drop.
• When the wanting stops, the hurting stops too.
• When there is no give and take, just give and give.
• When there is nothing good to say, say nothing and let the moment pass.
• When those about you are losing their heads, you should be keeping yours.
• When those about you are wagging their tongues, hold yours.
• When two men get together, one of them starts lying.
• When unstable people get close to you, you never know what they’re going to do.
• When vast, virgin forests dry up and die, they turn into oil.
• When we fight, anger takes flight.
• When you discover you’re not what you think you are, you’re on your way to
being free.
• When you hit rock-bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.
• When you reach the end-of-your rope, tie a knot and hang-on tight.
• When you throw dirt, you lose ground.
• When you want something done right, do it yourself.
• When you’re alone, there’s no one to hear you moan and groan.
• When you’re alone, you need a strong backbone in order fight for what is right.
• When you’ve nothing left to lose, you’re not so hard-to-get.
• When your goodness is not good enough, forgive and forget.
• When your love for yourself is stronger than you feel for others, you’ll harm
yourself.
• Where atoms and feelings collide, there’s no place to hide.

49
• Where resentment reigns, pity wanes.
• Where the eye goes, intention shows.
• Where there’s a will there’s a way.
• Where there’s smoke there’s fire.
• Wherever you go your pain will follow you.
• Which of the six senses can do the most evil?
• Who do we mean by ‘we’ when we use the term collectively?
• Why do we often do the opposite of what we intend to?
• Why does the stupidest person always think he knows more than everybody else?
• Why is it that we seldom want those who want us?
• Why is nobility of mind so hard to find?
• Why sacrifice the destiny of tomorrow for the desire of today?
• Why should a god want to have anything to do with this loathsome world?
• Why should others respect the things that you collect?
• Wisdom comes in little bits and pieces that don’t always fit together.
• Wisdom is something you have to find on your own; it never comes pre-
packaged.
• Wish not; want not.
• Within the span of a single heart-beat, the moment dies an infinite number of
times.
• Without the law as a buffer between people, the world would be a place of chaos
and evil.
• Words of wisdom are clear and direct; to-the-point and circumspect.
• Words spoken can be like eggs broken.
• Words that are heated will be repeated.
• Words unspoken can never be broken.
• Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.
• Worry is like rocking a chair; it gives you something to do, but doesn’t get you
anywhere.
• Worrying never did anyone any good.
• Would-be big fish, from small, polluted ponds, make unsavory soup.

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 • Write down a list of all your bad habits and then eliminate them one-by-one.
• Write down a list of your fears and then analyze them away day-by-day.

Y
• You are responsible for what you let people do to you.
• You are younger today than you will be tomorrow.
• You can accomplish more by saying ‘please’ than you can through threats and
coercion.
• You can ask dogs to stop pissing on your house every day, but they’ll continue
anyway.
• You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
• You can never know your own language until you know a few others.
• You can only win a war one battle at a time.
• You can take the girl out of the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the girl.
• You can try to control the process, but you cannot control the outcome.
• You can’t be objective when your need is subjective.
• You can’t build a relationship with a hammer.
• You can’t cross the sea by staring at the waves.
• You can’t dance at two different weddings at the same time.
• You can’t dim the lights by using a hammer.
• You can’t drive a windmill with a pair of bellows.
• You can’t fly when you’re bound in your own clutches.
• You can’t force away pain; you can only subdue it, until it comes back again.
• You can’t get blood from a stone.
• You can’t go home again.
• You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
• You can’t pound a square peg into a round hole.
• You can’t run away from your pain; wherever you go, it will turn up again.
• You can’t see clearly through a veil of tears.
• You can’t teach an old dog to learn new tricks.
• You can’t tell a book by its cover.
51
• You can’t turn back the clock, but you can wind it up again.
• You cannot estimate the size of the skies or where the full extent of the truth lies.
• You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.
• You cannot protect nature from itself, only from yourself.
• You cannot run and hide from yourself.
• You cannot understand the taste of an apple until you have bitten into it.
• You cannot unscramble eggs.
• You could strangle spiders in the web that you weave.
• You don’t appreciate what you have until it is gone.
• You don’t have time to rock the boat when you’re pulling hard on the oars.
• You don’t have to keep looking to be able to see what is not really reality.
• You don’t have to know all the answers, as long as you know some of the right
questions.
• You get out what you put in.
• You get the chicken by hatching not smashing the egg.
• You have to be strong to right a wrong.
• You have to be a great ocean in order to take in a polluted sea.
• You have to stumble through darkness to grope your way into the light.
• You have to understand when it’s time to take a stand and fight for your rights.
• You just buried yourself.
• You might think you’re big son, but you’re not big enough yet.
• You need to be more than a preacher to be a good teacher.
• You pay peanuts; you get monkeys.
• You see lots of smiles in advertising but few in company boardrooms.
• You will find both a smile and a scowl hidden behind the face of nature.
• You’ll find desolation and despair if your mind is focused there.
• You’ll get what you deserve in the end.
• You’re a bit too clever for your own good.
• You’re burning your candle at both ends.
• You’re fishing for compliments.
• You’re half an idiot and that’s the good half.
52
 • You’re not always meant to get the meaning.
• You’re not as big as you think you are.
• You’ve been caught with egg on your face.
• You’ve got to learn to walk before you can run.
• You’ve got to play the hand that you are dealt.
• You’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain.
• Your life is in the hands of any fool who can make you lose your temper.
• Your notions, though many, are not worth a penny.
• Your sins will find you out.
• Youth is wasted on the young.
• Youth will always ignore advice repeated from the past.

Z
• Zeal is mostly found in fools.
• Zeal that harms others even comes between brothers.
• Zealous and keen exceed the mean.

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 Proverbs and Sayings from Around the World

Ever since the Romantic Period, through the 1800 and 1900’s, and even into the present
day, western culture has borrowed images and ideas, sayings, and words of wisdom from
diverse cultures and places, especially whatever seemed different, exotic and far away.
That is why, for example, we often find many Babylonian, Celtic, Greek, Roman,
Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, South East Asian, and Arabian motifs in European
romantic painting and literature. This is also why there are many translations into English
of proverbs and sayings from odd origins, from Armenian, to Zulu, the more remote the
better.

Also, since wisdom knows no borders, a lot of sayings have slipped into English from
France, Spain, Germany, Scandinavia and even such Eastern European countries as
Bulgaria and Romania. Such yearning for the Gothic and Arabesque, the bizarre and
exotic, has never really ceased. It is still there lurking behind the face of today’s so-called
technological advancement, seeking a relationship between man and nature, man and the
universe, searching for meaning in a world that, in contradiction to science, seems
confusing and absurd, harsh and indifferent, cold and lonely. Somehow Westerners have
never completely given up the hope, however, that, somewhere out there in the world,
there may be someone or some culture or something that can explain the meaning of
existence and provide enlightenment into the nature of reality. Below is a selection of
such sayings, listed by place of origin.

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|R|S|T|V|W|Y|Z

A
Source “Quotations”
Aborigine Keep your eyes on the sun, and you won’t see the shadows.
Afghan A little water is a sea to an ant.
Afghan All five fingers are brothers but not equal.
Afghan The way you see yourself is the way you see the world.
Afghan Water cannot be washed out with blood.
Afghan When the tiger kills, the jackal profits.
Armenian You are as many persons as the languages you know.
African As a crab walks, so walk his children.
African Don’t look where you fell but where you slipped.
African If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for something.
African It is better to travel alone than with a bad companion.
African Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.
African Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
African Sorrow doesn’t kill; recklessness does.
African When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
African Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

Source “Quotations”
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African You can steal the bugle but where would you play it?
Arabian All sunshine makes desert.
Arabian Diligence is the mother of good luck.
Arabian Don’t cut down the tree that gives you shade.
Arabian Today it may be fire; tomorrow ashes.
Arabian The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
Arabian Better a hundred enemies outside the house than one inside.
Arabian A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot.
Arabian You can’t pass a camel through the eye of a needle.
Argentina If you have a tail of straw, stay away from fire.
Armenian Clouds that thunder do not always rain.
Armenian The eagle may be killed by an arrow made from his own feathers.
Armenian The world is but a pot; man a spoon in it.
Armenian Where is there a tree not shaken by the wind?
Austrian The earth does not shake when the flea coughs.

B
Source “Quotations”
Babylonian The gods don’t deduct time he spent fishing from a man’s allotted span.
Balkan Nobody wants to be first to step on the ice.
Basque The wolf and the dog agree at the expense of the goat they eat.
Belizean The crow may be caged, but his thoughts are in the corn field.
Belgian Happy nations have no history.
Bengali No sin is hidden to the soul.
Bible A soft answer turns away wrath.
Bible Don’t be like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand.
Bible He who is soon angry deals foolishly.
Buddhist Travel with your equals or your betters; if there are none travel alone.
Bulgarian A gentle word opens the iron gate.
Bulgarian A tree falls the way it leans.
Bulgarian If you call one wolf, you invite the whole pack.
Burmese A good tree can lodge ten thousand birds.
Burmese If you take big paces, you leave big spaces.
Burmese The more violent the love, the more violent the anger.
Burmese Worthless people blame their karma.
Burmese The anger of the prudent never shows.

55
C
Source “Quotations”
Cabalistic There is no good without evil in it.
Cambodian Consuming passion is delicious; consuming words of wisdom more so.
Cambodian Overconfidence impairs your skills.
Cambodian Skill cannot defeat will.
Cambodian Too generous a nature makes one poor.
Cameroon A chattering bird builds no nest.
Cameroon The rain does not fall on one roof alone.
Celtic Dress a goat in silk, and it is still a goat.
Celtic A little help is better than a lot of pity.
Chinese A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles.
Chinese Add legs to the snake after you’ve drawn it.
Chinese A man’s conversation is the mirror of the mind.
Chinese A bird can roost on but one branch.
Chinese A picture is worth a thousand words.
Chinese A reed before the wind lives on, while a mighty oak falls.
Chinese An ant may destroy a whole dam.
Chinese Buy land, buy stones; buy meat, buy bones.
Chinese Choose your fellow-traveler before you start your journey.
Chinese Control your emotions or they will control you.
Chinese Dig the well before you are thirsty.
Chinese Eggs never fight with stones.
Chinese He who rides the tiger cannot dismount.
Chinese If you want no one to know it, then don’t do it.
Chinese It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.
Chinese It is the beautiful bird that gets caged.
Chinese Knowing when to quit is best.
Chinese Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.
Chinese Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger.
Chinese One generation plants trees, and the next one gets the shade.
Chinese Patience in a moment of anger will save a hundred days of sorrow.
Chinese Pleasures are shallow, sorrows deep.
Chinese Prepare for calamity not yet in the bud.
Chinese The taller the bamboo grows, the lower it bends.
Chinese So many paths to the top of the mountain, but the view is the same.
Chinese Talk doesn’t cook rice.
Chinese Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
Chinese To know the road, ask those coming back.
Chinese Unjustly got wealth is like snow sprinkled with water.
Chinese Victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan.
Chinese Water that has reached its level does not flow.
Chinese When the flood recedes, the rock is still there.
Chinese When the tree falls the shadow flies.
Source “Quotations”

56
Chinese You can’t help shoots grow by pulling them higher.
Chinese Two barrels of tears will not heal a bruise.
Chinese Wealth is like dung: useful only when spread.
Congolese Death does not sound a trumpet.
Congolese No matter how full the river, it still wants to grow.
Creole Cutting off a mule’s ears doesn’t make it a horse.
Creole To say thanks costs nothing.
Czech Many a friend was lost through a joke, but none was ever gained.
Czech Wisdom is easy to carry but hard to gather.

D
Source “Quotations”
Danish Advice after mischief is like medicine after death.
Danish He who is ashamed of asking is ashamed of learning.
Danish Speech is oft repented, silence seldom.
Danish The fall of a leaf is a whisper to the living.
Danish Don’t sail out further than you can sail back.
Dutch Froth is not beer.
Dutch Little pots soon run over.
Dutch You can have peace only as long as your neighbor allows you to.

E
Source “Quotations”
Egyptian A beautiful thing is never perfect.
Egyptian One who marries for love alone will have bad days but good nights.
Eskimo You never know your friends from your enemies until the ice breaks.
Ethiopian A single stalk may smoke, but it will not burn.

F
Source “Quotations”
Fijian Each bay its own wind.
French A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
French A little man often casts a long shadow.
French Common sense is not so common.
French Liars need good memories.
French Little thieves are hanged but great ones escape.
French Nobody is more generous than he who has nothing to give.
French Nothing is as burdensome as a secret.

Source “Quotations”
French Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
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French There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.
French What is true by lamplight is not always true in sunlight.
French Write injuries in sand, kindness in marble.

G
Source “Quotations”
Gaelic A friend’s eye is a good mirror.
Gaelic He who would enjoy the fruit must not spoil the blossoms.
German A cat in gloves catches no mice.
German A hug a day keeps the daemons away.
German Fire in the heart sends smoke to the brain.
German God provides nuts, but he does not crack them.
German He who begins too much accomplishes little.
German Joy and sorrow are next door neighbors.
German If God were not willing to forgive sin, heaven would be empty.
German If you fail to practice your skills, they will soon disappear.
German The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
German There’s a lid for every pot.
German To change and to change for the better are two different things.
German What good is running when you’re on the wrong road?
Greek Act quickly; think slowly.
Greek Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Greek Constant dripping will wear away stone.
Greek Drunkenness can be cured but stupidity lasts forever.
Greek He who suffers will know much.
Greek Through evil we realize the value of good.
Greek What you are is revealed in what you say.
Greek Know thyself.
Greek Milk the cow but do not destroy the udder.
Greek Never go to excess; let moderation be your guide.
Greek Pleasures are transient; honors immortal.
Greek Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

58
H
Source “Quotations”
Haitian Eggs have no business dancing with stones.
Haitian If you want your eggs hatched, sit on them yourself.
Hawaiian A person who talks about his inferiors has none.
Hebrew A little fire burns up a whole lot of corn.
Hebrew Promise little and do much.
Hindi As the hot sun melts the snows, when anger comes, wisdom goes.
Hindi Is cutting off the head a cure for a headache?
Hindi It’s totally wrong to infer that one kind of work is inferior to another.
Hindi Men, who grow upright, ought not to behave like beasts.
Hindi The deceitful have no friends.
Hindi There is unity in diversity.
Hindi We wish to enjoy the fruits of virtue without being morally good.

I
Source “Quotations”
Icelandic Mediocrity is climbing molehills without sweating.
Indian Better to live one day as a lion than one hundred days as a sheep.
Indian It is special to be ordinary.
Indian To lend is to buy a quarrel.
Indian Trust in God, but row away from the rocks.
Iranian A blind person who sees is better than a seeing person who is blind.
Iranian A gentle hand may lead an elephant by a hair.
Iranian Every tear has a smile behind it.
Irish Falling is easier than rising.
Irish The covetous person is always in want.
Irish Praise youth and it will prosper.
Irish You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Italian If you scatter thorns, don’t go barefoot.
Italian If you would be rich in a year, you may be hanged in six months.
Italian Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.
Islamic Adultery of the eye is to look with desire at the wife of another.
Islamic All actions are judged by the motive that prompted them.
Islamic Be persistent in good actions.
Islamic Humility and courtesy are acts of piety.
Islamic Don’t speak ill of the dead.
Islamic Do a good deed to blot out every bad deed.
Islamic Envy destroys good actions as fire eats up burning wood.
Islamic Give the laborer his wage before the perspiration dies.
Islamic God is gentle and loves kindness.
Islamic God is pure and loves purity and cleanliness.

59
Source “Quotations”
Islamic Every good act is an act of charity.
Islamic If you beg to increase your property, God will diminish it.
Islamic The love of the world is the root of all evil.
Islamic The most excellent Jihad is the conquest of self.
Islamic Trust in God but tie your camel.
Islamic True modesty is the source of all virtues.
Islamic Strive always to excel in virtue and truth.
Italian Appearances are deceptive.
Italian Better one true friend than a hundred relatives.
Italian Silence has never been written-down.
Italian It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf its confessor.
Italian Water can wear away stone.
Italian Where the river is deepest, it makes the least sound.

J
Source “Quotations”
Jamaican Save money and money will save you.
Jamaican The spider and the fly can’t make a bargain.
Japanese Beginning is easy; continuing is hard.
Japanese If the bird had not sung, it wouldn’t have been shot.
Japanese If you believe everything you read, better not read.
Japanese Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Japanese The reverse side also has a reverse side.
Japanese The second speaker starts the quarrel.
Japanese One kind word can warm three winter months.
Japanese Where there is no antagonist, there is no quarrel.
Japanese You can’t see the whole sky through a bamboo tube.
Jewish Do not meet troubles half-way.
Jewish Pray you’ll never have to bear all you can endure.
Jewish Half a truth is a whole lie.
Jewish When a habit begins to cost money, it becomes a hobby.

60
K
Source “Quotations”
Kashmiri One man’s beard is on fire, another man warms his hands on it.
Kashmiri Where there is sunshine, there is also a shadow.
Koran God is with those who persevere.
Koran God is with the underdog.
Korean A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out.
Korean Butterflies come to pretty flowers.
Korean Carve the peg by looking at the hole.
Korean If you kick a stone in anger, you will hurt your foot.
Korean Tap even a stone bridge before crossing it.
Korean Put off for a day, and ten days will pass.
Kurdish Don’t shoot an arrow that might come back to you.

L
Source “Quotations”
Latin A tree is recognized by its fruit.
Latin Deeds not words.
Latin Diligently but not hurriedly.
Latin Experience is the best teacher.
Latin Fears always outnumber dangers.
Latin He conquers who conquers himself.
Latin Let us be judged by our actions.
Latin Nature is the art of God.
Latin Nothing without labor.
Latin Often, there is eloquence in a silent look.
Latin Prefer honesty to advantage.
Latin The eagle does not catch flies.
Latin The heron seeks high places.
Latin Revenge is a confession of pain.
Latin To do good rather than be conspicuous.
Latin Virtue alone enables.
Latin We lose certain things when we seek uncertain ones.
Latin You will go safest in the middle.
Lebanese Lower your voice and strengthen your argument.

