Many things are mechanical and should remain mechanical. But mechanical thoughts, mechanical feelings—that is what has to be studied and can and should be changed. Mechanical thinking is not worth a penny. You can think about many things mechanically, but you will get nothing from it.

Think about death. You do not know how much time remains to you. And remember that if you do not become different, everything will be repeated again, all foolish blunders, all silly mistakes, all loss of time and opportunity - everything will be repeated with the exception of the chance you had this time, because chance never comes in the same form.You will have to look for your chance next time. And in order to do this, you will have to remember many things, and how will you remember then if you do not remember anything now?

I felt that on a basis of a "search for the miraculous" it would be possible to unite together a very large number of people who were no longer able to swallow the customary forms of lying and living in lying.

If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no 'friction,' no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole.

People live in sleep, do everything in sleep, and do not know they are asleep.

When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself.

Truths that become old become decrepit and unreliable; sometimes they may be kept going artificially for a certain time, but there is no life in them.