Quotes About Wisdom

Renunciation is realizing that nostalgia for samsara4 is full of shit.

Dzigar Kongtrül has a sign on the front door of his retreat cabin that reads, "Don't believe everything you think." That's the basic idea here.

Only with equanimity can we see that everything that comes into our circle has come to teach us what we need to know.

When something hurts in life, we don't usually think of it as our path or as the source of wisdom. In fact, we think that the reason we're on the path is to get rid of this painful feeling.

This has been going on through the ages. They criticize the silent ones. They criticize the talkative ones. They criticize the moderate ones. There is no one in the world that escapes criticism. There never was and never will be, nor is there now, the wholly criticized or the wholly approved. Shakyamuni Buddha said that more than twenty-five hundred years ago, but it seems that some things never change.

As Leonard Cohen once said about the benefits of many years of meditation, "The less there was of me, the happier I got.

Buddha nature, cleverly disguised as fear, kicks our ass into being receptive.

In any case, the point is not to try to get rid of thoughts, but rather to see their true nature. Thoughts will run us around in circles if we buy into them, but really they are like dream images. They are like an illusion—not really all that solid. They are, as we say, just thinking.

Anger is the poorest of counselors, and revenge is suicide.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise; Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.

Anger is one of the most intimate of emotions and to expose it to strangers is one of the most stupid and sickening things to do. Never get angry with strangers because they are strangers.

Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.

To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: 'Be angry, but sin not.' 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.'

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

Anger is a certified destroyer, from its birth till now, it is yet to build a lasting legacy

It's my rule never to lose my temper until it would be detrimental to keep it.

Never answer a letter while you are angry.

A man who called everyone a damn fool is like a man who damns the weather. He only shows that he is not adapted to his environment, not that the environment is wrong.

When someone attempts to insult you know that they are inadvertently giving away what would insult them.

Whenever you are angry shut your mouth. So that you can save yourself from loosing the beloved ones.

One example is worth a thousand arguments.

Give no answer to contentious arguments or irresponsible accusations. Let such things "fly out open windows" until they spend themselves.

If you want to stop an argument, close your mouth.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent doctor and saint, and heard great argument about it and about: but evermore came out by the same door as in I went.