All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

All things are good and acceptable. That is why all things – a blade of grass or a hundred-foot pine, a leper or a legendary beauty, a national hero or a traitor – are equal in the Tao.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

All works which come from within us are spontaneous… pleasant, whereas all those works which arise due to an external cause are constraining and enslaving. If these works did not arise due to something outside us they would not happen at all, and therefore they are constraining, enslaving and bitter.

Although we live today, we can understand the distant past. We can understand without going outside. If we don’t understand, going farther only leads us farther astray.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself.

Amazed at the heights of mountains, the ocean’s wideness, the power of nature, and the distance of stars; ourselves we consider not.

Among ten people, three seek life because they hate death, three seek death because they hate life, and three live as if they were dead.

Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident… they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.

An old lady who lives to the east got rich a few years ago. Before poorer than me,now she mocks my poverty. She laughs that I’m behind, I laugh that she’s ahead. It seems we can’t stop laughing from the east and from the west.

And if my thought-dreams could be seen... they'd probably put my head in a guillotine.

And if you can't work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

And once we are free of desire, we must also forget the desire to be free of desire. Serene and at peace, the ruler does nothing, while the world takes care of itself.

And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which irritated me very much. I like my misfortunes to be taken seriously.

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.