Echoes

Instead of announcing that what you are about to tell is interesting, make it so.

The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer intelligence.

Well done is better than well said.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.

The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces; the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

Of a surety, at the Day of Judgment it will be demanded of us, not what we have read, but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.

Deeds, not words.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

I have a perfect horror of words that are not backed up by deeds.

I do not speak the minds of others except to speak my own mind better.

I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good.

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

To achieve style, begin by affecting none.

Learn about pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo.