Passages worth returning to, drawn from many traditions and held under four foundations. Read slowly, or offer one of your own.
Offer a passageConfine yourself to the present.
Every passage is held under one of four foundations. Follow a foundation to read only its quotations.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
He who sees Me in all, and all in Me, is never lost to Me.
Hatreds never cease by hatred in this world; by love alone they cease.
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Justice means minding one's own business and not being a busybody.
The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior.
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.
Equals should be treated equally, and unequals unequally.
The law is reason unaffected by desire.
The welfare of the people shall be the highest law.
Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.
Let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which most members are poor and miserable.
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher that we expect our dinner.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay, right or justice.
An unjust law is no law at all.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
To thine own self be true.
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Read not to contradict and confute, but to weigh and consider.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.
Look within; within is the fountain of good.
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
Demand not that events should happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do.
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
He who is brave is free.
If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
Yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind.
The mind is restless and hard to restrain, but it is subdued by practice.
Let the motive be in the action, not in the fruits of the action.
The self is the friend of the self for him who has conquered himself.
Mind is the cause of bondage and mind is the cause of liberation.
Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.
Drop by drop is the water pot filled.
The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them.
All men by nature desire to know.
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
I think, therefore I am.
Dare to know: have courage to use your own understanding.
To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.
He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.
From the unreal lead me to the real.
That thou art, O Svetaketu.
Who sees all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings, hates none.
The Self is not known through study, nor through the intellect, nor through much hearing.
I am the Self seated in the hearts of all creatures.
Brahman is real; the world is appearance; the individual self is not other than Brahman.
A man's character is his fate.
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
Thinking and being are the same.
We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing.
Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee.
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.
All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
The Tao does nothing, yet nothing is left undone.
Withdraw into yourself and look.
Rule your mind or it will rule you.
Be still, and know that I am God.
In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Things do not change; we change.
First keep peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
Man is by nature a political animal.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
We are not born for ourselves alone.
The man of virtue is not left to stand alone.
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak.
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
We are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids.
Associate with those who will make a better man of you.
No man is an island, entire of itself.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
I am a man; I consider nothing that is human alien to me.
The great man is he who does not lose his child's-heart.
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.
The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.
Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
Justice is the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due.
No man is free who is not master of himself.
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.
Confine yourself to the present.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophise.
