The poorer we are inwardly, the more we try to enrich ourselves outwardly

This achieving the center, being grounded in one’s self, is about the highest state a human being can achieve.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect. 

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

The height of cultivation runs to simplicity. Halfway cultivation runs to ornamentation.

Your mind is the result of a thousand yesterdays.

Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Be a calm beholder of what is happening around you. 

The best techniques are the simple ones executes right.

Time means a lot to me because, you see, I, too, am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing and simplifying. If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Empty your mind. You know how water fills a cup? It becomes that cup. You have to think about nothing. You have to become nothing.

At this moment stop inwardly – when you do stop inwardly, psychologically, your mind becomes very peaceful, very clear. Then you can really look at “this”.

Yesterday’s dreams are often tomorrow’s realities.

Use no way as way. When there is a “Way”, therein lies the limitation. And when there is a circumference, it traps. And if it traps, it rots. And if it rots, it’s lifeless.

I don’t know what is the meaning of death, but I am not afraid to die – and I go on, non-stop, going forward.

Here now, forever more our lives must part. My path leads there and yours another way; I know not where tomorrow’s path may lead, nor what the future holds.

In order to taste my cup of water you must first empty your cup. My friend, drop all of your preconceived fixed ideas and be neutral. Do you know why this cup is so useful? Because it is empty.

The possession of anything begins in the mind.

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Choiceless awareness – do not condemn, do not justify. Awareness works only if it’s allowed free play without interference.

When man comes to a conscious vital realization of those great spiritual forces within himself and begins to use those forces in science, in business, and in life, his progress in the future will be unparalleled.

The happiness that is derived from ordinary life last longer; like coal, it burns gradually and slowly. The happiness that is derived from excitement is like a brilliant fire – soon it will go out.

If anyone still believes in racial differences, I think he is too backward and narrow. Perhaps he still does not understand man’s equality and love.

Prosperity is apt to prevent us from examining our conduct; but adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is beneficial to us.

Simplicity is the last step of art and the beginning of nature.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese star in the world.

It has no shape of its own, yet it can take any shape in which it is placed.

 In a cup, it becomes the shape of the cup. In a vase, it takes the shape of the vase and curls about the stems of flowers. Put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot.

I present a possible direction, nothing more. It is like a finger pointing away to the moon; don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.

You cannot hurt that which is formless. The softest thing cannot be snapped and emptiness cannot be confined.

That of not being tense but ready, not thinking but not dreaming, not being rigidly set but flexible. Aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.

There is another bit of Chinese philosophy that has a bearing on problems common to all human kind. We say, “The oak tree is mighty, yet it will be destroyed by a mighty wind because it resists the elements; the bamboo bends with the wind, and by bending, survives”.

What I honestly value more than anything else is quality: doing one’s best in the manner of the responsibility and craftsmanship of a Number One.

The doer alone learns.

The essence: free movement of spirit.

Nothing exists except the here and now.

Those who gain, lose.

The true stillness is the stillness in movement.

A purpose is the eternal condition of success.

We are told that talent creates is own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

Loneliness is only an opportunity to cut adrift and find yourself. In solitude you are least alone. Make good use of it.

Humility forms the basis of honor, just as the low ground forms the foundation of a high elevation.

Are you a flowing entity, capable to flow with external circumstances, or are you resisting with your set choice pattern?

Art is never decoration or embellishment. Instead it is a constant process of maturing

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.

I’ve always been buffeted by circumstances because I thought of myself as a human being affected by outside conditioning. Now I realize that I am the power that commands the feeling of my mind and from which circumstances grow.

Ideas are the beginning of all achievement – in every industry, in every profession.

It is a fact that labor and thrift produce a competence, but fortune, in the sense of wealth, is the reward of the man who can think of something that hasn’t been thought of before.

Gather materials. Masticate the facts. Relax and drop the whole subject. Be ready to recognize and welcome the idea when it comes. Shape and develop your idea into usefulness.