Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away—an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.

Enlightenment consists not merely in the seeing of luminous shapes and visions, but in making the darkness visible. The latter procedure is more difficult and therefore, unpopular.

Fortunately, in her kindness and patience, Nature has never put the fatal question as to the meaning of their lives into the mouths of most people. And where no one asks, no one needs to answer.

Meaninglessnes s inhibits fullness of life and is therefore the equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable--perh aps everything.

We discover ourselves through others.

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.

The growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement.