Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

It was a melancholy secret that reality can arouse desires but never satisfy them.

Desire is the very essence of man.

Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.

Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

I have no desire to make windows into mens souls

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

Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

In the East, all the religions preach egolessness. So in the East, everybody is against the ego from the very beginning.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.

It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.

If we know exactly where we're going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we'll see along the way, we won't learn anything.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.