All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

It's good to be just plain happy; it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how … and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.

Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another's way of life -- so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off!

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.

No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

The American ideal is youth -- handsome, empty youth.

The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.

The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.

To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in.

What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it?

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.