61
M
Source “Quotations”
Maasai One head cannot hold all wisdom.
Manx Soon ripe soon rotten.
Malaysian Don’t think there are no crocodiles just because the water is calm.
Malaysian Fish don’t get caught in deep water.
Malaysian Rocks seem to need no protection from water.
Mexican Necessity is a great teacher.
Moroccan If you are afraid of something, you give it power over you.

N
Source “Quotations”
Nepalese Vanity blossoms but bears no fruit.
Nepalese Wealth is both a friend and an enemy.
Nepalese Opportunities come but do not linger.
New Zealand The more often you ask how long it will take, the longer it will seem.
Nigerian The death that kills a man begins as an appetite.
Norwegian Bad is called good when worse happens.
Norwegian Heroism consists in holding on one minute longer.
Norwegian Luck is loaned, not owned.

O
Source “Quotations”
Ojibwa No tree has branches so foolish as to fight amongst themselves.

P
Source “Quotations”
Palestinian If you were a bird, you would be eating caterpillars.
Palestinian What is written on the forehead is always seen.
Polish There are a thousand paths to every wrong.
Polish Wherever you go, you can’t get rid of yourself.
Portuguese Do the good and care not to whom.
Portuguese Never cut what can be untied.

62
R
Source “Quotations”
Romanian What the heart thinks, the tongue speaks.
Romanian Self-praise is no recommendation.
Russian A horse may run quickly, but it cannot escape its tail.
Russian Hurry is only good for catching flies.
Russian Once a spoken word flies, you can’t catch it.
Russian Spending is quick; earning is slow.
Russian When God wanted to chastise mankind, he invented lawyers.
Russian When money speaks, the truth s silent.
Russian You can’t sew buttons on your neighbor’s mouth.
Rwandan In the court of fowls, the cockroach never wins his case.

S
Source “Quotations”
Scandinavian Weeds soon choke up an unused path.
Scottish He who would eat the fruit must climb the tree.
Scottish If you don’t see the bottom, don’t wade.
Scottish Laws catch flies but let hornets go free.
Scottish What may be done at any time may never get done.
Senegal Nobody tells all he knows.
Sicilian Only the spoon knows what is stirring the pot.
Sicilian Crooked-wood is straightened by fire.
Slovenian Man’s life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.
Slovenian Never whisper to the deaf or wink at the blind.
Slovenian Speak the truth, but leave immediately after.
Spanish Even the best writer has to erase.
Spanish He who runs with wolves learns to howl.
Spanish If you can’t bite, don’t show your teeth.
Spanish If you want respect, respect yourself.
Spanish It is better to be born a beggar than a fool.
Spanish Since we cannot get what we like, let us like what we get.
Spanish Take hold gently; let go lightly.
Spanish Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.
Spanish Where there is love there is pain.
Swedish Talk less; say more; hate less; love more.
Swedish The afternoon knows what the morning never expected.
Swedish What breaks in a moment may take years to mend.
Swedish When a blind man carries a lame man, both go forward.
Swedish Worrying often gives a small thing a big shadow.
Swiss One simple maxim is often worth two good friends.

63
T
Source “Quotations”
Tamil Kind words conquer.
Tanzanian The roaring lion kills no game.
Taoist The journey is the reward.
Thai At high tide, the fish eat on ants; at low tide, the ants eat fish.
Thai Have a teacher for a friend, and you’ll be happy in the end.
Tamil What I have learned is but a handful of earth to the earth itself.
Tibetan Words are mere bubbles of water; deeds are drops of gold.
Tunisian If someone gives you advice, it is in his own interest.
Turkish No road is long with good company.
Turkish Measure a thousand times; cut once.
Turkish Sorrow is to the soul what the worm is to wood.

V
Source “Quotations”
Vietnamese The higher a monkey climbs, the further it has to fall.
Vietnamese The human tongue is more poisonous than the sting of a bee.
Vietnamese Sun is good for cucumbers, rain for rice.

W
Source “Quotations”
Walloon A tree falls the way it leans.
Welsh Scatter with one hand; gather with the other.
Welsh Without perseverance, talent is a barren bed.

Y
Source “Quotations”
Yiddish He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.
Yiddish If God wants people to suffer, he sends them too much understanding.
Yiddish Money buys everything but good sense.
Yiddish Words should be weighed, not counted.
Yorkshire Where there’s muck there’s money.

64
Z
Source “Quotations”
Zen Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it is dark.
Zimbabwean Two experts never agree.
Zulu The houses of the loudest always leak.

Quotations and Words of Wisdom from the Past and Present

Just as there are anonymous sayings that creep into language, which have lost their
origins, there are also many quotations and translations from known-origins, from
thinkers, leaders, philosophers, scientists, and other writers, which have also been
absorbed into the western, shared-cultural heritage.

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|R|S|T|V|W|Y|Z

A
Source “Quotations”
Addison Sweet are the slumbers of a virtuous man.
Adler, A. A lie would have no sense if the truth were not felt to be dangerous.
Adler, A. It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
Adler, A. Man must be free of the tyranny of his own passions.
Aeschylus I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.
Aeschylus The wisest of the wise may err.
Aeschylus There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.
Aeschylus Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
Aesop Avoid a cure that is worse than the disease.
Aesop Beware of losing your substance by grasping at a shadow.
Aesop Do not attempt too much at once.
Aesop Familiarity breeds contempt.
Aesop If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
Aesop It is easy to be brave from a distance.
Aesop No act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted.
Aesop Outside appearance is a poor substitute for inner worth.
Aesop Passion and fire are good servants but bad masters.
Aesop Please all and you’ll soon please no one.
Aesop The gods help them that help themselves.
Aesop Slow and steady wins the race.
Aesop The smaller the mind, the greater the conceit.
Source “Quotations”
65
Aesop Vices are their own punishment.
Aesop We hang petty thieves but appoint the greatest into office.
Akhenaton To be satisfied with a little is the greatest knowledge.
Allen, Woody Eighty percent of success is just showing-up.
Aquinas, Thos. By nature, all men are equal in liberty but not in endowment.
Aquinas, Thos. I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it.
Aquinas, Thos. Most men seem to live according to sense rather than reason.
Aquinas, Thos. Temperance is simply a disposition of mind that blinds passions.
Aristophanes A man’s homeland is where he prospers.
Aristotle A friend is a second self.
Aristotle A friend is a simple soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle All men by nature desire knowledge.
Aristotle All virtue is summed-up in dealing justly.
Aristotle All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
Aristotle Evil draws men together.
Aristotle Excellence is not an act; it is a habit.
Aristotle Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.
Aristotle Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.
Aristotle If happiness is excellence, strive for the highest excellence.
Aristotle It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Aristotle The law is reason free from passion.
Aristotle The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet.
Aristotle Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the hand of time.
Aristotle We are what we repeatedly do.
Aristotle Well begun is half-done.
Armstrong, Neil I put up my thumb and shut one eye and blotted-out the earth.
Arnold, Matthew Practice what you know, and you shall attain to higher knowledge.
Arnold, Matthew Truth sits upon the lips of dying men.
Asimov, Isaac Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what is right.
Augustus, Caesar Hasten slowly.
Aurelius, Marcus Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.

B
Source “Quotations”
Bacon A prudent question is one half of the wisdom.
Bacon Discretion in speech is more than eloquent.
Bacon It is impossible to love and be wise.
Bacon Knowledge is power.
Bacon Money is a good servant but a bad master.
Bacon Virtue is like a rich stone; it is best plain set.
Baldwin, James Nothing can be changed until it is faced.
Balzac A man ought to pride himself more on his will than his talent.
Source “Quotations”
Balzac Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
66
Balzac Cruelty and fear shake hands together.
Basho Into the old stone pool, a frog jumps - plop!
Basho What stillness! The voices of the cicadas penetrate the rocks.
Beard, C. A. When it’s dark enough, you can see the stars.
Beecher, Every charitable act is a stepping-stone towards heaven.
Beecher, Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation.
Beethoven Only the pure of heart can make good soup.
Beethoven Virtue alone can make you happy, not gold.
Belloc, H. The moment a man begins to talk to his fellows, he begins to lie.
Bellow, S. The best argument is an undeniably good book.
Bergson, H. Think like a man of action; act like a man of thought.
Bible Judge not, lest ye be judged.
Bible The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
Bible The love of money is the root of all evil.
Bible The mind is willing but the flesh is weak.
Bible Pride goes before destruction.
Bible See we a man who is wise in his own conceit?
Bible Unto the pure all things are pure.
Bierce, A. Cabbage: a vegetable about as large and wise as a man’s head.
Bismark Laws are like sausages; it’s better not to see them being made.
Blake, Wm. It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend.
Borge, Victor Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.
Bradley The secret of happiness is to admire but not desire.
Bradley Those who need sympathy most often attract it the least.
Brecht Life is short and so is money.
Bronte, Charlotte Events never match expectations.
Bronte, Charlotte Life is too short to be spent on animosity.
Brown, Charlie I’ve developed a new philosophy. I only dread life one day at a time.
Browning, Robt. Less is more.
Browning, Robt. Man’s reach should exceed his grasp.
Buber, Martin Solitude is the place of purification.
Buddha A jug fills drop by drop.
Buddha All things appear and disappear because of causes and conditions.
Buddha An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast.
Buddha As sculptors carve wood, the wise shape their minds.
Buddha If a man possesses a repentant spirit, his sins will disappear.
Buddha Neither fire nor wind, nor birth or death, can erase our good deeds.
Buddha Of all of the worldly passions, lust is the most intense.
Buddha Peace comes from within; do not seek without.
Buddha Thousands of candles can be lighted by a single candle.
Buddha What we think, we become.
Bulwer-Litton Genius does what it must; talent what it can.
Bulwer-Litton Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is concentrated strength.
Source “Quotations”
Bulwer-Lytton Remorse is the echo of a lost virtue.
Burgess, A. Laugh and the world laughs with you; snore and you snore alone.

67
Burke, Edmund By gnawing through a dyke, even a rat may destroy a nation.
Burke, Edmund The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
Burns, Robbie My love is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June.
Butler, Samuel The want of money is the root of all evil.

C
Source “Quotations”
Carew, Thos. Fly betimes for only they conquer love that run-away.
Carlyle The purpose of man is action, not thought.
Carnegie, Dale Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain, and most fools do.
Carroll, Lewis Everything has got a moral, if only you can find it.
Carroll, Lewis If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.
Cather, Willa This is the joy of the rose: that it blows and goes.
Cato The best way to keep good actions in memory is to repeat them.
Cato the Elder Anger so clouds the mind that it cannot perceive truth.
Cato the Elder Even though work stops, expense continues.
Caxton, Wm. Lend your money and lose your friend.
Cervantes Everyone is as God has made him and oftentimes a great deal worse.
Cervantes Love not what you are but what you may become.
Cervantes Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.
Cervantes The devil lurks behind the cross.
Cervantes Those who play with cats must expect to be scratched.
Chaplin, Charlie In the end, everything is a gag.
Chaplin, Charlie Nothing is permanent … not even troubles.
Chaucer, Geoff. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Chekhov, Anton Man is what he believes.
Chesterfield Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.
Chesterton The chief object of education is not to learn but to unlearn.
Chuang Tzu Stay-centered by accepting whatever you are doing.
Chuang Tzu Once you have got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Churchill Dogs look up to us; cats look down on us; pigs treat us as equals.
Churchill It is good for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
Churchill Kites rise highest against the wind.
Churchill Never, never, never give-up.
Churchill Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Churchill The price of greatness is responsibility.
Churchill To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
Cicero A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.
Cicero A room without a book is like a body without a soul.
Cicero Extreme justice is extreme injustice.
Cicero Justice consists in doing no injury to men.
Source “Quotations”
Cicero Like readily consorts with like.
Cicero Life is nothing without friendship.

68
Cicero The function of wisdom is to discriminate against good and evil.
Cicero The laws put the safety of all above the safety of one.
Cicero The mind of each man is the man himself.
Cicero There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
Claudian Death is the great leveler.
Clever, Eldrige You are either part of the solution or part of the problem.
Cocteau, Jean Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
Coleridge Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.
Coleridge No one does anything from a single motive.
Coleridge Pity is best taught by fellowship in woe.
Confucius Do what is right instead of what is of advantage.
Confucius It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Confucius It is only the wisest and most foolish who cannot change.
Confucius Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.
Confucius Kindness is ever the begetter of kindness.
Confucius Man cannot be perfected without trials.
Confucius One joy dispels a hundred cares.
Confucius Only the wisest and stupidest men never change.
Confucius The common man thinks of comfort, the superior man of virtue.
Confucius The gem cannot be polished without friction.
Confucius To see the right and not do it is cowardice.
Confucius The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.
Confucius What you do not want others to do, do not do to others.
Congreve, Wm. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Conrad, Joseph Judge a man by his foes as well as his friends.
Cowper, Wm. Wisdom is so humble that it knows no more.
Cummings, e. e. The most wasted of all days is one without a laugh.
Cummings, e. e. There’s nothing as something as one.

D
Source “Quotations”
Dali Lama I believe that all suffering is caused by ignorance.
Dali Lama Our own brain, our own heart is our temple.
Dali Lama To lose your temper and never get it back would be good luck.
Dante From a little spark, a flame may burst.
Dante Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from the eternal.
DaVinci, Leo. A well-spent day brings happy sleep.
DaVinci, Leo. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
DaVinci, Leo. The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Descartes I made every mistake I could make, but I just kept pushing.
Dewey, John The self is not something ready-made.
Source “Quotations”
Dickens, Chas. Charity begins at home and justice begins next door.
Dickens, Chas. A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

69
Dickens, Chas. It is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Dickens, Chas. No one is useless in this world, who lightens the burden of another.
Dickens, Chas. Subdue your appetites, … and you’ve conquered human nature.
Dickens, Chas. Reflect upon your blessings, not upon your past misfortunes.
Dickenson, E. Power is only pain stranded through discipline.
Diogenes Blushing is the color of virtue.
Diogenes The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.
Disraeli Justice is truth in action.
Disraeli Nurture your mind with great thoughts.
Disraeli The secret of success is constancy of purpose.
Disraeli There is no happiness without action.
Donne, John Go catch a falling star and put it in your pocket.
Donne, John No man is an island, entire of itself.
Donne, John Virtuous men pass mildly away and whisper to their souls to go.
Dunbar, Paul L. A single day can make us larger or smaller.
Dylan, Bob I accept chaos. I am not sure he accepts me.
Dylan, Bob He not busy being born is busy dying.

E
Source “Quotations”
Einstein Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Einstein In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.
Einstein It’s strange to be known universally and yet be so lonely.
Einstein The monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Eliot, Geo. It’s never too late to be what you might have been.
Eliot, Geo. Nothing is as good as it seems beforehand.
Eliot, T. S. There will be time for a hundred indecisions and revisions.
Eliot, T. S. April is the cruelest month.
Eliot, T.S. How should I begin to spit out the butt ends of my days?
Eliot, T. S. In the room, the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo.
Eliot, T. S. I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Eliot, T. S. There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.
Eliot, T. S. The world will end not with a bang but with a whimper.
Eliot, T. S. We are in rat’s alley where the dead men lost their bones.
Emerson A man is what he thinks about all day long.
Emerson A petty consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Emerson Go where there is no path and leave a trail.
Emerson Life is too short to waste.
Emerson Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Emerson Skepticism is slow suicide.
Emerson The ancestor of every thought is an action.
Source “Quotations”
Emerson The education of the will is the object of our existence.
Emerson Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

70
Epictetus He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things he has not.
Epictetus It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
Epictetus Men are not disturbed by things but the view they take of things.
Epictetus Only the educated are free.
Epictetus Only the just man enjoys peace of mind.
Epicurus He who is calm disturbs neither himself nor others.
Erasmus Eagles don’t catch flies.
Erasmus In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
Euripides Account no man happy until he dies.
Euripides Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.
Euripides Do not consider painful what is good for you.
Euripides Leave no stone unturned.
Euripides Silence is true wisdom’s true reply.
Euripides Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings.
Euripides Those whom god wants to destroy, he first makes angry.

F
Source “Quotations”
Faulkner, Wm. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.
Fitzgerald, Scott Either you think or others have to think for you.
Fitzgerald, Zelda I want to love first and live incidentally.
Flaubert, G. Art is nothing without form.
Ford, Henry You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.
Franklin A fool and his money are soon parted.
Franklin A man in passion rides a wild horse.
Franklin A lie stands on one leg rather than two.
Franklin A full belly makes a dull brain.
Franklin An ounce of effort prevents a pound of pain.
Franklin Deny self for self’s sake.
Franklin Early to bed, early to rise, make a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Franklin He that lives in hope will die fasting.
Franklin He that can have patience can have what he will.
Franklin He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
Franklin He who rises late must run all day.
Franklin He who waits for another misses the main chance.
Franklin If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.
Franklin Industry, perseverance and frugality make fortune yield.
Franklin Leave unsaid the wrong thing at the wrong moment.
Franklin Little strokes fell great oaks.
Franklin Lost time is never found again.
Franklin Presumption first blinds a man, then, it sets him running.
Source “Quotations”
Franklin Speak little; do much.
Franklin The discontented man finds no easy chair.

