Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice.
We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent",
in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly".
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.
We intend to continue our practice of working only with people whom we like and admire. This policy not only maximizes our chances for good results, it also ensures us an extraordinarily good time.
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.
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.
Human beings will continue to deceive and overpower one another. Basically, everyone exists in the very nature of suffering, so to abuse or mistreat each other is futile. The foundation of all spiritual practice is love. That you practice this well is my only request.
I don't think I underestimated [Vladimir Putin], but I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age, it is possible for misinformation for cyber hacking and so forth to have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to insinuate themselves into our democratic practices in ways that I think are accelerating.
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.
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.