To be secure everywhere is the mark of sophistication, to be unshakable is the mark of courage, to be permanently in love with every person is the mark of masculinity or femininity, to forgive is the mark of strength, to govern our senses and passions is the mark of freedom.

I have never been able to understand the compelling phrase, 'keeping up with the Joneses.' It does not matter very much whether I keep up with Tom Jones or anybody else; what is important is to keep up with myself by making my today a little better than my yesterday.

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.

Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain are storms in a tiny private, shell-bound realm - which we take to be the whole of existence. Yet we can break out of this shell and enter a new world.

The ancestor of every destructive action, every destructive decision, is a negative thought.

The capacity to be patient, to bear with others through thick and thin, is within the reach of anyone.

Imagine a hot tub for the mind. That is what meditation is; it can bathe your mind in relaxing thoughts.