71
Franklin The doorstep of wisdom is knowledge of our own ignorance.
Franklin Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
Franklin We get old too soon and wise too late.
Franklin Well-done is better than well-said.
Franklin Whatever begins in anger ends in shame.
Freud, S When inspiration does not come, I go half way to meet it.
Freud, S. How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved.
Freud, S. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips.
Freud, S. One is crazy when in love.
Frost, Robt. Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length.
Frost, Robt. Home is the place where they have to take you in.
Frost, Robt. The best way out is always through.
Frost, Robt. There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared-people.
Fuller, Margaret If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.
Fuller, Thos. A wise man will make the tools with what comes to hand.
Fuller, Thos. It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

G
Source “Quotations”
Galileo All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered.
Galileo Doubt is the father of invention.
Gandhi Cowards can never be moral.
Gandhi Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.
Gandhi Hate sin and love the sinner.
Gandhi Indolence is a delightful but distressing state.
Gandhi It is unwise to be too sure of your own wisdom.
Gandhi Non-violence is the weapon of the strong.
Gandhi Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible.
Gandhi Remove the blemishes of others without thinking evil of them.
Gandhi The weak can never forgive.
Gandhi Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Gandhi Where there is love, there is life.
Gasset. Ortega y Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values.
Gide, Andre Everything has been said before but nobody listens.
Goethe Difficulties increase the nearer we approach the goal.
Goethe I call architecture frozen music.
Goethe Knowing is not enough; willing is not enough; we must do.
Goethe There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action.
Goethe With the mountain in view, we love to walk the plains.
Greely, Horace Riches take wing and only character endures.
Green, Robt. Hasty climbers have sudden falls.
Source “Quotations”
Gurdjieff Patience is the mother of will.

72
H
Source “Quotations”
Hannibal Find a way or make one.
Hawking, S. It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.
Hazlitt, Wm. Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
Hazlitt, Wm. Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
Heine, Heinrich Wherever they burn books, … they also burn people.
Hemingway, E. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Hemingway, E. You lose it if you talk about it.
Hemingway, E. Worry never fixes anything.
Heraclites All is flux. Nothing stands still.
Heraclites Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes harmony.
Heraclites The eyes are more accurate witnesses than the ears.
Heraclites The way up and the way down are one and the same.
Heraclites We circle in the night and are devoured by fire.
Heraclites You can never step into the same river twice.
Herbert, Geo. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.
Herodotus Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
Herodotus Men trust their ears more than their eyes.
Herrick, Robt. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
Herrick, Robt. This same flower that smiles today tomorrow may be dying.
Hesse, Hermann Solitude is independence.
Heywood, John Cut your coat according to your cloth.
Heywood, John It’s no use closing the barn door once the horse is gone.
Hippocrates Life is short; art long.
Hobbes, Thos. Leisure is the mother of philosophy.
Hobbes, Thos. Life is harsh, brutal and short.
Homer In youth and beauty, wisdom is but rare.
Hoover, Herbert Every dictator has climbed to power on the platform of free speech.
Hopper, Dennis Every addiction is a drag.
Horace It is not permissible to know everything.
Horace Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone.
Horace Patience makes lighter what sorrow may not heal.
Horace Subdue your passion, or it will subdue you.
Horace Though justice moves slowly, it seldom fails to overtake the wicked.
Horace When life’s path is steep, keep an even mind.
Horace Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived only from books.
Horace Whatever advice you give be brief.
Houseman, A.E. I’d do it as a wise man would and train for ill and not for good.
Houseman, A.E. Thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
Hugo, Victor Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the face.
Source “Quotations”
Hugo, Victor Obscure heroes are sometimes greater than illustrious ones.
Huxley, Aldous You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad!
Huxley, T. H. The rung of the ladder was never meant to rest upon.

73
Huxley, T. H. Zeal without knowledge is like fire without light.

J
Source “Quotations”
James, Wm. The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
James, Wm. The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
Jefferson Never use two words to say something when one will do.
Jefferson The harder I work the more luck I seem to have.
Jefferson Tranquility is the old man’s milk.
Jesus Christ Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing.
John Paul II The worst prison is a closed-heart.
Johnson Samuel What is easy is seldom excellent.
Johnson, Samuel Great works are performed not by strength but perseverance.
Johnson, Samuel Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
Johnson, Samuel Knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Johnson, Samuel There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.
Johnson, Samuel To learn to speak the truth, it is necessary to learn to hear it.
Joyce. James Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
Julius Caesar Men willingly believe what they wish.
Julius Caesar Men worry about what they can see, not what they cannot.
Jung, Carl The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense.
Jung, Carl The shoe that fits one person pinches another.
Jung, Carl What irritates us about others can help us understand ourselves.
Jung, Carl Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakens.

K
Source “Quotations”
Kafka, Franz In the fight between the world and you, back the world.
Kant, I. It is precisely in knowing its limits that philosophy consists.
Kant, I. Perform every action such that it ought to become a universal law.
Katerina II Praise loudly; blame softly.
Keats, John Bright star would I were steadfast as thou art.
Keats, John There is a budding morrow in midnight.
Keller, Helen The world is full of suffering; it is also full of overcoming.
Kennedy, J.F. Forgive your enemies but never forget their names.
Kennedy, Robert Justice delayed is democracy denied.
Kierkegaard Don’t forget to love yourself.
Source “Quotations”
Kierkegaard Take away paradox from a thinker, and you have a professor.
King, Martin L. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Kipling, Rudyard Words … are the most powerful drug used by mankind.
Koran God is with those who persevere.
74
L
Source “Quotations”
La Fontaine Death never takes a wise man by surprise. He is always ready to go.
La Fontaine Even a prudent enemy is better than a friend without discretion.
La Fontaine We easily believe what we fear and desire.
Lao Tzu Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao Tzu Manifest plainness. Embrace simplicity. Have few desires.
Lao Tzu Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished.
Lao Tzu Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.
Lao Tzu Seek not happiness too greedily.
LaRochefoucaud We do not always love those whom we admire.
LaRochefoucaud Wisdom is to the mind what health is to the body.
LaRochfoucauld There is no disguise that can hide love for long.
Lessing Nothing under the sun is accidental.
Lewis, C. S. We love to know that we are not alone.
Lincoln Better to remain silent than to speak and be thought a fool.
Lincoln To sin by silence makes cowards of men.
Lincoln When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad.
Lippman, Walter Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
Locke, John The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.
Locke, John The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
Locke, John Where-ever law ends tyranny begins.
Longfellow Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of finishing.
Longfellow The lowest ebb is the turning of the tide.
Longfellow The morning pouring everywhere is golden glory.
Lowell, Amy The misfortunes hardest to bear are those that never come.
Luther, Martin Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Luther, Martin There can be no deep disappointment where there is no deep love.
Lynn, Loretta I may be ignorant, but I am not stupid.

M
Source “Quotations”
Machiavelli It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.
Madame de Stael In meditation, the source of strength is in oneself.
Madame de Stael Politeness is the art of choosing between your thoughts.
Mailer, Norman The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.
Source “Quotations”
Mandela, Nelson Time is always ripe to do it right.
Mao-Tse Tung Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Marcus Aurelius Do every act of your life as though it were your last.
Marcus Aurelius Our life is what our thoughts make it to be.
Marcus Aurelius Stress is not caused by the thing itself but your estimate of it.
75
Marcus Aurelius The consequences of anger are more-grievous than the causes of it.
Maugham, S The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Maugham, S. If you refuse to accept nothing but the best, you’ll probably get it.
Maugham, S. We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
Maupassant A lawful kiss is never as sweet as a stolen one.
Melville, H. It is better to fail in originality than to succeed by imitation.
Menken, H. L. Love is like war; easy to begin, hard to stop.
Menken, H. L. Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Menken, H. L. Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
Menken, H. L. Every man is his own hell.
Menken, H. L. Life is a dead-end street.
Merlin When you’re sad, learn something.
Mill, John Stuart I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires.
Milton Calm of mind, all passion spent.
Milton The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day.
Moliere A wise man is superior to any insults that may be put upon him.
Moliere Most men die of their medicines, not from their diseases.
Moliere The best reply to insult is patience and moderation.
Moliere The greater the obstacle the more glory in overcoming it.
Moliere Things only have the value that we give them.
Montaigne Ignorance is the mother of all evils.
Montaigne Nothing is more subject to change than the law.
Montaigne One may be humble out of pride.
Montessori Discipline must come through liberty.
More, Thos. A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
Mother Theresa Do not wait for leaders, do it alone.
Mother Theresa If you can’t feed one hundred people, feed just one.
Mother Theresa If you judge people. You have no time to love them.
Mother Theresa Intense love does not measure; it just gives.
Mother Theresa Kind words are short, but their echo is long.
Mother Theresa Spread love everywhere you go; … first of all in your own house.

N
Source “Quotations”
Napoleon A man worthy of the name hates no one.
Napoleon Friendship is but a name.
Napoleon It is easier to recruit men than retrieve honor.
Napoleon Love does more harm than good.
Source “Quotations”
Napoleon Men are led by trifles.
Napoleon Never stop an enemy when he is making a mistake.
Napoleon A prince should weigh himself on his throne.
Newman, J.H. The world is content with setting right the surface of things.
Newton, Isaac No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

76
Niebuhr, R. Man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Nietzsche I distrust all systematizers, and I avoid them.
Nietzsche If you gaze for long enough into, the abyss, it also gazes into you.
Nietzsche The ascetic makes a necessity of virtue.
Nietzsche There are no facts, only interpretations.
Nietzsche They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue.
Nietzsche Whatever does not destroy me makes me stronger.
Nietzsche Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
Nin, Anais People living deeply have no fear of death.
Nin, Anais The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.
Nin, Anais We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.
North, Chris. Laws were made to be broken.

O
Source “Quotations”
Olivier, L. Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism.
Onassis, A. I have everything I need but nothing I want.
Orwell, George The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
Ovid A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
Ovid Endure and persist; this pain will turn good by and by.
Ovid It’s useful that there should be gods, so let’s believe in them.
Ovid Love is a kind of warfare.
Ovid Soft water hollows out hard rock.

P
Source “Quotations”
Paine, Thos. Character is much easier kept than recovered.
Paine, Thos. Government is a necessary evil.
Paine, Thos. Moderation in principle is always a vice.
Pascal, B. Eloquence is the painting of thoughts.
Pascal, B. The heart has its reasons which the heart knows not of.
Pasteur, L. In the fields of observation, chance favors only the prepared-mind.
Patton, Gen. Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.
Peale, N. V. It is always too early to quit.
Petronius Moderation in all things, including moderation.
Picasso I am always doing things I can’t do. That’s how I get to do them.
Source “Quotations”
Pike, Albert What we have done for others and the world remains immortal.
Plato Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
Plato Ignorance is the root and stem of all evil.
Plato Pleasure is the bait of sin.
Plato Thinking: the talking of the soul to itself.
Plato To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.
77
Plutarch Dead men don’t bite.
Plutarch The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch The man who is completely wise and virtuous needs no glory.
Poe, E. A. You are not wrong who deem my days have been as but a dream.
Pound, Roscoe Law must be stable yet it must not stand still.
Proust Happiness is the absence of fever.
Proust Things don’t change … our wishes change.
Proust To look down on the snobbish is snobbish.
Pubillus Syrus Practice is the best of all instructors.
Pythagoras A thought is an idea in transit.
Pythagoras No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself.
Pythagoras Silence is better than meaningless words.

R
Source “Quotations”
Raleigh, Walter True love is a durable fire in the mind ever burning.
Ransom, J. C. Your ears are soft and small and listen to an old man not at all.
Roosevelt, E. Anger is one letter short of danger.
Roosevelt, F. D. Do what you can with what you have where you are.
Roosevelt, F. D. When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Roosevelt, F. D. Be sincere; be brief; be seated.
Roosevelt, T. Walk tall and carry a big stick.
Rossetti, C. All winds go sighing for sweet things dying.
Rousseau, J. J. It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks of earning money.
Rousseau, J. J. Temperance prevents overindulging to excess.
Ruskin, John I believe the first test of a great man is his humility.
Russell, Bertrand I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Russell, Bertrand If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
Russell, Bertrand People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
Russell, Bertrand The stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full-of-doubt.
Russell, Bertrand War does not determine who is right but who is left.

78
S
Source “Quotations”
Saint Augustine A habit if not resisted soon becomes a necessity.
Saint Augustine Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Saint Augustine Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.
Saint Augustine Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Basil A tree is known by its fruits, a man by his deeds.
Saint Catherine Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.
Saint Francis You need fear no enemy except yourselves.
Saint Jerome The devil finds work for idle hands.
Santayana Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
Santayana Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it’s a predicament.
Santayana Those who do not remember the past are bound to repeat it.
Santayana We often redouble our effort when we have forgotten our aim.
Sartre, Jean Paul Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.
Sartre, Jean Paul Like all dreamers, I confuse disenchantment with the truth.
Schopenhauer Absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world.
Schopenhauer Compassion is the basis for morality.
Schopenhauer Whatever the heart resists, the head does not let in.
Schweitzer As the sun melts ice, kindness evaporates mistrust and hostility.
Schweitzer The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.
Scott, Walter Look back and smile on perils past.
Seneca A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts long.
Seneca All things are cause for either laughing or weeping.
Seneca As was his language, so was his life.
Seneca Human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh.
Seneca It is the superfluous things for which we sweat.
Seneca It takes two to make a quarrel.
Seneca The most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
Seneca What you have not matters much more than what you have.
Seneca No man ever became wise by chance.
Seneca Shame may restrain what the law does not prohibit.
Seneca The hour that gives us life begins to take it away.
Sexton, Anne The joy that isn’t shared dies young.
Shakespeare Be great in act as you are in thought.
Shakespeare Conscience makes cowards of us all.
Shakespeare Cowards die a thousand times before their deaths.
Shakespeare Dreams are but thoughts until their efforts be tried.
Shakespeare He that is proud eats himself up.
Shakespeare Love all, trust few, do wrong to no one.
Shakespeare Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.
Shakespeare Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Shakespeare To be wise and love exceeds man’s might.
Source “Quotations”

79
Shakespeare To thine own self be true, and thou cans’t not be false to any man.
Shakespeare The course of true love never did run smooth.
Shakespeare The wise man knows him self to be a fool.
Shakespeare There’s not one wise man in twenty who will praise himself.
Shakespeare There’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Shakespeare Unseasonable kindness gets no thanks.
Shakespeare Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility.
Shaw, Geo. B Liberty means responsibility; that is why most men dread it.
Shaw, Geo. B. A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.
Shaw, Geo. B. A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.
Shaw, Geo. B. All great truths begin as blasphemies.
Shelly Fear not for the future; weep not for the past.
Sinclair, Upton Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
Socrates Do not do unto others what angers you if done to you by others.
Socrates Don’t live to eat; eat to live.
Socrates Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
Socrates It is not living that is important but living rightly.
Socrates May the outward and the inward man be as one.
Socrates People learn more on their own than from being force-fed.
Socrates The greatest way to live in honor is to be what you pretend to be.
Socrates The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates What is unbecoming to do is unbecoming to speak of.
Sophocles A short saying often contains much wisdom.
Sophocles Once you are out of danger, watch for trouble.
Sophocles Rather fail with honor than by fraud.
Sophocles Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.
Spencer, E. What cannot be cured must be endured.
Spinoza Peace is not an absence of war; it is a state of mind.
Stalin, Joseph One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.
Stein, Gertrude When the flowers of friendship faded, friendship faded.
Steinbeck, John No one wants advice, just corroboration.
Stendhal One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
Stevens, Wallace Evenings in their green going, a wave interminably flowing.
Stone, Irving Clutter and dirt. That’s the external world. I don’t see it.
Stone, Irving Did any man reveal what he truly was?
Stone, Irving Look at the mask I present to the world! Watch me simper and pose.
Stone, Irving Yesterday’s fact becomes tomorrow’s falsehood.
Stoppard, Tom Every exit is an entry somewhere.
Stoppard, Tom It is better to be quotable than honest.
Stoppard, Tom Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.
Strand, Mark Our need for certainty is proportionate to our sense of doubt.
Stravinsky Money may kindle but cannot burn very long on its own.
Swift, J. Argumentation is the worst sort of conversation.

T
80
Source “Quotations”
Tactitus Mental and morel excellence require peace and quietness.
Tennyson I am a part of all that I have met.
Tennyson Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do or die.
Tennyson The shell must break before the bird can fly.
Terrence Of my friends, I am the only one I have left.
Terrence Too much liberty corrupts all.
Thoreau A man who has something to do doesn’t need a new suit to do it in.
Thoreau The woods would be very silent if only the best birds sang.
Thoreau Simplify your life, and the laws of the universe will seem simpler.
Thoreau It takes two to speak the truth, one to speak and one to listen.
Thoreau You cannot kill time without damaging eternity.
Thoreau Water is the only drink of a wise man.
Thucydides Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.
Thurber, James It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
Thurber, James Learn before you die what you are running from.
Toynbee The highest genius blurs the line between work and play.
Twain, Mark Accident is the greatest of all inventors.
Twain, Mark I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Twain, Mark It seems such a pity that Noah did not miss the boat.
Twain, Mark The best impromptu speeches are written in advance.
Twain, Mark The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Twain, Mark News of my recent death is highly exaggerated.
Twain , Mark Practice without performance is time spent alone.
Twain, Mark The defect of revenge is that it is all in the anticipation.
Twain, Mark The world owes you nothing; it was here first.

V
Source “Quotations”
Valery, Paul The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
Valery, Paul Two dangers constantly threaten the world, order and disorder.
Van Dyke Time is too slow for those who wait.
Virgil As the twig is bent, so the twig inclines.
Virgil Tyrant love to what do you not drive men to do?
Voltaire A witty saying proves nothing.
Voltaire Better is the enemy of good.
Voltaire Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.
Voltaire God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Voltaire If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Voltaire It requires ages to destroy a popular opinion.
Voltaire History is fables agreed upon.
Voltaire Love truth but pardon error.
Source “Quotations”
Voltaire No snowflake in an avalanche feels responsible.

81
Voltaire One great use of words is to hide our own thoughts.
Voltaire Prejudice is an opinion without judgment.
Voltaire We are rarely proud when we are alone.

