When you know better you do better.

Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

Jealousy feeds upon suspicion, and it turns into fury or it ends as soon as we pass from suspicion to certainty.

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life. . . To seek a total unity is wrong. To give as much meaning to one’s life as possible is right to me.

Being aware of a single shortcoming within yourself is far more useful than being aware of a thousand in someone else!

Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen — not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

When civil fury first grew high, and men fell out they knew not why.

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn.

Read, read, read. Never stop reading. And when you can't read anymore… write.

The most crucial use of knowledge and education is to understand the importance of developing a good heart.

Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.

There is no education like adversity.

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

A student is not a container you have to fill, but a torch you have to light up.

Learning is defined as a change in behavior. You haven't learned a thing until you can take action and use it.

Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it continues the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon how our children grow up today.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.