Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly ofthe storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.
Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.
Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose
he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.
But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life
that one exists for other people.
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life, Before a thousand peering littlenesses, In that fierce light which beats upon a throne, And blackens every blot.
The idea shared by many that life is a vale of tears is just as false as the idea shared by the great majority, the idea to which youth and health and riches incline you, that life is a place of entertainment.
How little can we foresee the consequences either of wise or unwise action, of virtue or of malice. Without this measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
The Master said, A gentleman, in his plans, thinks of the Way; he does not think how he is going to make a living. Even farming sometimes entails 5 times of shortage; and even learning may incidentally lead to high pay. But a gentleman's anxieties concern the progress of the Way; he has no anxiety concerning poverty.