A thought is a screen, not a mirror; that is why you live in a thought envelope, untouched by Reality.

Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. Stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person. We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you.

The master never seemed to have his fill of gazing at his firstborn child. "What do you want him to be when he grows up?" someone asked. "Outrageously happy," said the master.

A prisoner lived in solitary confinement for years. He saw and spoke to no one and his meals were served through an opening in the wall. One day an ant came into his cell. The man contemplated it in fascination as it crawled around the room. He held it in the palm of his hand the better to observe it, gave it a grain or two, and kept it under his tin cup at night. One day it suddenly struck him that it had taken him ten long years of solitary confinement to open his eyes to the loveliness of an ant.

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story.

Live your life as you see fit. That's not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live their lives as you see fit.