An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree. ‘What, grandfather!’ I exclaimed. ‘Planting an almond tree?’ And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: ‘My son, I carry on as if I should never die.’ I replied: ‘And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute.’ Which of us was right, boss?

Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

the highest point a man can attain is not Knowledge, or Virtue, or Goodness, or Victory, but something even greater, more heroic and more despairing: Sacred Awe!

This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition.

Two equally steep and bold paths may lead to the same peak. To act as if death did not exist, or to act thinking every minute of death, is perhaps the same thing.

Free yourself from one passion to be dominated by another and nobler one. But is not that, too, a form of slavery? To sacrifice oneself to an idea, to a race, to God? Or does it mean that the higher the model, the longer the tether of our slavery?

When shall I at last retire into solitude alone, without companions, without joy and without sorrow, with only the sacred certainty that all is a dream?

All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them!

Trouble? Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble.

Dame Hortense, you remind me of Sarah Bernhardt… when she was young. I didn't expect to find such elegance, such grace and courtesy, such beauty, in this wild place. What Shakespeare was it sent you here amongst the barbarians?

Nowadays I see with my whole being not with my eyes. I sense the natural lines, and my knife slides through by itself… I stand there and let the joy of the work fill me.

When springs dry up, fish find themselves in puddles spraying water on each other to keep each other alive. Better to be in a river or lake and oblivious to one another.

Life and death are nothing to the true people of Tao, nothing can touch them.

To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step.

Abandon your plan… respond to the demands of inner truth… and war will end by itself!

Prisoners to the world of objects, they are pressed down and crushed by fashion, the market, events, public opinion… never do they recover their right mind.

Where would the gardener be if there were no more weeds?

Birth and death, profit and loss, success and failure, health and sickness – the Master maintains his balance... he lets things go through their changes and stays focused on what is real.

The one who thinks he does not know is profound, the one who thinks he knows is shallow.