Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen.

One of the disadwantages of school and learning, he thought dreamily, was that the mind seemed to have the tendency too see and represent all things as though they were flat and had only two dimensions. This, somehow, seemed to render all matters of intellect shallow and worthless.

The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation andsecurity. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.

The bourgeois today burns as heretics and hangs as criminals those to whom he erects monuments tomorrow.

All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?

The river taught us how to listen with a silent heart, with a waiting open soul.

. . . gentleness is stronger than severity, water is stronger than rock, love is stronger than force.