“You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.”
“Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.”
“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”
“Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked”
“There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save.”
“I m an insomniac, my mind works the night shift.”
“Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations; The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment... have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own. [Circular to the States, 8 June 1783 - Writings 26:484--89]”
“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”
“Ignorance is hardly unusual, Miss Davar. The longer I live, the more I come to realize that it is the natural state of the human mind. There are many who will strive to defend its sanctity and then expect you to be impressed with their efforts.”
“The mind is just like a muscle - the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand.”
“When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.”
“He shrugs. Doesn t help to waste my time thinking about would ve-beens. Laila whispers, He says to the girl with a mind full of them.”
“It s a thought, I said with a grin. That s exactly what it is, Dan - a thought - no more real than the shadow of a shadow. Consciousness is not In the body; the body is In Consciousness. And you Are that Consciousness - no the phantom mind that troubles you so. You are the body, but you are everything else, too. That is what your visions revealed to you. Only the mind resists change. When you relax mindless into the body, you are happy and content and free, sensing no separation. Immortality is Already yours, but not in the same way you imagined or hope for. You have been immortal since before you were born and will be long after the body dissolves. The body is in Consciousness; never born; never dies; only changes. The mind - your ego, personal beliefs, history, and identity - is all that ends at death. And who needs it? Socrates leaned back into his chair. I m not sure all of that sank in. Of course not. He laughed. Words mean little unless you realize the truth of it yourself. And when you do, you ll be free at last.”
“There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing so obedient as a disciplined mind.”
“...grief can derange even the strongest and most disciplined of minds.”
“Mirrors are perpetually deceitful. They lie and steal your true self. They reveal only what your mind believes it sees”
“When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions - such as merit, such as past, present, and future - our direct, spontaneous experience of the thing itself, in the beauty and precision of this present moment.”