Desire is poverty. Desire is the greatest impurity of the mind. Desire is the motive force for action. Desire in the mind is the real impurity. Even a spark of desire is a very great evil.

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.

A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.

What a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality.

Nothing is as easy as it looks.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

Desire is the very essence of man.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

I know I am but mortal and so therewhilst prepare myself for death, whensoever it shall please God to send it.

Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.