"To fashion stars out of dog dung, that is the Great Work. To take a negative experience and, by comparing it to something worse, make it feel good, is the great skill."

One must be very strong, or very stupid, or completely exhausted to face life with indifference.

Very few of us are capable of being Free Thinkers, needing neither to adore nor to insult God, the insult often being an act of faith more profound than adoration.

Who knows the flower best? - the one who reads about it in a book, or the one who finds it wild on the mountainside?

Guard against idols -- yes, guard against all idols, of which surely the greatest is oneself.

The unsuspected is the daily fare of the traveler in Thibet.

Suffering raises up those souls that are truly great; it is only small souls that are made mean-spirited by it.