Quotes from Alexandra David-Neel

Nature has a language of its own, or maybe those who have lived long in solitude read in it their own unconscious inner feelings and mysterious foreknowledge.

Very few of us are capable of being Free Thinkers, needing neither to adore nor to insult God, the insult often being an act of faith more profound than adoration.

The wise expect nothing, hope for nothing, thus avoiding all disappointment and anxiety.

Who knows the flower best? - the one who reads about it in a book, or the one who finds it wild on the mountainside?

Why do you pray if you doubt you are heard?

To the one who knows how to look and feel, every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment.

One must be very strong, or very stupid, or completely exhausted to face life with indifference.

There is nothing truly serious in life. All words sound hollow when one listens to them carefully.

The unsuspected is the daily fare of the traveler in Thibet.

"To fashion stars out of dog dung, that is the Great Work. To take a negative experience and, by comparing it to something worse, make it feel good, is the great skill."

Work cannot convey the almost voluptuous sweetness of the feelings experienced ... in solitude.

As a stoic I must despise injury or, rather, I must not feel it, must not be affected by it so that it cannot violate the freedom of my soul.