Disparage no book, for it is also a part of the world.
You should be forgiving when others make mistakes, but not when the mistakes are in you. You should be patient under duress yourself, but not when it affects others.
The substance of mind is the substance of heaven. A joyful thought is an auspicious star or a felicitous cloud. An angry thought is a thunderstorm or a violent rain. A kind thought is a gentle breeze or a sweet dew. A stern thought is a fierce sun or an autumn frost. Which of these can be eliminated? Just let them pass away as they arise, open and unresisting, and your mind merges with the spacious sky.
People's shortcomings should be treated with tact; if you expose them crudely, this is attacking weakness with a weakness. When people are stubborn, it requires skill to influence them; if you treat them with anger and spite, this is treating stubbornness with stubbornness.
To notice people's deceptions yet not reveal it in words, to bear people's insults without showing any change of attitude-there is endless meaning in this, and also endless function.
If a poor house is well kept, or a poor girl well groomed, there is elegance if not beauty. If good people should come upon hard times, why should they immediately give up on themselves?
Human affairs are like a chess game. Only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players.
I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things.
Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you don’t learn to control it, it’ll destroy you and everything around you.
It sounded stupid, but of course everything does when you're just getting the bare bones facts, only the basics.
We should all grow our own food and do our own waste processing, we really should.