Echoes

To find yourself, think for yourself.

And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?

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

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In stopping to think through the meaning of what I have learned, there is much that I believe intensely, much I am unsure of. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss whatever insults your own soul.

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.

Withdraw into yourself as much as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Without, everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.

Do not go by revelation; Do not go by tradition; Do not go by hearsay; Do not go on the authority of sacred texts; Do not go on the grounds of pure logic; Do not go by a view that seems rational; Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances; Do not go along with a considered view because you agree with it; Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent; Do not go along because "the recluse is our teacher." Kalamas, when you yourselves know: These things are unwholesome, these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; and when undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them... Kalamas, when you know for yourselves: These are wholesome; these things are not blameworthy; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness, having undertaken them, abide in them.

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

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

The way to find out about our place in the universe is by examining the universe and by examining ourselves—without preconceptions, with as unbiased a mind as we can muster. We cannot begin with an entirely clean slate, since we arrive at this problem with predispositions of hereditary and environmental origin; but, after understanding such built-in biases, is it not possible to pry insights from nature?

You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate.

My life is my message.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.