W
Source “Quotations”
Walker, Alice No person is your friend who demands your silence.
Ward, Wm. A. A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.
Warhol, Andy Everyone has his fifteen minutes of fame.
Washington, G. Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
Watts, Alan Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
Watts, J. C. Character is trying to do the right thing when no one is looking.
Weil, Simone Difficult to listen to someone in affliction.
Wells, H.G. Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
Wesley, John Do all the good you can in all the ways you can.
Whitehead, A. N. A clash of doctrines is not a disaster, it is an opportunity.
Whitehead, A. N. Seek simplicity and distrust it.
Whitman, Walt Justice is always in jeopardy.
Wilde, Oscar A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Wilde, Oscar Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Wilde, Oscar I can resist anything except temptation.
Wilde, Oscar Most people are other people.
Wilde, Oscar Nothing worth knowing can be taught.
Wilde, Oscar The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
Wilde, Oscar The heart is made to be broken.
Winchell, Walter A pessimist is someone who builds dungeons in the air.
Winchell, Walter Nothing recedes like success.
Wolf, Virginia Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.
Wordsworth Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.
Wordsworth Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark.
Wordsworth The child is father of the man.
Wordsworth Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.
Wright, Frank L. Reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms.

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X
Source “Quotations”
Xenophon The sweetest sound of all is praise.

Y
Source “Quotations”
Yeats, W. B. An intellectual hatred is the worst.
Yeats, W. B. In the ever-widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Z
Source “Quotations”
Zapata It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

Some Longer Quotations

Obviously, not all good quotations will be limited to short, one-liners, so we have added
some longer ones, just for good measure.

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|R|S|T|V|W|Y

A
Source “Quotation”
Adams, J. Q. If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind, whom
should we serve?
Aeschylus There is no pain as great as the memory of present joy in present
grief.
Aesop The little reed, bending in the wind, soon stood upright when the
storm had passed.
Ali, Muhammad The man who sees the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty
has lost thirty years of his life.
Andrews, Julie Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me it’s a kind of
order that sets me free to fly.
Aristotle Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to
remain unadulterated.
Aristotle He is greater who can overcome his desires than he who can
overcome his enemies.
Aristotle Whereas the law is passionless, passion must never sway the heart
of man.
83
Source “Quotation”
Arnold, Matthew This world which stands before us like a land of dreams … hath
really neither joy nor love, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help from
pain.
Arnold, Matthew We are here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of
struggle and flight where ignorant armies clash by night.
Auden, W.H. We’re put on earth to do good to others. What the others are here
for, I don’t know.

Source “Quotation”
Bacon I do not believe that any man fears to be dead but only the stroke of
death.
Bacon In taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing
over it he is superior.
Bacon It is as natural to die as to be born; and, to a little infant, perhaps the
one is as painful as the other.
Bacon They are ill-discoverers that think there is no land when they see
nothing but sea.
Bacon Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed; and, some few
to be chewed and digested.
Bacon Where a man’s intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all
that are against him.
Balzac The heart of a mother is as deep as an abyss at the bottom of which
you will always find forgiveness.
Blake, Wm. As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the
contemptible.
Bradley, F.H. True penitence condemns to silence. What a man is ready to recall,
he would be willing to repeat.
Bradley, F.H. Our experiences, fixed into aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams.
Our heart’s blood when we write it turns to mere dull ink.
Bruno The beginning, middle and end of the birth, growth and perfection
of whatever we behold is from contraries, and to contraries, and
whatever contrariety is, there is action and reaction, diversity,
multitude and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.
Buddha Holding onto anger is akin to grasping hot coal with the intention of
throwing it at someone else.
Buddha If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life
would change.
Buddha Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance.
Know well the path that leads you forward and what will hold you
back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.
Buddha There is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life

84
 and death.
Source “Quotation”
Buddha Wise men try to express their appreciation and gratitude by some
return of kindness.
Burke, Edmund The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing.

C
Source “Quotation”
Calvin, John I consider looseness with words no less a defect than looseness of
the bowels.
Castaneda, C. We either make ourselves happy or sad; the amount of work is the
same.
Capote, Truman Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men
are fools.
Carroll, Lewis Sometimes, I’ve believed at least six impossible things before
breakfast.
Churchill It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you
can see.
Chuang Tzu I did not know whether I was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or
a butterfly dreaming he was a man.
Chuang Tzu The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It
regrets nothing. It receives but it does not keep.
Clarke, Arthur C. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond
them into the impossible.
Cocks, Barnett A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then
strangled.
Coleridge Wisdom and understanding can only be reached by traveling the old
road of observation, attention, perseverance and industry.
Confucius A man should practice what he preaches, but he should also preach
what he practices.
Confucius By three methods may we learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which
is the noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and, third,
by experience which is the most bitter.
Congreve, Wm. Defer not to tomorrow to be wise for tomorrow’s sun may never
rise.
Conrad, Joseph The mind of a man is capable of anything, because everything is in
it, all the past as well as the future.
Cosby, Bill I don’t know the key to success, but the failure is to try to please
everybody.
Cummings, e. e. All by all and deep by deep and more and more they dream their
sleep.
Cummings, e. e. The stupidest person will almost guess it’s an up and down and
around we go yes.

85
D
Source “Quotation”
Dante Avarice, envy, pride, three fatal sparks have set the hearts of all on
fire.
De Beauvior, S. The curse that lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals
are joined in their weaknesses rather than in their strengths.
Democritus Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures become
the greatest pains.
Demosthenes Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that is
what he believes to be true.
Descartes I find not a single property which separates the waking state from a
dream.
Descartes The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as the
greatest virtues.
Diderot Pithy sentences are like sharp nails which force the truth upon our
memories.
Diderot There is no moral precept that does not have something
inconvenient about it.
Dostoyevsky Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately in love with
suffering.
Dostoyevsky Man is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his
logic.

E
Source “Quotation”
Einstein Common sense is the collection of perceptions gathered by the age
of eighteen.
Einstein Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak
minds.
Einstein I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in
years of maturity.
Einstein The world is a dangerous place because of those who look on and
do nothing.
Eliot, T. S. I grow old. I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers
rolled.
Eliot, T. S. I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the
eternal footman snicker.
Eliot, T. S. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the silent
seas.
Eliot, T. S. The highest form of treason: to do the right thing for the wrong
reason.
Emerson Don’t go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no
path.
Epictetus We have two ears and two eyes so we can listen twice as much as

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 we talk.

F
Source “Quotation”
Faulkner, Wm. Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others
have let go.
Fitzgerald, Scott In the dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the
morning.
Franklin Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; laws too severe are seldom
obeyed.
Freud, Anna Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad
training.
Frost, Robt. Some say the world will end in fire, some say ice. From what I’ve
tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire.
Frost, Robt. The hillside on the day the sun lets go ten million silver lizards in
the snow …
Frost, Robt. There would be more than ocean water broken before God’s last put
out the lights was spoken.
Frost, Robt. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I, I took the one less-
traveled by.
Fry, Christopher In tragedy, every moment is eternity; in comedy eternity is a
moment.

G
Source “Quotation”
Galileo You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it
within himself.
Gandhi Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do
are in harmony.
Gandhi Tolerance implies a gratuitous assumption of the inferiority of other
men’s faiths.
Gardener, J.W. All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the
species.
Goethe Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep
your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
Goethe Not doing the things we like but liking the things we do teaches us
life’s blessings.
Goethe One never goes as far as when one doesn’t know where one is
going.
Goethe The hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your
thinking.
Goethe Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he
possesses one.

87
H
Source “Quotation”
Hawthorne, N. Happiness is as a butterfly which when pursued is just out of grasp
… but if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Hawking, S. God not only plays dice; he throws them in the corner where you
can’t see them.
Hawthorne, N. A grave wherever found, preaches a short and pithy sermon to the
soul.
Hawthorne, N. No man, for any considerable time, can show one face to himself
and another to the multitude without finally becoming bewildered
as to which may be the true.
Hemingway, E. Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you
to keep your mouth shut.
Hemingway, E. The world breaks everyone, and afterwards they are stronger in the
broken places.
Hobbes, Thos. Such truth as opposes no man’s profit or pleasure is to all men
welcome.
Hobbes, Thos. The secret thoughts of a man run all over things, holy, profane and
clean, grave and light, without shame or blame.
Horace You can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but she keeps coming
back.
Hughes, L. Hang fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird
that cannot fly.
Huxley, Aldous There is only one corner of the universe you can improve and that is
yourself.

J
Source “Quotation”
James, Wm. Many people think they are thinking when they are just rearranging
their prejudices.
Jefferson Those who would trade their liberty for security don’t deserve
either.
Jung, Carl Nobody, as long as he moves about among the currents of life is
without trouble.
Jung, Carl Great talents hang upon the most slender of twigs and are easily
snapped-off.
Jung, Carl There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the
other.

88
K
Source “Quotation”
Kierkegaard People demand freedom of speech rather than freedom of thought,
which they seldom utilize.
Kierkegaard The supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover
something that thought cannot think.

L
Source “Quotation”
Laing, R. D. There is a great deal of pain in life. The only pain that can be
avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.
Lao Tzu A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be called a
scholar.
Lao Tzu The universe, like a giant bellows, is always emptying, always full;
the more it yields the more it holds.
LaRochefoucaud Lovers are never tired of each other, though they always speak of
themselves.
LaRochefoucaud Few people are wise enough to prefer useful criticism over
treacherous flattery.
Lewis, C. S. People say different things: so do our instincts. Our instincts are at
war.
Lincoln I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was
yesterday.
Lincoln The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a
time.
Lippman, Water It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; music is nothing if the
audience id deaf.
Lincoln You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it
today.
Longfellow It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it
wrong.
Luther, Martin Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a
friend.

M
Source “Quotation”
Machiavelli Abstain from any expression of contempt which will result in
revenge.
Marcus Aurelius Dig within. Within is the well-spring of good, and it is always ready
to bubble up if you dig.
Marcus Aurelius Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you
have already.

89
Menken, H. L. For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat
and wrong.
Menken, H. L. It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth, if you know that
you would lie if you were in his place.
Miller, Henry I have no money, no resources and no hopes. I am the happiest man
alive.
Moliere We spend all our time looking for security; then we hate it when we
get it.
Montaigne He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows his
reason is weak.
Monroe, Marilyn The scary ting about being watched all the time it that you end up
watching yourself.
Mother Theresa The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than hunger
for bread.
Muhammad O God, don’t allow a sinner to be good to me, as my mind may
wish to love him.
Mumford, Lewis Getting spiritual nourishment from this chaos of events, sensations
and devious interpretations is the equivalent of trying to pick
through a garbage bag for food.
Mumford, Lewis Unable to create a meaningful life for itself, the personality takes its
own revenge.

N
Source “Quotation”
Nietzsche Art makes the sight of life bearable by laying over it the veil of
unclear thinking.
Nietzsche One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really
the tone in which it was conveyed.

O
Source “Quotation”
O’Conner, F. You’d have been a good woman, if there had been someone there to
shoot you every moment of your life.
Ovid Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it,
will be fish.

90
P
Source “Quotation”
Picasso Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once
you grow up.
Plato He who is of a calm, happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of
age, but, to him who is of an opposite disposition; youth and age
are equally a burden.
Pound, Ezra There is no reason why the same man should like the same book at
eighteen as at forty-eight.

R
Source “Quotation”
Raleigh, Walter All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when the
occasion is offered.
Rilke, R. M. For those who really love, the more they give, the more they
possess.
Roosevelt, E. A woman is like a teabag; you never know how strong it is until it
is in hot water.
Ruskin, John Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent
effort.
Russell, Bertrand Men are born ignorant not stupid. They are made-stupid by
education.
Russell, Bertrand To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of
civilization.

S
Source “Quotation”
Santayana Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to
balance it.
Schopenhauer Every day is a little life; every waking and rising, a little birth;
every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a
little death.
Seneca For a man who knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the
right wind.
Seneca The final hour when we cease to exist does not itself bring death; it
merely of itself completes the death process. We reach death at that
moment, but we have been a long time on the way.
Seneca We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth
even to the gods.
Shaw, G. B. There is only one religion although there are hundreds of versions
of it.
Socrates A system of morality which is based upon relative emotional values

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 is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has
nothing but sound in it and nothing true.
Socrates Every pleasure or pain has a sort of rivet which fastens the soul to
the body and pins it down, and makes it corporeal, accepting as true
whatever the body certifies.
Sophocles Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those
who have made it.
Spinoza He who would distinguish true from false must have an adequate
idea of what is true and false.
Steinbeck, John When people are engaged in something they are not proud of, they
do not welcome witnesses.
Stevens, Wallace Beauty is momentary in the mind, the fitful tracing of a portal, but
in the flesh, it is immortal.
Stevens, Wallace In the cool of spent emotions, she felt among the leaves the dew of
old devotions.
Stevens, Wallace Just as my fingers on these keys make music, so the self same
sounds on my spirit makes a music too.
Stevenson Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you
plant.
Stone, Irving If only the moment a man was born, he could for a moment die,
then, the rest of his life would be bearable.
Stone, Irving There is no self. The beautiful box so colorfully wrapped contains
no gift.
Sun Tzu Appear weak when you are strong. Appear strong when you are
weak.

T
Source “Quotation”
Thomas, Dylan The force that through the green fuse drives the flower … and
blasts the roots of trees is my destroyer.
Thoreau In my house, I had three chairs: one for solitude, two for friendship
and three for society.
Thoreau So love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of
simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.
Truman, Harry Unless you’ve all the facts, you can’t make proper judgments about
what’s going on.
Twain, Mark Age is an issue of mind over matter; as long as you don’t mind, it
doesn’t matter.
Twain, Mark Always do the right thing. This will gratify some people and
astonish the rest.
Twain, Mark You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of
focus.

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V
Source “Quotation”
Vidal, Gore The more money an American accumulates the less-interesting he
becomes.
Voltaire The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power
to harm us.
Voltaire The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it up or flee
from it.

W
Source “Quotation”
Wang Chih-huan Mountains cover the sun, and oceans drain the golden rivers, but
you can widen your view 300 miles by going up one flight of stairs.
Warhol, Andy The most exiting attractions are between two opposites that never
met.
Washington, G. Laws made by common consent must not be trampled upon by
individuals.
Wilde, Oscar America went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in-
between.
Wilde, Oscar A cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of
nothing.
Wilde, Oscar A life without love is like a sunless garden when the flowers are
dead.
Wilde, Oscar The two tragedies of life are not getting what one wants and getting
it.
Wolf, Virginia The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of
anguish, cutting the heart asunder.
Wordsworth Getting and spending we lay waste our powers; little do we see in
nature that is ours.
Wordsworth The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless,
unremembered acts of kindness.
Wordsworth In sinking down in its tranquility, the gentleness of heaven broods
o’er the sea.
Wright, F. L. Youth is a circumstance you can’t do anything about. The trick is to
grow up without getting old.

Y
Source “Quotation”
Yeats, W. B. Hands do what you’re bid: bring the balloon of the mind that bellies
and drags in the wind into its narrow shed.
Yeats, W. B. I have heard the old men saying everything alters and one by one
we fall away.

93
 East Meets West

In the present section, in apposition to the approach we traditionally associate with

achieving success and happiness in the western world, we encounter a selection of
thoughts directed more towards an ascetic, eastern method of moral practice focused
upon the cause of suffering and the eradication thereof, through adherence to and
perseverance upon, path to wisdom. Practitioners accustomed to the sequential approach
of Buddhist practice may find the alphabetically-ordered sequence of ideas listed below
somewhat scattered, but the pieces of the puzzle come together into a more coherent and
unified whole in the final section of the book in the section on Theravada Buddhism.

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|R|S|T|V|W|Y

A
“Quotations”
• A burning forest cannot be influenced; it just rages on.

• A little more than a lot is usually not enough.

• A little too much is more than just enough.

• A man alone will lose his way, but a man on the path of the Dharma will not go
astray.

• A man is a bag of being, that thinks it knows what it is, when it is not what it
thinks it is.

• A man is just a bundle of nerves and emotions, in a big sack, on a skeletal

framework.

• A man’s potential is quintessential.

• A maple leaf, twirling, twirling, twirling, falling to the ground.

• A mind suspended in a void can not get annoyed.

• A piece of wood, bobbity, bobbity, bobboty, floats down the spring river.

• A pork butcher, who had lived from killing pigs, before his death rolled on the
floor and squealed like a pig; after his death, he was reborn as a pig.

• A riddle is only a riddle until you have solved it.

• A sense of self blocks reality; reality is blocked by a sense of self.

94
• A single flower floats along; a spider walks upon the pond.

• A stressful thought only lasts for an instant; what happens after that is up to you.

• A string of blind men reaching hand-in-hand, from here and now, into never-
never land.

• A wholesome thought is like a new peg suitable to replace a rotten one.

• Abandon body and mind; leave self behind.

• Achieving serenity is active rather than passive.

• Advance step-by-step, step-by-step, towards the ultimate goal.

• Agitation of the mind is subjective and blind.

• All is one though it is two; one is two conceived anew.

• All the book-knowledge in the world will not help you find peace.

• Alone in a quiet spot, contemplate what you are not.

• Alone in the forest, serene in the green, in the rain, the mind becomes refreshed
again.

• An endless process, the never-ending struggle from womb to tomb.

• An island refuge that no flood can inundate: the deathless state.

• An object of anger is not objective.

• An unwholesome thought is like a rotten peg lodged in the mind.

• Anticipate every thought and decide if you want it to arise or not.

• Anticipation is frequently fraught with frustration.

• Anything you can afford to lose, you would be better-off without anyway.

• Archers bend their bows. Carpenters bend the wood. Wise men bend minds.

• Are objects of desire desirable?

• Are perceptions actions or things?

• Are subconscious desires always harmful?

95
• Are we ears, eyes, arms and limbs? Are we anger greed, aversion and desire? If
not what?

