Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

Don't tell me women are not the stuff of heroes... My body will not allow me to mingle with the men but my heart is far braver than that of a man.

Everything is naturally perfect just as it is, completely pure and undefiled. All phenomena naturally appear in their uniquely correct modes and situation, forming ever-changing patterns full of meaning and significance, like participants in a great dance… The everyday practice is just ordinary life itself.”

For a truly religious man nothing is tragic.

For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are… To ask is to break the spell.

History is not, after all, what really happened (no one can know; it’s gone), but only what we believe happened.

I didn't know that being religious meant health and cheerfulness.

I liked all the people. I just didn’t like their lifestyle. And I was against the drugs.

I think of my own opinions as being superficial... I keep them in watertight compartments... but as for my dreams and my stories, they should be allowed their full freedom

I think where people tend to end up results from a combination of encouragement, accident, and lucky break… So it's all about trying to find the best fit between your talents and what the world can offer at that point in time.

I try my best to be just like I am but everybody wants you to be just like them... I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more

If a person tells me he has been to the worst places, I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud.

If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know (Gospel of Paul - Corinthians).

If it had been a question of choosing a spiritual guide, a guru, surely I would have chosen Zorba... from Zorba's elderly breast a laugh spurted and demolished all the barriers—morality, religion, homeland—which that wretched poltroon, man, has erected around him in order to hobble with full security through his miserable smidgen of life.

If religion no longer gives birth to civil wars, it is to philosophy alone that we are indebted... Without philosophy, we would be little above the animals.

If you go to a shop and the shopkeeper cheats you and you go back and let him cheat you again, that doesn’t seem to be a very healthy thing to do for others – only a self-indulgent way of thinking that you are creating a compassionate situation when in fact you are feeding the other person’s aggression.

If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.

it ended apparently in the triumph of chastity. Love was suppressed, held in darkness and chains, by fear, conventionality, aversion, or a tremulous yearning to be pure.... But this triumph of chastity was only an apparent, a pyrrhic victory.

It is best to erase all personal history… How can I know who I am, when I am all this?

It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.