Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity...No thing is required for this enlightenment.. .except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters.
And the more you become aware of the unknown self - if you become aware of it - the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is.
Meditation is like the cloak of the good thief. You find a corner or somewhere where you can actually entertain your own self and your own soul, and understand what your work [is] here.
How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.
We've gotta restore the American people's confidence in the ethics process by ensuring that political self-interest can no longer prevent politicians from enforcing ethics rules.
The master not only governs the slave without his consent, but he governs him by a set of rules altogether different from those which he prescribes for himself. Allow ALL the governed an
equal voice in the government, and that, and that only, is self-government.
Greed for enlightenment and immortality is no different than greed for material wealth. It is self-centered and dualistic, and thus an obstacle to true attainment. Therefore these states are never achieved by those who covet them; rather, they are the reward of the virtuous.
We ought not to extract pernicious honey from poison blossoms of misrepresentation and mendacious half-truth, to pamper the course appetite of bigotry and self-love.
There are three stages in the revelation of truth. The first is to be ridiculed, the second is to be resisted and the third is to be considered self-evident.
American ladies are known abroad for two distinguishing traits (besides, possibly, their beauty and self-reliance), and these are their ill-health and their extravagant devotion to dress.
There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of idle thoughts. What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought we have either contributes to truth or to illusion.