"If we must fall, we should boldly meet the danger."

"The butterfly counts not days but moments, and has time enough."

"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes."

"If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out."

"A word is worth one coin; silence is worth two."

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control- these three alone lead to sovereign power."

"If we want a love message to be heard, it has to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it."

"We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness."

"I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time- just one, one, one. So you begin. I began- I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand... The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin- one, one, one."

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."

"In wildness is the preservation of life."

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them."

"You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment."

"It is never too late to give up our prejudices."

"I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

"It is the stars not known to science that I would know, the stars which the lonely traveler knows."

"My life has been the poem I would have writ, but I could not both live and utter it."

"What I am I am, and say not. Being is the great explainer."

"Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder."

"Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in."

"As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, a man bears a poem, either spoken or done."

"In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages."

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify."

"Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after."

"In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while."

"Truth is always paradoxical."

"Be true to your work, your word, and your friend."

"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust."

"Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something."

"To be awake is to be alive. I have never met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn."

"It is as hard to see one's self as to look backwards without turning around."

"The buds swell imperceptibly without hurry or confusion, as if the short spring day were an eternity."

"It would imply the regeneration of mankind, if they were to become elevated enough to truly worship sticks and stones."

"The fault finder will find faults even in paradise."

"Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it until it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh."

"Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary."

"Going from- toward; it is the history of every one of us. It is a great art to saunter."

"Life is too short to be in a hurry."

"Surely joy is the condition of life."

"Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each."

"The perception of beauty is a moral test."

"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life."

"There are no conditions to which a man cannot become accustomed."

"Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them."

"If you want to be happy, be."

"Opening to oneself fully is opening to the world."

"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read, and nobody wants to read."

"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."

"Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned."

"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."

"Let us endeavor to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."

"The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself."

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

"A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes."

"We are all alike, on the inside."

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."

"It is everywhere."

"The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present."

"The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by."

"He who knows he is a fool is not the biggest fool; he who knows he is confused is not in the worst confusion."

"I look at the matter in this way; when I am making a pot on a wheel, if my stroke is too slow, then it bites deep but is not steady; if my stroke is too fast, then it is steady, but does not go deep. The right pace, neither slow nor fast, cannot get into the hand unless it comes from the heart."

"When we understand, we are at the center of the circle, and there we sit while Yes and No chase each other around the circumference."

"The True Man of ancient times knew nothing of loving life, knew nothing of hating death. He emerged without delight; he went back in without a fuss. He came briskly, he went briskly, and that was all. He didn't forget where he began; he didn't try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again. This is what I call not using the mind to repel the Way, not using man to help out Heaven. This is what I call the True Man."

"Men cannot see their reflection in running water, but only in still water."

"The universe came into being with us together; with us, all things are one."

"To die and not be lost, is the real blessing of a long life."

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

"Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity."

"Stop thinking, and end your problems."

"Therefore the sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action and practices the teaching that uses no words."

"Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know."

"If you want to know me, look inside your heart."

"The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without even having to fight them."

"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."

"Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?"

"The world is ruled by letting things take their course."

"Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end. You can't know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life."

"People in their handlings of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure."

"He who gains a victory over other men is strong; but he who gains a victory over himself is all powerful."

"True words always seem paradoxical but no other form of teaching can take their place."

"The sage himself never strives for the great, and thereby the great is achieved."

"A truly good man is not aware of his goodness and is therefore good."

"When you look for it, there is nothing to see. When you listen for it, there is nothing to hear. When you use it, it is inexhaustible."

"True words aren't eloquent; eloquent words aren't true. Wise men don't need to prove their point; men who need to prove their point aren't wise."

"True perfection seems imperfect, yet is perfectly itself. True fullness seems empty, yet is fully present."

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them -- that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."

"He who knows speaks not; he who speaks knows not."

"If you want to become whole, let yourself be partial. If you want to become straight, let yourself be crooked. If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If your want to be given everything, give everything up."

"He who knows enough is enough will always have enough."

"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease."

"Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation."

"To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders."

"Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look out at the stars. This practice should answer the question."

"Without leaving my house, I know the whole universe."

"Only one who makes no attempt to possess it cannot lose it."

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."

"Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing, religious robes no more spiritual than work clothes."

"Self is realized through selflessness."