• Are we the sum of our appetites? If not, what else can we be?

• As a spark ignites wood-shavings, so sudden anger engulfs the mind in flames.

• As a youth falls in love with an acrobat and follows the circus from place to place,
to requite his infatuation, so the fool pursues desire.

• As a battle elephant can withstand arrows from the bow, so must we learn to
endure abuse.

• As long as there is a group of monks practicing the Dharma, the way it was
practiced by the Buddha and his followers, Buddhism will never die.

• As one hand washes the other, so wisdom purifies conduct.

• As quickly as perceptions arise, the moment dies.

• As spite sparks and then crackles, hate bites like a hungry jackal.

• As the jasmine sheds its withered flowers, so should we cast-off lust and hate.

• As the mahout taps the elephant with a stick, countering its will; make your mind
stand still.

• As the mind advances at a faster rate, it passes through a gateless-gate.

• As virtue is the mother if kindness, ignorance is the cause of cruelty.

• Asking directions along the path is the straightest way.

• Attain calm and maintain balance.

• Attraction leads to distraction and motivates bodily action.

• Avoid a banal attachment to promiscuity, because it blocks the path to

purification.

• Avoid asking questions that cannot be answered.

• Avoid confrontation and rancor, and the tug-of-war will cease and be no more.

• Avoid dissipation through focus and concentration.

96
 • Avoid anger caused by harm and strife, or the effects will follow you, all through
your life.

• Avoid using stress in your tone of address.

“Quotations”

B
• Be aware of every step in everything you do, small or big.

• Be like the birds in the mango grove and know no impatience.

• Be like the sea, and ebb and flow, ebb and flow, ebb and flow.

• Be only as hard on yourself as you are on others.

• Bearing the burden of the world will merely wear your energy away.

• Bed of feather-down, empty in an eagle’s nest, fingered by the wind.

• Before you ask, ‘How could this happen to me?’ consider the root of human
misery.

• Before you can be honest with others, you have to be honest with yourself.

• Before you put your house and lands in order, cleanse and purify your body.

• Behind the scene, lurk murky motives, hidden and unseen.

• Behold the clinging leach, grasping ‘til its body bloats. Then, it just let’s go.

• Being compassionate and kind promotes peace of mind.

• Being pretends about beginnings and ends.

• Below the mountain crest, the valley fills with rich, cream cloud, just at break of
dawn.

• Better to have a heavy tongue and use words sparingly than to bear a heavy
conscience.

• Blow out the fire of desire, little by little, bit by bit, until the last flicker
disappears.

97
 • Bottomless plop. Ha!

• Bright light, dark night, either option blinds the sight.

• Burning yourself out is just another useless way of expurgating youthful pain.

• By the time you’ve spotted the target, the target has changed.

“Quotations”

C
• Calm is the opposite of useless chatter.

• Calm precedes serenity.

• Calm the mind by slowing down, slowing down, slowing down.

• Calm the mind through focused insight into vast emptiness, beyond joy and
delight.

• Can a solid mass be filled with gas?

• Can countless moments be woven together through time?

• Can there be an effect without a cause?

• Can you hear the sound of the Dharma?

• Castles in the air dissipate, like grains of sand, with nowhere to land.

• Catch and cut out the seed of harm before it has time to root.

• Chanting and praying every day helps guide the monks upon their way.

• Clear-mind and clean-thoughts help to attain wholesome states and maintain

calm.

• Clear the stones from the narrow, slippery path so you don’t trip up.

• Compassion is the antidote to passion.

• Compromise leads to demise.

98
 • Concentrate on the mind’s actions; replace unwholesome thoughts with
wholesome ones.

• Continue in increments, one small step at a time; progress through perseverance.

• Continuing practice, throughout the course of the day, is the only way.

• Crane in the lake, reflecting on the water, the mirror within.

• Craving and desire are like fire; extinguish the source and set the goal higher.

• Crawling along the carcass of a white, dead deer, the crab catches flies.

• Cultivate neutral perception free of deception.

• Cut out the cancer of irritation from the root.

“Quotations”

D
• Dark water on the lake; light breaks over mountain ridge; mottled waters move.

• Dead, brown lilacs, rigid on the bush, killed by last year’s frost.

• Death is not a state but a step in a process.

• Death, the string stops twanging; indeed, there is no string.

• Decay is nature’s way.

• Decomposition is the body’s way of bidding us goodbye.

• Deep-lasting peace is not relative to any anxiety that preceded it.

• Delight becomes pain, when we can’t retrieve it again.

• Delusion and illusion work in collusion.

• Descending, winter crow, wings-spanned on a branch, shakes away the snow.

• Desire, like fire, is extinguished, when certain conditions cannot exist.

99
• Discord, harmony; unity and equanimity.

• Dispassion is the antidote of passion.

• Diurnal setting sun, a sheet of spreading red, fades and sinks beneath the sea.

• Do doctrines determine circumstances, or do circumstances determine doctrines?

• Do two people see the same tree? How about three?

• Do what you ought and not what you see.

• Doctrines and disciplines are as different as intentions are from actions.

• Does anyone know where sounds go?

• Does delight have to have an object?

• Does development go up or down, straight-head or all around?

• Does the mind follow from sense-to-sense or is it a fixed-reality?

• Does the tongue have a primary purpose?

• Does your mind know where it will go or if it can ever come to rest?

• Don’t allow noise to make you become irritated with your environment.

• Don’t avoid noise; avoid annoyance.

• Don’t be bound by sound and sense.

• Don’t be impatient to reach the goal of the path of peace.

• Don’t be perturbed when the calm is disturbed.

• Don’t be perverse; do the reverse.

• Don’t be surprised when you find yourself compromised.

• Don’t be taunted; remain undaunted.

• Don’t be the first to expect the worst.

• Don’t believe yourself to be, just what other people think they see.

• Don’t do the right thing for the wrong reason.

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• Don’t do the wrong thing out of politeness, or you will suffer the ill-effect thereof.

• Don’t fear a state of nothing in the place of something.

• Don’t feel too guilty when your good motive turns out to contain its opposite.

• Don’t fight with all your might; use your might to focus right.

• Don’t flow with the dream, swim against the stream.

• Don’t get stressed about the pace at which your practice proceeds.

• Don’t grow old in vain, or you’ll have to go around and come back again.

• Don’t just sit outside the door; look inside and seek for more.

• Don’t listen to what people say, watch what they do.

• Don’t lose control at the prick of a pin; try to hold your feelings in.

• Don’t meditate on decomposing corpses; focus on the deterioration of your own

body.

• Don’t react to the thoughtless things that people do to you.

• Don’t take what is given, if it is not good for you.

• Don’t try and conquer the evils of the world; conquer yourself.

• Don’t try to force others to be good; try to do what is good for you.

• Don’t use stress in your tone of address.

• Don’t wait until it’s too late to let go of the bait.

• Don’t waste time asking questions that cannot be answered.

• Down the mountainside, water falls in a terraced-brook, sun on melting snow.

101
“Quotations”

• Eager to begin, we dissipate our power on that best left undone.

• Egotism is just another ‘ism.’

• Enduring practice changes our way of seeing things.

• Energy burns as the axis turns.

• Energy burns as the wheel of Karma turns.

• Enlightenment can be gained and lost again.

• Enlightenment is an achievement, not a gift.

• Enough is enough.

• Equanimity is not a state; it is a balance.

• Escape out of time and out of mind.

• Even a star sparkles in emptiness.

• Even from afar, Himalaya can be seen; evil hides its face.

• Even should robbers saw though your limbs, never give way to anger; the mind
should be full of love, wide, deep and boundless.

• Every chance you take is a potential, new mistake.

• Every side has a reverse side.

• Everything in sense and spirit contains its opposite.

• Everything that happens is for the best; it’s just that we don’t always see it that
way.

• Everything we want to hang onto slips through the fingers of time.

• Everything you grow attached to weighs you down.

• Evil grinds the foolish as a diamond grinds stone.

102
 • Excitement is just another form of agitation of mind.

• Existence exits, ceasing to be bound by form, ultimate release.

• Exit where the mind cannot enter.

• Extinguish desire not with fire but through the intense light of pure insight.

• Extinguished-self has no location.

“Quotations”

F
• Feeling and devotion color emotion.

• Fire above and the lake below; the two elements never mingle, so the man of
superior spirit is not drawn down into vulgarity.

• Flag, fading in the wind, ripping, tearing in the wind.

• Fleeting perceptions arise, flit and pass away; when hatred gets a hold, it hangs on
all day.

• Focus on one thing at a time; maintain one-pointed-ness of mind.

• Focus the mind on moral good, and it will act from good intentions.

• Focused in a world of my own, I seldom feel alone.

• Focusing blindly, upon the waving of a leaf, brings an anguished mind some
relief.

• Following the path with rigorous discipline and unrelenting fervor, the aspirant
must learn to let go; the resolution is in the paradox.

• Force bad intentions into the light and banish them from sight.

• Fragmented-perception leads to deception.

• From out of the nose of the great Buddha, flew a swallow.

• From the pitcher, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle, water in the glass.

• From whence does speech arise?

103
 • Fruit flies like bananas; time flies like an arrow.

“Quotations”

• Gaining non-identity means becoming a non-entity.

• Get off to a good start; don’t let up in your efforts, and you will fulfill good
intentions.

• Get to the source of the problem, and cut it out at the root.

• Giving sustenance to the poor opens an unseen door.

• Glinting, narrowing gyre, silvered-splinters of the moon, sparkle on the temple

spire.

• Go opposite to the way of the world.

• Good intentions often go against conventions.

• Grasp at too many things at a time and you lose focus.

• Grasp the moment, hang on, and don’t think of what has gone.

• Greed arises in wanting more than you need.

• Guard your mind well and take delight in mental discipline.

“Quotations”

H
• Have a teacher for a friend, and you’ll be better-off in the end.

• Have you ever watched what your hands do?

• He who helps another with good intentions reaps a reward, in this or the next life.

• He who asks the first question does not always have the purest motives.
104
 • He who is always angry binds himself in double-jeopardy.

• He who is focused, loving and kind can attain peace-of-mind.

• He who talks bad all day wakes with a bitter taste in his mouth that won’t go
away.

• He, who is cleansed by compassion for all being, transcends lust and gain.

• Hear a tear; smell a bell.

• Heartless cruelty has the potentiality of evolving into equanimity.

• Heaven and water rising up and falling down, going opposite ways.

• Highs and depressions teach lessons.

• Hocus-pocus, locus focus.

• How can the beginning be the middle of the end?

• How can we own one-another, when we do not even own ourselves?

• How can we see how we feel? How can we feel how we see?

• How can you depend on anyone when you can’t even depend on yourself?

• How cold you continue to be, if there were no ‘me?’

• How could you put a curse in reverse?

• How do intentions arise? From where do they come, and where do they go?

• How do we observe silence?

“Quotations”

I
• I suddenly realized that I was nothing but a bag of bones and gas in empty space.

• I used to be a pandered goldfish, in a rich woman’s pond, bored, and blowing

bubbles, with big, bulging-eyes.

105
• Idle chatter and shallow talk stir up defilements which cloud the mind.

• If a zealot can be an idiot, then an idiot can be a zealot.

• If birds were symbols, what would they symbolize?

• If I say I don’t know where I am, then I know where I am.

• If life is a continuum, can it stop?

• If merely a thought were a crime, we would be arrested all the time.

• If no one is responsible for your moral actions but you, it is you who are
responsible.

• If one were to nothing as life is to pain, the loss of self would be a gain.

• If perceptions are fleeting, how can objects be constant?

• If what drives you does not end in peace, desist and release.

• If you always get angry at what’s not right, you’ll never be far from starting a
fight.

• If you are not careful what you do, something bad will happen to you.

• If you can’t hurry the moment, there’s no point in trying to push it.

• If you can’t let go of anger and hate, you’ll be unable to meditate.

• If you do the good for someone who uses it to harm you or another, do not blame
yourself.

• If you don’t hang onto a selfish-thought, it will slip away on its own.

• If you don’t develop moral purity, you have the greatest difficulty on the path to
wisdom.

• If you gave yourself away would anyone want to take you?

• If you hang onto something too hard, you become inflexible.

• If you let the wrongs of the world anger you, you’ll just dissipate and waste your
power.

• If you lose forty kilos, do you half yourself?

106
• If you see the Buddha by the side of the road, kill him, for the Buddha is within
yourself.

• If you slip-up on a small thing, how can you be trusted with a big one?

• Ignorance is the root of all evil, and no fool knows the truth.

• Illuminate; exacerbate.

• Ill-will towards another isn’t worth the bother.

• Impatience and worry are always in a hurry.

• In a flaming house, engulfed by balls of fire, escape or burn.

• In empty space, there is no destination.

• In my garden, the plum tree plum-trees and the plumbs plumb.

• In search of the way in a sky with no path, you may soon fly astray.

• In the calm of the night, a tree-toad, breaking the silence, pierces into the ear.

• In the cool, clear pool, the orange mountain crab claws against the stream.

• In the mountain torrent, a big rock barely budges once in fifty years.

• In the struggle for perfection, we often lose direction.

• In this world, hatred never ceases through hatred; love alone can make hatred
cease.

• In-and-out the window, fly the swallows of the mind.

• Insight is inside not outside.

• Insight meditation leaves the limits of speech behind.

• Intentions in the mind control what you say and do.

• Intentions rooted in the body are bound to be shoddy.

• Is a flame a cause or an effect?

• Is an object of perception a fixed-state between nothing and nothing?

• Is anything actually fixed in time?

107
• Is indeterminate a solid state?

• Is man’s point-of-view the peak of perception?

• Is mind a product of the senses?

• Is the light on the surface of the water really the sea?

• Is the mind at rest an immoveable object?

• Is the observer inside reality looking out?

• Is the sun that we think that we seen an objective reality?

• Is the wind a sound in the head or a process in progress?

• Is there a balance of the force of expansion and detraction of mental states?

• Is what we think about the way we see reality?

• It is easier to change your own mind than that of another.

• It is easier to hide a dead elephant under a pile of lotus leaves, than to conceal evil
intent.

• It is futile to seek satisfaction in the unsatisfactory.

• It is hard to grasp and idea, harder to put it into practice, and even harder to let it
go.

• It is harder to put out a fire than it is to start one.

• It is not insane to go against the grain.

• It is the intention of the mind that needs to be directed and controlled.

• It’s never too late to let go of hate.

• It’s not easy to realize and recognize when the time has come just to let-go.

108
“Quotations”

• Just as a garland of flowers is made from individual blooms, so the life of mortal
man should be the sum of his good deeds.

• Just as clothes are not the body, so appearance is not the man.

• Just as milk curdles, not all at once, but slowly, lust transforms life into worldly
curd.

• Just as rain penetrates an ill-thatched house, lust penetrate an undeveloped mind;

just as rain cannot penetrate a well-thatched house, lust does not penetrate a well-
developed mind.

• Just as seaweed weaves in the water, so the waters weave, between release and
force.

• Just as swans quit their ponds, and abandon home after home, the mindful are not
attached.

• Just as the falling of rain relieves the sultry thunderstorm when opposition reaches
climax, it eventuate its own antithesis.

• Just as the lotus blooms spring from muddy pools, so the virtuous may shine,
reaching above and beyond their roots.

• Just beyond the gate of sought eternity, lies non-eternity.

“Quotations”

K
• Keep in touch with your body on your way to losing your mind.

• Keep persistently focused on the goal, and do not let anything get in the way.

• Keep plodding on the path with resolve and determination.

• Keep the mirror of the mind feckless and fleckless.

• Know what is low and try what is high.

109
 • Knowing the right questions is requisite to finding the right answers.

“Quotations”

L
• Lack of resolution results in dissolution.

• Language should be used for discursive purposes.

• Lao Tzu rode away on a water buffalo into the desert, leaving the great wall
behind him.

• Learn at length to persist in practice and gain strength.

• Learn not to care about the burden you bear.

• Leave yourself out of speech when you teach.

• Leaving one shore behind, the raft sets out upon its quest for unknown, distant
shores.

• Less resentment, more contentment.

• Let go of anger before it arises; cut off the feeling at its root; and be done with it.

• Let go of the mind, and all the headaches will go with it.

• Letting-go is the antidote to grasping-attachment.

• Lies lock one in a cage of falsehood from which it is impossible to escape.

• Life and body are like a big, water bubble, just about to burst.

• Life as men know it is only a dream.

• Lightening gleam, slashing through darkness, a heron’s scream.

• Like a baited-hook, sense is punctured by desire and rips through and into the
guts.

• Like a dog on a chain, the man of worldly flesh is pulled-back, again and again.

• Like a fish, taken from water, thrown upon the land, so does the mind flutter when
passions cannot be changed.
110
 • Like a pumpkin, the untrained-mind floats and skims the surface of the pond; a
stone sinks and is still.

• Like an elephant sunk in the mire, pull yourself out of evil ways.

• Like taming a tempestuous sea, calming the mind is no so easy.

• Little love in your heart; little good in your actions.

• Live sensuously, and you’ll eventually burn your reserve, and end-up where you
deserve.

• Long, thin bamboo bridge, carrying Samsara, delicately-balanced in the middle.

• Look out with your mind’s eye into endless space beyond the planets.

• Lose and gain; lose the moment and start again.

• Love is a means to an end but not an end in itself.

• Love is sometimes just another way of saying, ‘I want.’

• Lust and desire bog man down in a swamp where he may become stuck for years.

“Quotations”

M
• Maintain focus on wholesome mind objects as they arise.

• Maintain the moment of arising calm as it keeps on arising, until it becomes

steady.

• Make a list of all the things you want, and, then, throw it away.

• Make your motives pure and then endure.

• Man cannot understand that his destiny is directed by his own hand.

• Manipulation causes consternation.

• Meditate for half-an-hour to restore your power.

111
 • Meditating longer makes you stronger.

