Unfolded by the water are the faces of the flowers.

If you feel pain, you're alive. If you feel other people's pain, you're a human being.

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that setbacks and griefs which endure help us in our march forward.

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.

One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.

At the end of the day, we can endure more than we think we can.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one is useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity.

There is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.

Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within solitude of his own heart.

I love people. I love my family, my children… but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.

I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.

If you have no time for prayer and meditation, you will have lots of time for sickness and trouble.

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.

Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.

The knowledge and skills you have achieved are meant to be forgotten so you can float comfortably in emptiness, without obstruction.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.

Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.