Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from those rules, is consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.
The business of every art is to bring something into existence, and the practice of an art involves the study of how to bring into existence something which is capable of having such an existence and has its efficient cause in the maker and not in itself.
Truths cannot be acquired from words out of other people's mouths. Before Truths can be internalized, they must come from one's own realizations and practices. Through a lifetime of personal practice, human beings are capable of revealing all of the secrets of the cosmic essence. You are your own best judge.
It's been a hard lesson for me , but contrary quite frankly to what is a common practice in politics, I can tell from my own experience, it is better to stay away from personalities.
The ideal person is he who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude of the desert.
In ancient times, any man rising up above the common people tried to shape his life according to his principles; it is no longer like than now; it is (because) for the ancients, moral was a principle of inner life, whereas in our days, most of the time one is content to adhere to an official moral, that we recognize in theory, but that one does not care to put into practice.
For decades, free nations tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of stability. In practice, this approach brought little stability and much oppression, so I have changed this policy.
Ahimsa is the highest duty. Even if we cannot practice it in full, we must try to understand its spirit and refrain as far as is humanly possible from violence.