• Meditation rock, standing in a mountain stream, obstructing the flow.

• Meditation, concentration, penetration.

• Mental distraction leads to impure action.

• Million year-old rocks, worn by sun and rain, no one there to see.

• Mind in mind is just a delusion of another kind.

• Mind leads mind astray; therefore, try to be more mindful of mindfulness.

• Mirror of the mind reflect away directed hate.

• Mirror on the lake; a stork in double-take.

• Misconception of being and nothing causes needless fretting and fussing.

• Mistrust will follow you no matter where you go or what you do.

• Moderation prepares the way for a better day.

• Modesty and wisdom are the fruit of meditation.

• Moral progress is a pre-requisite to deeper insight through meditation.

“Quotations”

N
• Needing to gain and then maintain your balance implies impending imbalance.

• Never fear the end is near.

• Never pick up what you haven’t put down.

• Nirvana is not an award; it is an achievement.

• Night air, clear with stars, the sky above the tree-line, cleans my mind in space.

• No aftertaste, no after-shadow, no thought, no mind.

• No two people see the same tree in the same way.

112
 • Nobody can stop what you have been doing to yourself but you.

• Nobody knows where the mind goes.

• Nobody loves me; I am finally free.

• Noise is an element of nature and not an object to be avoided.

• Non-ego has no need to show its face.

• Non-involvement eliminates most obstacles in the path.

• Not all that is comfortable counts.

• Not desiring worldly fame and wealth and power is the greatest gain.

• Not here, not there, not anywhere.

• Nothing but nothing is an end in itself.

• Nothing has inherent reality; reality cannot exist in the mind; only things and
events are actually real.

• Nothing is as it seems at the moment, because, as the moment is quickly flashing,

what has just seemed is also passing.

• Novices want to jump in at the end, without working their way through, from the
beginning.

• Now, I am there; now, I am not.

• Nowhere to go, calmly sitting in one place, watching the flow.

“Quotations”

O
• Objects once desired and then acquired soon cease to be required.

• Objective consciousness cuts to the bare cold facts and analyzes them.

• Observe all the actions that cause harm; then, do the opposite and observe the
result.
113
• Observe the actions of others with detachment, free of reaction or interaction.

• Observe what people do, but don’t allow their actions to perturb you.

• Obsession defies possession.

• Obsession with the profane is energy burned-in-vain.

• Once energy burns, it never returns.

• Once you have passed through the door, there is no door anymore.

• Once you’re dead, there’s nothing but bone and blood and tissue, in your head.

• Once you’ve grasped the idea, don’t hold on too hard.

• Once you’ve lost-touch, just let it go.

• One cannot jump into Nirvana; it can only be achieved through following an
arduous but rewarding step-by-step process.

• One should not attempt to gain by force what will come of its own in its own due
time.

• One who is calm in body, calm in speech, calm in mind, who has spewed-out all
worldly things, is truly called a tranquil one.

• One who is desirous of pleasure, immoderate with food and the senses, lazy and
inactive, will be overthrown as the wind overthrows a weak tree.

• Only after you let go can you know.

• Only correct practice makes perfect.

• Only the breath separates life from death.

• Only two things are necessary on the path to Nirvana: to start and to continue.

• Other people’s feelings belong to them, not to you.

• Outward appearance; inward disappearance.

114
“Quotations”

P
• Paper can’t wrap fire.

• Passion is the root of pain and suffering.

• Peace may be relative to the state of mind that preceded it.

• Peer into empty space, out past the planets, to get a perspective on where you are
not.

• Penetrate beyond rapture and delight and bright light.

• Penetrate self through mind; leave the worries of the world behind.

• Perfection is an ideal; reality is a state.

• Perfection is to be striven for rather than practiced.

• Persevere in the now and here.

• Persevere through joy and delight, through brightness and light, into a state of
void.

• Potentiality is not actuality.

• Practice is the reality.

• Practice on all days that end in ‘y.’

• Practice until you get it right, and keep practicing until you can’t get it wrong.

• Practice what you have always known but have not always done.

• Practicing purity is the foundation of mental security.

• Progress in the path is like rubbing two sticks together to make fire. If you stop to
rest, you’ll lose most of the progress you have made.

• Pure in mind, gentle and kind.

• Purity in practice brings progress on the path to wisdom.

• Put off trivialities to another day, and, then, think them away.

115
 • Put out the fire in the mind through observation and concentration.

“Quotations”

Q
• Quietude and strife: the body is a battleground between wisdom and desire.

“Quotations”

R
• Rain pounds upon the earth, sprouts of grass shoot through the soil, chaos and
rebirth!

• Reach out to the rest of the world the way a flag becomes unfurled.

• Reality is nothing more than the moment coming into existence and fleeting out
again.

• Refine the goodness and purity within your self until it reaches beyond self.

• Reflect, adjust, correct and control your actions; no one else can do it for you.

• Reflecting image in a lake, a stork in double-take.

• Release the burden of the world from your back and let it float away.

• Relief and pain come and go again. Relief and pain. Relief and pain …

• Rescue from despair is evident everywhere, but few have the insight to see it
there.

• Resentment for wrongs suffered in the past should not be allowed to linger.

• Resentment is like a wound that needs to be healed.

• Resentment precludes contentment.

• Respect is always due to those who are kind in every deed they do.

• Rise above the level of the evil that others do, especially the evil they do to you.

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“Quotations”

S
• Saying that a thing does no harm may be your second mistake.

• Scrutinize the bare facts of the mind’s eyes.

• Scrutinize what you think you see with your eyes.

• Seek refuge from the deluge.

• Seeking your own advantage is a definite disadvantage.

• Self abuse is of no use.

• Selfishness blocks the path to self-development.

• Self-perception is just another form of deception.

• Sentinels of doom, birds like dead ancestors, erect in the trees.

• Set up the target; aim the arrow at its heart, and, then follow it to its path.

• Share wisdom with loving-kindness.

• Shifting wind rolls the hollow, empty can back and forth, again and again and
again.

• Should understanding be higher or deeper?

• Show the slightest sign of stress, and you’ll show you’re close to losing
composure.

• Sitting within a cave looking through a waterfall from within.

• Soldiers may kill with their swords, but girls slay men with their eyes.

• Soldiers threw six-hundred bodies over the bridge, into the rainbow.

• Some situations are unimaginable.

• Sometimes the best way to repay an act of friendship is through friendship.

• Sometimes, almost nothing can be a bit too much.

117
 • Sometimes, nothing at all is better than one-half.

• Specks of dirt and grains of sand merely appear to be bound together in solid land.

• Spite never sets things right.

• Stars change, galaxies vary, worlds emerge and fade away, but the word of the
Buddha has remained consistent, even into the present day.

• Steady and sure, endure, endure.

• Straying from the way in the jungle of craving is a supreme price to pay.

• Strip the color from perspective and become more objective.

• Strive with burning energy to attain equanimity.

• Struggle will cease when release brings peace.

• Subjective perception colors perspective.

• Sugar-frosting moon; bare, black branches in the sky; snow is coming soon.

• Sun on melting ice, along the tip of eaves, a rainbow flash!

• Sun streaks over the mountain, glinting through a tree, darting straight at me.

• Swept by mountain torrents, we grasp at grassy banks; blades break in our

clutching hands.

• Swimming in open heavy seas, against the current, far from sight of shore,
perseverance.

“Quotations”

T
• Take care not to harm even the toad in the road.

• Take hold of the wayward mind, like a bull by the horns, and bring it into
submission.

• Take refuge in solitude beyond the deluge.

• Take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the monk-hood, the Holy Triple Gem.

118
• Takers eat well; givers sleep well.

• Talking comes by nature; silence by wisdom.

• Tell what you know with good intentions so that no harm comes to anyone.

• Temper is easily lost and hard to regain.

• Temper, like a wild horse, is hard to catch once it breaks free.

• The aim and goal of the practice are beyond words.

• The antidote to existence is the annihilation of the mind.

• The antidote to selfishness is selflessness.

• The antitheses of to lie and deceive are to give and receive.

• The balance of a man who is petty is pretty shaky already.

• The bamboos are entangled by the bamboo tangle, the inner tangle and the outer
tangle, who will succeed in disentangling this tangle?

• The bare facts of perception have no color.

• The best antidote for bad intentions is good intentions.

• The black buds of spring will soon return and, then, again begin to bloom.

• The blazing summer sun sinks below the surface, as its twin, the silver moon,
arises.

• The body is just a bag of bones, a sack of suffering, coming and going, in and out
of being.

• The body is like a big bladder full of pain waiting to be voided again.

• The body is on a journey from the present to the past.

• The body tissue is little more than water and waste held together in empty space.

• The body like the earth is burning; both are burning themselves out.

• The brook and the rock; even water wears down stone, as it flows downstream.

119
• The Buddha is here; the Buddha is not here. The Buddha is there; the Buddha is
not there.

• The Buddha sets us on the path; the teaching helps on the way; but only you
yourself can make the steps along the track.

• The butterfly flaps its wings three times in an instant.

• The butterfly resting on a temple bell, asleep.

• The chanting of the monks, echoing in silence, the sound of the Dharma.

• The decaying leaf decomposing as it flows, bobs its way downstream.

• The Dharma does not jump about from point-to-point but progresses step-by-step.

• The effects of our rage and anger can still continue to exist once we’ve vacated
our bodies.

• The ego lives alone and never finds a home.

• The end of suffering is near; death brings an end to fear.

• The endless void cannot be destroyed.

• The evil you bring on yourself is caused by you alone.

• The flame in the temple burns, as the wheel turns.

• The flickering mind is difficult to control; the wise man strengthens his bow.

• The force of an explosion stops forcing itself outwards and, then, begins drawing
inwards.

• The hands are not aware of what they do; the mouth is the same.

• The hands don’t do anything on their own. Personal motives make them do it.

• The inward breath, the outward breath: the balance of opposites.

• The kitchen is loud with the buzzing of flies; the child mutters in her bed.

• The laws of nature run contrary to those of society.

• The limitation of eternity is that it cannot end.

• The lips should be used to smile, not to revile.

120
• The Lord Buddha goes against the stream, doing the opposite of what comes
naturally.

• The middle road is having what you need but nothing that you want.

• The middle way is the balance of opposites.

• The middle way is the riddle way.

• The mind can attain peace, when attachments to worldly states cease.

• The mind is like a wild horse: difficult to catch and hard to restrain and train.

• The mind is something to use and then lose.

• The mind manipulates experience with embellishments; our minds distort reality
according to our own wishes.

• The mind should be able to look after itself; if it cannot, nothing else can.

• The mind should observe, free of embellishments and meanderings, the clear
nature of all things.

• The mind’s balm is peace and calm.

• The moment of being is a kind of pretending, without a beginning or an ending.

• The moving picture in the mind is just a scene projected upon a non-existent
screen.

• The nature of reality is changed by the observer.

• The object of your anger is not an object; it is just a fleeting instant that only lives
on in your mind if you let it.

• The obstacle is the path.

• The one who should be watching over you is you yourself.

• The only awareness of reality is the breath coming in and going out.

• The only reality is awareness of the moment. When that stops, you are free.

• The only thing between life and death is the breath.

121
• The only thing constant over the long haul is our own restless selves, rushing
nowhere at all.

• The only thing that never ends is a constant state of flux.

• The opposite to faith is to face.

• The opposite of resentment is compassion.

• The opposite of restless is rest.

• The opposite of thought is no thought.

• The opposite of to curse is to bless.

• The parasites and germs that inhabit the body regard it as their own.

• The path is strewn with obstacles to overcome, so perseverance may make us

stronger.

• The peace that passes understanding is also beyond words.

• The peel outside may look good, but inside the rind, who knows what rottenness
we’ll find?

• The perpetrator of false alarm has a hidden motive for causing harm.

• The place to find peace is in the mind.

• The points of contact anchor the body to the ground, but the mind floats around.

• The problem with delight is that you can never get it right.

• The process of decomposition is man’s natural condition.

• The pure of mind are hard to find.

• The pure of spirit, freed from the chains of craving, clearly see the path.

• The raindrop slowly meanders down the window pane like a slithering snake.

• The real insight is to understand what is beyond the Buddha himself.

• The river of the mind can meander or run in a straight line.

• The root of dispute is usually silent and mute.

122
• The root of sarcasm is revenge for pain suffered in the past.

• The root of the problem is not outside in the world but inside of you.

• The sage develops himself by casting out all that is inferior or degrading.

• The scent of incense, the Buddha’s world, sensed but unheard.

• The seed that you plant today will become the fruit of tomorrow.

• The self that thinks it perceives is not self; it just perceives itself as self.

• The shell of a cicada, it sang itself utterly away.

• The shortest distance through an obstacle is a straight line.

• The slave of desire set in his ways is locked in a rut for the rest of his days.

• The smell of incense; the taste of absence.

• The sound of silence rings around.

• The stupid one, when he is torpid and gluttonous, sleepily rolls about, like a great
hog who greedily repeats his cycle again and again.

• The target is to have no target; the aim to have no aim.

• The tendency towards sudden violence is mitigated by the gradual growth of

tolerance.

• The untrained mind is like a rough diamond; we have to remove the impurities
and hone the mind, through concentration and discipline.

• The way of the world is unfulfilled desire.

• The way we view things colors them.

• The wind sculpting sand illustrates impermanence in all things and helps us
understand.

• The wind starts blowing the trees, and the monks begin sweeping the leaves.

• There are no holy people, only holy moments.

• There are those who would wish to see the annihilation of the good if they could.

• There cannot be an effect without a cause.

123
• There could be no consistency, if there were not a balance of equal and opposite
forces.

• There is no karma unless there is a being to know its effects.

• There is no time; there is only motion.

• There is always a hidden motive just behind the smiling face of what seems to be
reality.

• There is no outside entity observing you; only you observing yourself.

• There is no satisfaction in the things you desire, like drinking seawater.

• There is something present in willing the good that would will the opposite if it
could.

• Thinking about thinking gives no inkling about who is thinking he is thinking.

• This body is burning, burning itself out.

• Those who are ruled by greed and hate should change their focus before it’s too
late.

• Those who are ruled by resentment are seldom capable of compassion.

• Though one should conquer a million men in battle, he is the noblest victor who
has conquered himself.

• Though the pain of this life is not over yet, it is a close to finishing as it will ever
get.

• Through sustained-effort, discipline and self-control, the wise man makes him self
an island which no flood can overwhelm.

• Through the monk’s fingers, water from a mountain stream flows, full of purity.

• To be too confident or too humble is to stray from the middle way.

• To miss someone is also a form of need; let go of the need and the love will be
freed.

• To rest the mind from jumping about in the tangle within the tangle of monkey
thoughts, focus one-pointedly on a neutral object of nature.

• Too much of a good thing is never enough.

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 • Too much profusion leads to delusion.

• Trip, pip, pip, pip, pip, a dried-pea, trip-pip-piping down the stairs.

• Truth doesn’t depend on what you believe.

• Try listening to yourself as you talk, and you may get a shock.

• Trying to hang onto your images is like trying to hold onto your money once it is
spent.

• Trying to possess that which defies ownership is the cause of grief.

• Two sheaves of reeds lean together for support, the body and the mind. When the
chemistry of worry eats the mind away, it makes the flesh decay.

“Quotations”

U
• Ultimately, the only one who knows how well you do will be you.

• Uncaring shepherd, negligent of his flock, woe to that man’s soul.

• Understanding the Dharma and practicing it are two different things.

• Unfulfilled-desire is the root of unhappiness.

• Unwholesome thoughts, like rust, eat away at the mirror of the mind.

• Uttering of mindless thoughts brings sorrow.

“Quotations”

• Vacate body; vacate mind; vacant body; vacant mind; vacate body; vacate mind.

• Versed in the Dharma, yet rooted in desire, purge the root with fire.

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“Quotations”

• Waiting to be cut off, anxiety, the dark twin-of-ego rises up its ugly head.

• Wake right up and look deep down.

• Wanting is just another sort of pain we would be better-off without.

• Wanting love does more harm than good.

• Watch the intentions of the mind, and it will watch you.

• Watch to see what you feel.

• Watching a castle washed away by the waves in the sand helps us understand.

• Water and rain, rising up and falling down, for millions of years!

• We are all on our way to certain decay.

• We couldn’t conceive of good, if we didn’t know its opposite, evil.

• We do not own our bodies, just as the water in a bowl does not own the bowl.

• We’ll have to wait and see how our thoughts and actions direct our destiny.

• We use the tongue all the time but seldom think of it.

• What do we mean when we say ‘the actions of the mind?’

• What do we see when the light of burning penetration goes out?

• What good is the best of both possible words when they are on a collision course?

• What is beyond the beyond, and beyond and beyond?

• What is coming together is falling apart.

• What is food for thought? What is the taste of waste?

• What is gone is gone. Why try to hold onto something that has already passed?

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• What is openly offered with a good heart is scorned by the suspicious and
malicious.

• What is perceived in the mind is not static; it lives in the mind a moment at a
time.

• What is the most beneficial purpose of the nose?

• What is the most positive purpose of the eye?

• What is the most worthy action of the lips?

• What is the root of determinism? Who or what determines?

• What is the sound of nothing?

• What is the sound of one hand clapping?

• What strikes the mind makes no sound?

• What we are too keen on doing can lead to our undoing.

• What we can understand is as the leaves in the hand compared to all those in the
forest.

• What we deem as perception is often perverted by worldly deception.

• What we feel may not be real.

• What we like to taste turns into body waste.

• What you build up crumbles down. Deep in the center, things crumple up.

• What you need to know is already inside yourself.

• What you think about becomes the inclination of the mind.

• What’s missing cannot be compensated for by excessive behavior.

• When a standstill comes to an end, it reverses. One shouldn’t wish it to be

permanent.

• When a thought disappears, where does it go?

• When badly-treated, remain undefeated.

• When mental actions stray, look away.

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• When the body is at rest, why is it still stressed?

• When the fire is out, where does it go?

• When the heart begins to strain, slow down again.

• When the mind has evolved beyond delight and joy, it no longer wants to kill and
destroy.

• When the mind is set in the pursuit of wayward goals, other goals are blocked.

• When the mind stops and is not heedful of pursuit, then the path opens.

• When the mind stops to concentrate on one level, other planes are blocked.

• When the mind stops to tarry at one door, the other doors are blocked.

• When the mind through training leads into mindless pursuit, mindless pursuit is
reached.

• When the monkey has put his hand in dung, everything he touches will be
smeared.

• When the rain falls, some of the flowers are knocked down.

• When the teeth are closed, the tongue is at home.

• When the wanting to feel better stops, the wanting to feel better stops too.

• When we talk, we must think what we do; talking is an action too.

• When what you see goes against propriety, try to maintain impartiality.

• When what you hear can generate hate, penetrate through it onto a higher state.

• When what you hear is not good, remain impartial and behave as you should.

• When you are aware that you are aware, then you are not really aware.

• When you feel enthralled and spellbound, try to turn your thoughts around.

• When you lie, you lose merit just as water flows out of an upturned-bowl.

• When you love yourself more than your love others, others, you harm yourself.

• When you meditate longer, your insight becomes stronger.

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• Where does the flame go when it is extinguished?

• Where does the moment go once it is gone?

• Where does time exit when it runs out?

• Where is awareness? Where does it come from? Where does it go?

• Where is the place that the mind comes to rest?

• Where the mind goes nobody knows.

• White breakers roar on the passive shore.

• Who ultimately directs the mind to do harmful actions?

• Whoever it is that knows is the one who must be responsible.

• Why can’t we see nothingness?

• Why can’t we see our ears?

• Why can’t we spell the words of the birds?

• Wishing to be wish-less cannot create wish-less-ness.

• Wind and rain knocked the blossoms down that are scattered on the ground.

• Wisdom comes from knowing what to do rather than knowing what to think.

• Within a day or maybe two, things will appear different to you.

• Words remain only half-truths until they are put into action.

• Worry is one of the biggest obstacles on the path.

• Writing things down is a way of clinging to things we should let go of.

• Wrong action causes faction.

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“Quotations”

Y
• Yew trees cast a shadow; blackbirds mingle in the shade. Evil may hide in the
dark, but the sun shines out in the open glade.

• You are guilty of any harm you cause yourself.

• You bear no blame for the good you do, even if it is used to affect harm on others.

• You become the obstacle in your own way.

• You can make progress on the path and again lose it, if you neglect it or abuse it.

• You can soon clamber out of a rut in the road, but the ditch of desire is deep.

• You cannot change the way of the world, you have to change yourself.

• You cannot change yourself just by changing locations.

• You cannot run away from the annoyance of noise, even in the temple.

• You cannot see everything that exists.

• You cannot sell the basket you are only dreaming of weaving.

• You get out of the moment what you bring into it.

• You have to finish the basket you’re weaving before you start another one.

• You have to learn from the past before you can get rid of it.

• You, yourself, are the obstacle, standing and being and acting, in your own way.

• Your mind is the purest thing that you possess, why fill if with defiling thoughts?

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 The Way to Wisdom : the Noble Eightfold Path

Suffering

The world is on fire with desire.

Not getting what one wants is suffering.

Decay, disease, old age and death are suffering.

How can we rise above such suffering?

The Cause of Suffering

The root of suffering is craving for delights and pleasures of the eye, ear, nose and body.

Craving of the cessation of pain causes suffering.

The Extinction of Suffering

Freedom from craving vanquishes suffering.

Letting go of attachment annihilates sorrow.

The Middle Way : the Noble Eightfold Path

It is the middle path between extremes that leads to liberation.

Right-Understanding

Free yourself of views and attitudes that block the path of understanding.

Knowing the difference between what is a good action and what is a bad deed is right-
understanding.

Right-understanding leads to willing the good through actions of body, speech and mind.

The purpose of practical ethics is ultimately spiritual.

Karma (Kamma*) is an action of the will that results in something wholesome or

unwholesome arising.

Avoid any action of the mind that can cause harm to oneself or others.

Avoid any thought or action that causes harm to others.

Anything that does harm should be avoided.

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Unwholesome intentions must be grasped and extinguished at the root.

Avoid doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Mind control means denying what is not good for one’s spiritual development and
replacing it with its opposite.

Right-understanding leads to accrued-merit, which opens the way to a deepening-

understanding of the cause of suffering.

Wrong-understanding leads to wrong actions, which lead to more and more suffering.

Delusion leads to more and more evil.

One is the owner of the Karma one makes.

One reaps the fruit of one’s actions in this life or the next.

Right Thought

Right thought means right intentions or right motives that set the mind moving toward
achievement of wholesome goals.

Right intention is the forerunner of right action.

Desire, ill-will and harmfulness arise from ill-intentions.

Suffering will be the result of wrong thought or wrong intention.

When you observe desire, ill-will or harmfulness arising in your mind, replace them with,
renunciation, good-will and harmlessness.

Eliminate obstruction, and open the path to wisdom.

Knowing what is good is not the same as doing what is good.

Only the application of loving-kindness can bring about the good.

Working on yourself is the most difficult and painful discipline.

Everything contains its opposite.

Replacing bad intentions with good intentions is the antidote that helps to eliminate
suffering.

Good intentions are contrary to the way of the world.

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The direction we take often comes back on us.

The unwholesome thought is like a rotten peg lodged in the mind.

The wholesome thought is like a new peg suitable to replace it.

Right Speech

Never deceive.

Always tell what you know and admit when you know nothing.

Abstain from lying and always tell the truth.

One should never knowingly speak a lie for one’s own advantage.

Speech can give wisdom, heal division and create peace.

False speech can break lives, create enemies and start wars.

Lying corrupts society.

Lies lock one in a cage of falsehood.

As an upturned bowl empties of water, so falsehood empties a man of his merit.

Use speech to unite those who are divided, create agreement and harmony.

The root of slander is hate, a pitfall to be avoided.

Speech that originates in loving-kindness wins trust and affection.

Harsh speech uttered in anger is intended to cause pain. Why?

Speech should be gentle, soothing to the ear, loving and kind, to really reach the heart.

There is no good reason for speech that is angry, abusive, reproving, bitter, insulting,
hurtful, offensive, demeaning, sarcastic or ironic.

Speech that arises out of anger and aversion is impulsive action without deliberation and
leads to harm of others and self.

Abstain from idle chatter and frivolous speech and pointless talk that have no depth.

Abstain from listening to chatter that stirs up restless thoughts.

Make every word have meaning, so speech is a treasure.

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The opposite of idle chatter is calm and quiet.

Right Action

Good will helps avoid disagreement.

Avoid frivolous entertainments which block development on a higher, aesthetic,

contemplative plain.

The opposite of anger is patience.

The antidote to anger is tolerance.

Learn to tolerate abuse without retaliating.

Undisturbed shall the mind remain, with heart full of love and free of hidden malice.

Be conscientious, full of sympathy and desirous of the welfare of all living beings.

The monk will be so imbued with feelings of love for other sentient beings that he will
not be able to harm them.

Have respect for the property of others and their rights, showing generosity of heart.

Abstain from unwholesome sexual conduct that will cause harm to others.

Abstain from having sex with partners who are betrothed, married or under parental
protection.

Curb sexual desire so it does not lead to moral transgression.

A banal attachment to promiscuity blocks the path to purification.

See your partner as a sentient human being, not as an object of desire.

Protect sentient human beings from the negative effects of unwholesome Karma.

Sensual desire wreaks havoc in the lives of laymen and householders.

Monks and nuns avoid distraction by leading celibate lives.

Right Livelihood

Be reliable and worthy of confidence.

Avoid gaining a livelihood by doing anything that harms others.

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Avoid gaining a livelihood through unwholesome speech or action.

Gain a living by doing no harm and benefiting others, righteously, legally, peacefully,
honestly, openly and courteously, in such a way that as to gain merit and avoid the
pitfalls of destruction.

Fulfill your duties in an honest and trustworthy manner, avoiding idleness, deceit and
illicit gain.

Show respect, courtesy and consideration for others.

Right livelihood yields worldly fruits and brings good results.

The mind, being holy, being turned away from the world and conjoined with the path:
this is called supra-mundane right livelihood.

Right Effort

No one can make you make the effort; you must make it for yourself.

Purify yourself in accordance with good intentions as a preparation to deeper insight

through meditation.

Arouse the energy of the mind, and focus it on cleansing the mind of its impurities
through self-discipline.

Through intense self-discipline, liberate the mind, so it is free to work on the supra-
mundane level.

Prevent the arising of unwholesome mental states before they are awakened.

Stem the five hindrances of sensual desire, ill-will, dullness of the mind, restlessness
before they arise.

Lust for sensual pleasures, sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches or for wealth and
power, position and fame block the path to purification.

Hatred, anger, resentment and repulsion block the path to purification.

Feelings of aversion may be shed like leaves from a tree.

Mental inertia, drowsiness and dullness of mind block the path to purification.

Restlessness, worry, stress, agitation, excitement and frenzy keep the mind from focus.

Doubt, lack of resolution and indecisiveness hinder right effort.

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Nip mental hindrances in the bud through careful analysis of mental states; then, cut them
out at the root and drive them out of the mind.

Watch and observe the workings of the mind.

Check uncontrolled response through mind control.

Check uncontrolled desire and agitation through focusing on equanimity.

The positive effect of mind control is reason enough to keep doing it.

Replace unwholesome thoughts with equal and opposite thoughts, as a carpenter drives
out a rotten peg and drives in a fresh one.

Buddhists do meditation exercises practicing renunciation and compassion as a way of

going against the stream.

The Buddha goes against the stream.

He goes the opposite way, breaking the shackles of desire.

Follow the eightfold path, being sure to purify yourself in accordance with good Karma
as a preparation to deeper insight through meditation.

Without accomplishing moral purity, you will encounter great difficulty in going
forward.

Push out unwholesome attachments by replacing them with their opposites as the
antidote.

Replace hate, aversion and rancor, with the mind focused upon millions of thoughts of
human-kindness. Counteract dullness and drowsiness through concentration on a great
ball of light to energize the mind.

Calm the agitated-mind through breathing meditation.

Investigative observation and analysis of the mind helps allay doubt, uncertainty,
indecision and lack of resolution.

Direct the mind away from an unwholesome thought, as you might look away from an
undesirable sight.

When someone expresses an unpleasant or unwholesome thought, change the subject.

Avoid topics which are unsavory.

There would be much less unsavory talk if there were no one to listen.

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Through effort of the mind arouse un-arisen wholesome states.

When novices are focused on unwholesome states, wise monks suggest meditation topics
to get them back on the path.

The seven steps of enlightenment are mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture,

tranquility, concentration and equanimity.

Through meditation, clear the mind of wandering and delusion and focus on objects
clearly in the now.

Through inquiry and investigation analyze the nature of phenomena; ask yourself what it
is that fascinates you so much.

Quicken the energy of your effort, shaking off lethargy and inertia, awakening
enthusiasm, gathering momentum and using perseverance, so the power of the mind
overcomes inertia and cannot be stopped.

Push hard until you have overcome all obstacles.

See the true nature of things as they really are without delusion.

Enthusiasm builds to rapture ascending to ecstatic heights accompanied by restlessness of

mind which must be calmed and subdued.

Rapture becomes tranquility which through contemplation proceeds to serenity.

Tranquility brings concentration on one-pointed unification of mind.

Equanimity comes when the mind through deepening concentration becomes free from
inertia and excitement and remains balanced on its own.

The mind in equanimity, without effort or restraint watches and observes the play of
phenomena.

Maintain wholesome arisen states: guard the balance of the mind and focus on the
positive state, so it remains at the forefront of the mind until it reaches fulfillment.

Keeping the balance of the mind takes constant practice.

It is easier to lose balance than maintain it.

One can gain enlightenment and lose it.

Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness is the quality of awareness.

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It insures complete awareness of all the activities of the body.

It insures complete awareness of all sensations and feelings as they occur.

Right mindfulness is complete awareness of all activities of the mind as they occur and
complete awareness of all mental objects.

This attitude of complete awareness brings about powerful results.

It sharpens to the finest degree man’s powers of observation.

It induces the deepest calm and insures that nothing is said or done or thought … without
deliberation.

So penetrating and powerful is the sense of awareness that every single, minute activity
of the mind is observed and considered.

Realize total awareness of the true nature of phenomena the way they really are.

The minds of most beings flit about, here and there, and never are steady.

They who have no control over the mind cannot fix steadily on a subject of meditation.

Meditation fixes the flighty-mind through focus and concentration.

Nothing is as it seems because the mind embellishes experience.

Focus on contemplation of the body, of feeling, of the mind and of the mind objects.

After putting away worldly greed and grief, bring the roots of body, feeling, perceptions
and objects of the mind out into the light and examine them closely for attachment and
delusion.

Clearing up the cognitive field is the task of right mindfulness.

To produce mindfulness is not so much a matter of doing as a matter of undoing : not

thinking, not judging, not associating, not planning, not imagining, and not wishing.

All desired objects of body, feeling emotional or wishful thinking are colored by the way
the mind manipulates experience and expectation interferes with reality.

Mindfulness undoes the knots and tangles by simply observing and noting.

Mindfulness does nothing but note, watching each experience as it arises, stands and
passes away.

Observation frees the mind from clinging, from compulsion and from unbridled-desire.

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In the bright light of mindfulness, in the immediacy of observation, attachment
evaporates and delusion vanishes, both burned away by the watchful eye of the mind.

In right mindfulness, there is a sustained contemplation of experience, in its bare

immediacy, precisely and persistently.

The mind observes, free of meanderings, the clear nature of every experience by
separating the original experience from its embellishments.

Examine the material side of existence through contemplation of the body.

Breathing meditation allows us to quiet and calm the mind, so it is in a stable state to
contemplate.

Calming the body function, breathe in; calming the body function, breathe out.

Behold how the body arises; behold how the body passes away.

Mindfulness of breathing tranquilizes and calms the body function.

Mindfulness of breathing is preparatory to achievements of higher states, called the

absorptions (Jhana states), and preparatory to the development of insight wisdom.

Insight wisdom makes the disciple realize, he is not the body, he is contemplating, and
the personality which he thought was contemplating does not really exist.

Eventually, he realizes there is a mental process outside the self, which brings him closer
to an understanding of non-ego.

There is no real self who is standing, sitting and lying.

An action of the body is devoid of an actual ego-entity.

Bending, stretching, eating, drinking, chewing, tasting, passing urine, and discharging
excrement are impersonal bodily functions devoid of ego-entity.

Contemplation of the body from the top of the hair to the tip of the toes reveals a sack of
skin stretched over a frame filled with impurities … sinews, marrow, kidneys, heart,
liver, diaphragm, spleen, lymph, tears, skin oils, saliva mucus, urine and so on, which
frees us of the delusion that the body is attractive.

Contemplation of the loathsomeness of the human body helps us to counter infatuation

with the body and sexual desire.

Dissect the parts of the body with the mind, the way a butcher would cut away the organs
and the heart, and set them apart.

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The body is not a material entity with an existence of its own; it is a compilation of the
four elements: solid, gas, heat and liquid.

Free yourself from the illusion that you will never die by imaging your own corpse
thrown on a charnel ground, one, two, three days dead, swollen-up, blue black in color,
full of corruption and decay.

You are not infallible; you are the opposite.

Explode false illusions which keep a tenacious hold on the mind.

Contemplate feeling as it arises and passes away and how the mind is disposed when it
encounters an object of experience.

When a pleasant feeling arises, it may have its origin in greed and desire.

An unpleasant feeling may have its root in fear, hate or aversion.

Neutral or indifferent feelings may arise out of dullness of mind or delusion.

Look at experience, and cut off the root of unwholesome intent, as it begins to rise and
interact with feeling.

If we just allow the mind to play, uncontrolled defilements will color experience.

Watch an experience as it arises and as it passes away; catch unwanted Karma and defuse
attachment, aversion or indifference.

Through mindfulness, we can turn experience back into a bare mental event, shorn of
subjective interplay.

Let the flow of events arise and dissolve without being subjective.

When the wholesome root of feeling loses its hold on events, the events lose their sense
of permanence and become part of the stream of impermanent flux.

Non-involvement means detachment from a sense of permanence.

In contemplation of mind, the disciple knows that the greedy mind is being greedy; he
knows that the hating-mind is hateful; that the deluded mind is deluded; the cramped
mind is cramped; the scattered mind is scattered; and the undeveloped mind is
undeveloped; the un-concentrated mind is un-concentrated.

In concentration of the mind, the disciple knows when the action of the mind is not
greedy or hateful, not deluded or cramped and not scattered and undeveloped.

In contemplation of the mind, the disciple observes how the surpass-able mind is surpass-
able, the concentrated mind is concentrated, and the freed mind is freed.
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The disciple knows that mind means ‘consciousnesses’ rather than thinking as an
enduring separable entity.

The mind is a sequence of momentary mental acts unconnected to a sense of self or

belonging to self.

Mind is a bare state of consciousness free of subjective association.

As meditation practice deepens, the observer becomes more and more detached until
there is only detached-mind.

As meditation practice deepens, the unwholesome roots of greed, aversion, and delusion
become less-capable of interacting in consciousness.

As meditation practice deepens, the mind becomes less-cramped and scattered, and more-
developed and concentrated, more-and-more free, and more-and-more pure.

As contemplation deepens, the contents of the mind become more and more purified and
rarified.

Irrelevant flights of fancy, imagination and emotion gradually subside, and the mind
becomes clearer, and more intently aware, watching its own process of becoming.
The seeming, solid, stable mind dissolves into a consciousness of a series or sequence of
perceptions in the mind (Cittas) flashing in and out of being, moment by moment, coming
from nowhere and going nowhere, yet continuing in sequence without pause.

Contemplation of the mind objects focuses on the five hindrances of lust, anger, torpor or
sloth, mental worry and restlessness and, finally, doubt.

Mind objects mean the bare facts of events colored by lust, anger, sloth, restlessness and
doubt.

The disciple dwells in contemplation of the mind objects, the five hindrances.

He knows when there is lust in him; he knows when there is anger, knows when there is
torpor or sloth, knows when there is restlessness and mental worry, and knows when
there are doubts.

He knows when the mind is free of the five hindrances : he knows when the mind is free
of lust, anger, sloth, worry and doubt.

He knows how they arise, and he knows how they are overcome.

He knows how they do not rise again in the future.

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The five hindrances may be overcome through the antidote of the seven factors of
enlightenment: mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration and
equanimity.

Through mindfulness, we block unwholesome arisen states through concentration and

bring the mind to one-pointed-ness and balance.

Right mindfulness means maintaining clarity and balance so the mind can concentrate
purely on the path.

The disciple is mindful of how unwholesome states arise and pass away, of how
consciousness arises and passes away, how investigation arises and passes away, how
energy, rapture and restlessness come into play and pass away, how tranquility and
concentration come into play and pass away, how one can continue on the path, and how
one can be hindered.

The disciple contemplates how the mind objects arise and pass away and lives in
independence, unattached to this world, entering the path and realization of Nirvana.

The Buddha only points out the steps in the path; no one can take these steps for you.

It behooves the disciple to have a good teacher, to guide him on the path, to keep him
from going astray through ignorance and delusion.

This is why disciples take refuge in the Buddha, the Monk-hood (Sangha), and the
Dharma : the Holy Triple Gem.

Joining the monk-hood is not the only way. Instances have been recorded of laymen
achieving Nirvana.

Right Concentration

Right concentration ensures one-pointed-ness of mind.

It is the ability to focus one’s mind, steadily, on any one object only, to the exclusion of
others.

Long-continued practice of mental concentration makes the mind highly penetrative.

It becomes like a high-powered light which can illuminate any object on which it is
focused.

Now, this concentration of the mind, like virtue, is not an end in itself.

The purpose of developing this is concentration (Samadhi) to make use of its penetrative
power, to understand existence and, thereby, realize the highest wisdom.

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We come now to wisdom, in which state this highly concentrated mind, abiding in calm
concentration (Samadhi) is made to focus its attention on the three great characteristics of
existence, namely impermanence, suffering and egoless-ness, the mind is able to see
things as they are.

The result is the dawning of the highest understanding, which is the first factor of the
eightfold path, through which, when perfected, one is able to see reality.

This realization coincides with the cessation of craving and the attainment of Nirvana.

What now is right concentration? Having the mind fixed to a single object. This is
concentration.

There are different levels of one-pointed-ness.

Just being able to concentrate on one object to the exclusion of all others is not enough.

One-pointed-ness alone is not enough and is not an end in itself.

Right concentration must be directed to higher purposes and right understanding, so the
disciple should avoid concentration on the body or other unwholesome states.

One has to transcend the level of worldly states and concentrate on an object in a manner
that causes holy states to arise.

Right concentration reflects the culmination of all the achievements of the factors of the
eightfold path working simultaneously to obtain the right point of one-mindedness.

This understanding leads to the achievement of new mental states beyond those already
experienced.

Right concentration looks back upon right understanding, right effort, right intention and
right mindfulness.

Right concentration reflects on the four foundations of mindfulness : contemplation of the

body, contemplation of feeling, contemplation of mind, and contemplation of mind
objects.

Right concentration requires the four great efforts :

First, abandon unwholesome states before they arise by blocking the five hindrances of
sensual desire, ill-will, drowsiness, restless worry and doubt.

Second, right concentration requires the disciple to abandon unwholesome arisen states
through concentration on the impermanence of life, deterioration of the body, loving
kindness, compassion, breathing meditation, investigative analysis, and other meditation
forms suggested by the Buddha.

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Third, right concentration requires the arising of wholesome states of the mind through
the seven steps to enlightenment : mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, tranquility,
concentration and equanimity.

Fourth, right concentration means maintaining wholesome states once they have arisen
through illuminating the four noble truths : the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering,
the extinction of suffering, and the Middle Way.

Right concentration, then, looks forward to a realization through right mindfulness, of the
impermanence of the moment, the fleeting nature of existence, the transitory nature of
being, the vanity of grasping, the illusory nature of consciousness, freedom from the
delusion of self, deliverance from worldly desire, detached concentration, rapture,
tranquility, and equanimity.

Accompanying detached observation, watching the play of events, after extended

practice, the disciple comes to learn about two methods of concentration :

In the first one, insight meditation, he does not deliberately attempt to exclude the
multiplicity of phenomena from his field of attention.

Instead, he directs mindfulness to the changing states of the mind and body, noting any
phenomenon that presents itself.

The task of insight meditation is to maintain a conscious awareness of whatever enters

the range of perception, clinging to nothing.

Upon continuance of the noting of events of the mind, concentration becomes stronger,
moment after moment, until it becomes established one-pointedly on the constant stream
of events.

When insight meditation is accomplished sufficiently, it leads to a breakthrough to the

final stage of the path to freedom, insight and wisdom.

The second method of concentration is called tranquility meditation, in which the disciple
concentrates firmly on one object, presumably an object given him by his teacher.

In tranquility meditation, the disciple focuses his mind on the object and tries to keep it
there, fixed and alert.

If the mind strays, he notices this, and quickly catches the mind and brings it back, firmly
but gently, to the object, doing this over and over as often as necessary.

This is called the initial application of tranquility meditation.

Next, sustained concentration anchors the attention on the object and holds it there until
the disciple, begins to experience rapture, delight and joy and happiness, culminating in
one-pointed-ness.

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As one continues to meditate, these factors combine, complement one another, and pick
up power to steer the mind to mental states called absorptions, which are beyond the
reach of the five-fold sense activity.

The mental states called absorptions can only be attained in solitude through unremitting
perseverance.

In these states, all activity of the five senses is suspended.

No visual or audible impressions arise at this time.

No bodily feeling is felt, but although all other senses have ceased, the mind remains
active, perfectly alert, and fully awake.

The term ‘absorption’ is sometimes improperly translated as ‘trance,’ but this rendering
may be vague and misleading, and Pali scholars call the four absorptions the ‘Jhana’
states.

Detached from sensual objects, detached from evil things, the disciple enters the first
absorption, which is accompanied by thought concentration and discursive thinking,
which is born of detachment and filled with rapture and happiness.

The first absorption is attained when, through strength of concentration, the fivefold
sense activity is temporarily suspended, and the five senses are likewise eliminated.

The first absorption is free from five things and five things are present.

When the disciple enters the first absorption, there have vanished the five hindrances of
lust, ill-will, torpor and sloth, restlessness, mental worry and doubts; and there are present
concentration of thought, discursive thinking, rapture, happiness and concentration.

And further, after subsiding of thought concentration and discursive thinking, and, by the
gaining of inner-tranquility and oneness of mind, he enters into a state free from thought
concentration and discursive thinking, the second absorption, which is born of
concentration and filled with rapture and happiness.

And further, after the doing away of rapture, he dwells in equanimity, mindful, with clear
awareness; and he experiences in his own person, that feeling of which the noble say,
‘happy is he who dwells in equanimity and mindfulness.’ Thus, he enters into the third
absorption.

The four immaterial absorptions which are based on the fourth absorption are produced
by meditating on their respective objects from which they derive their names, which are
sphere of unbounded space, of unbounded consciousness, nothingness and neither
perception nor non-perception.

These absorptions, reached by the path of serenity meditation, as exalted as they are, still
lack the wisdom of insight and, so, are not sufficient for gaining deliverance.
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Tranquility concentration does not guarantee freedom from unwholesome states and does
not lead as a matter of course to a sort of breakthrough that can be expected in insight
meditation.

The way to wisdom is fulfillment of the eightfold path through understanding and right
intention, making a final effort to overcome the root of suffering.

The way to wisdom, the goal of the mind, is to find its resolution in the opposite extreme
of the body, the root of worldly Karma.

It means a final realization of the significance of the four noble truths, realizing the path
to freedom from suffering, breaking the final shackles of desire; it means bringing about
the extinction of suffering and letting go of the world to be free to enter Nirvana.

The root of suffering is a simple, obvious and powerful truth, but the understanding the
root is one thing and eradicating it is quite another.

The problem is that the source of the affliction is latent and dormant, and we can’t get at
it, if we don’t know about it.

Evenly highly-developed and very advanced disciples can have hidden remnants of desire
below the level of awareness which hold them back from making the final step to
freedom.

Ignorance of deep-seated powers that dominate volition can hold back even the most
strong and gifted.

Ignorance distorts perception and causes delusion; thus the disciple, in spite of his good
intentions, seeks permanence in the impermanent, self in the selfless and gets a distorted
view of reality which hinders his progress on the path to reality.

In spite of knowing better, he unconsciously perceives himself as a self-contained ego

which has the innate right to pleasure.

Wisdom is the antidote to ignorance and delusion because the most pernicious of
cognitive distortions is a sense of permanent self that craves permanent pleasures in a
permanent world.

The solution is to focus on the burning light of concentration on illuminating the

desultory nature of cognitive perception.

Trapped in a dichotomy where the mind has the volition to go in one direction, but the
innate tendency to take the path of least resistance, force it, through intense effort, to go
the other way : to go against the stream.

Wisdom centers on development insight : a deep and comprehensive seeing into the
nature of existence.
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This necessitated discursive thought and analysis of the true nature of being, getting at
the true nature of existence before it is defiled by unconscious intentions through the
power of the light of the mind to reduce an experience to the bare fact, without subjective
involvement.

Eventually, if the disciple pushes investigation to its end, he will discover that there is no
reality, no independent self observing. There is only the bare fact of arising.

Similarly, he will discover there are no permanent facts of existence to grasp onto for
pleasure or for any other reason.

The antidote to the dissatisfaction connected to the idea of permanence, pleasure and self
is through insight meditation to observe or concentrate upon impermanence,
unsatisfactory-ness and selflessness.

The objects of perception are mere strings of momentary sensations, bubbles, about ready
pop, that can’t be grasped.

The stream of mental events is made up of images that are constantly breaking up.

Unsatisfactory-ness means that nothing lasts; there is nothing to hang onto that will give
you lasting pleasure.

Selflessness means that if we are not the owners of the perceptions which we try to grasp
and hold, the very idea of self is just such a transitory perception.

When the course of insight practice is entered, the eight path factors become charged
with a previously unknown intensity.

They gain force and fuse together into the unity of a single cohesive path heading
towards the goal.

The factors of the concentration group keep the mind firmly-fixed upon the stream of
phenomena.

As the wisdom of insight deepens, right understanding deepens and right intentions
intensify in an effort to penetrate the world of arising events.

This stage is called the mundane path.

The mundane path contemplates the events of a conditional world.

When insight meditation pushes beyond the mundane world, it enters the supra-mundane
paths, which mean contemplation and realization of unconditional levels.

The supra-mundane truths of impermanence, unsatisfactory-ness and selflessness are the

antidote to the inherent defilements of the mundane path.
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The mind breaks through worldly delusions and realizes that the opposite of the natural
inclinations of the mind represent the truths of nature.

The supra-mundane path frees the mind from the root of delusion about permanence and
self and brings the mind to the point where it is finally ready to comprehend the four
noble truths, the starting point and the culmination of the Buddha’s teaching.

The mind sees the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering and, then, the way to the
extinction of suffering, through the middle way and the noble eightfold path.

When all the factors of the path are functioning without hindrance, the mind works with
powerful intensity, through right understanding and right intention to focus on the
attainment of Nirvana.

When the supra-mundane paths are entered, the extinction of the latent tendencies to
defilements is explicit.

Theravada teaching classifies such fetters as follows : personality view, doubt, clinging to
rites and rituals, sensual desire, aversion, desire for fine material existence, conceit,
restlessness and ignorance.

The four supra-mundane paths eliminate certain layers of defilement.

The first supra-mundane path which is called stream entry strikes at the roots of the first
three fetters.

First, personality view is cut off when one begins to see that a permanent self is illusory.

Second, doubt is eliminated when, through a sense of accomplishment, one gains firm
confidence in pursuit of the path.

Third, clinging to rules and rites is abandoned, when one realizes that the truth is not
imposed through outside conventions, but must come from within.

The second stage, which is called the path of the once-returner, does not eradicate the
defilements entirely but greatly reduces the roots.

In this stage, the practitioner reaps the fruit of stream entry, enjoying a sense of peaceful
bliss which accompanies momentary release from the first three fetters, giving a glimpse
or insight into Nirvana before the mind sinks back into defilement.

The disciple who has experienced this first fruit can never turn back.

He may have to be reborn to do it, but he will eventually overcome these impurities.

He has acquired the essential realization needed to achieve Nirvana, and there will be no
turning him back from that ultimate goal.
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The third stage is the path of the non-returner, in which the disciple cuts off the roots of
the fourth and fifth fetters of sensual desire and ill-will.

Never again will he feel the need to be reborn in a human state of existence; instead, he
will be reborn in a higher state in a ‘fine material world’ and there attain deliverance.

The fourth state is the path of Enlightenment (Arahantship) in which the aspirant cuts off
the five remaining fetters :

Which are desire for a fine material existence, immaterial existence, and the bonds of
conceit, restlessness and ignorance.

He has practiced the eightfold path and followed it to full fruition.

Endowed with its eight factors, in full perfection, he lives in the enjoyment of their fruits,
enlightenment and final deliverance.

He is free from all bondage in the round of all rounds of existence (Samsara.).

Fulfillment of the path is transcending and going beyond the need for it.

The understanding of the relaxation of endeavor is knowledge of fruition.

The path performs the task of breaking up defilements which leads, when this demanding
exertion subsides, to the bliss of Nirvana.

The higher reaches of the path might seem remote from our present standing and the
demands of the practice hard to fulfill, but the only requirements for reaching the goal are
two : to start and to continue.

Talking about the final stages of the path is as difficult as navigating uncharted waters.

Talking about the higher states is unsuitable material for teaching, as they must be
experienced rather than thought about or discussed, and therein the lies the answer.

The aspirant must practice the factors of the path, step-by-step, stage-by-stage, through
gradual practice, through gradual progress, until he begins to reap the fruit of his efforts.

Experience of the higher states will come, even if progress seems slow and the need for
effort seems relentless.

Progress in the path is like rubbing two sticks together to make fire.

If you stop for a rest, you’ll lose most of the progress you’ve made and have to start-
over, but if you continue, in an unrelenting manner, you will eventually succeed.

Start and continue and you will see where the effort leads.
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The eightfold path starts with right understanding of suffering and the origins and
cessation of suffering and the middle way leading to the cessation of suffering.

It continues through right intentions of renunciation of unwholesome intentions and

wholesome intentions of good will and harmlessness, abstaining from false, slanderous,
harsh, idle speech, abstaining from taking life, stealing, sexual misconduct, and
abstaining from earning one’s livelihood by unwholesome means.

It continues through right action, into right effort and abandoning the defilements
developing and maintaining wholesome states, with the help of right mindfulness,
contemplation of the body, the feelings, the mind, and the objects of perception of the
mind, so the aspirant achieves right concentration, passing through the stages of Jhana
and the four supra-mundane states directed towards the final deliverance from the rounds
of existence (Samsara) and release into a state of Nirvana.

It is difficult to conceive of something more difficult than continued and unrelenting

adherence to the path.

Just rubbing two sticks together to make a fire is mere child’s play by comparison.

A more appropriate analogy would be to say that following the path is like trying to put
out a fire that has spread everywhere and seems to be out of control.

It is harder to put out such a fire than it is to start one, yet that is what Buddhist practice
concentrates upon, blowing out the fire of desire, little-by-little, bit-by-bit, until the last
flicker disappears bringing release and the achievement of Nirvana.

Start and continue, and you will see where the effort leads.

Practice of the eightfold path is strict and rigorous, grasping the discipline of the path,
and going at it with unrelenting vigor, hanging on hard, with a determination that is
extreme; on the other hand, however, it is good to be reminded that the perception of the
opposite of every extreme helps to bring perspective into balance.

One cannot achieve Nirvana while in a state of stress.

Thus the aspirant will realize that, having followed the rigors of the path of fruition, he
must finally let go.

It’s a paradox, but in the resolution of that paradox is the answer.

The aspirant will only be able to achieve Nirvana when he learns to let go.

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The English text above is based wholly upon the translations and commentaries of
original Pali texts, rendered into English by Theravada monks and scholars, and printed
and distributed by the Buddhist Publication Society (BPS) in Sri Lanka.
Some such sources are follow :

Bodhi, Bhikkhu. The Noble Eightfold Path. Kandy : BPS, 1984.

Ledi Seyadaw. The Noble Eightfold Path and its Factors Explained. Kandy : BPS, 1977.

Malalaskera, G. P. 2500 Years of Buddhism. Columbo : Lanka Buddha Mandalaya,

(no date)

Nanamoli, Bhikkhu, The Path of Purification (Vissuddhi Magga). Kandy : BPS, 1975.

Narada, Mathathera. The Buddha and his Teachings. Kandy : BPS, 1980.

Nyanaponik, Mahathera. The Road to Inner Freedom. Kandy : BPS, 1982.

……………………….. The Heart of Buddhist Meditation. London : Rider, 1983.

Nyanatiloka, Mahathera. The World of the Buddha. Kandy, BPS, 1967.

* Note: Original Pali spellings of words such as “Dhamma,” “Kamma” and Nibbana,”
that may look strange to occidental eyes, have been substituted with “Dharma, Karma
and Nirvana,” which will be more familiar to a wider, English-speaking audience.

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