Things can always get worse.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly understood; an inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

You fear what you cannot name.

He could offer her nothing less than himself.

The best things can't be told. The second best are misunderstood.

American zen is running sideways, writing books, lecturing, referring to theology, psychology and whatnot. Someone should stand up and smash the whole thing to pieces.

Yun-Men held up his staff to the assembly and said: "My staff has been transformed into a dragon and it swallowed the universe. Mountains, rivers, the whole Earth - where are they now?"

One day Chao-Chou fell down in the snow and called out, "Help! Help me up!"

A monk came and lay down beside him.

Chao-Chou got up and walked away.

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment

Fleeing in terror, I'd just like to note in passing for those of you who have so far been lucky enough to avoid the experience, generally leaves you both hungry and thirsty. At least that's been the case with me on most occasions, and I've done it frequently enough to qualify as something of am expert on the topic, so I hope you'll take my word for it.

If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.

Tell the Truth and run.

There is nothing like overwhelming fire superiority to give you a sense of self-confidence.

Grown up in an age of security, we shared a yearning for danger, for the experience of the extraordinary. We were enraptured by war. We had set out in a rain of flowers, in a drunken atmosphere of blood and roses. Surely the war had to supply us with what we wanted; the great, the overwhelming, the hallowed experience.

One day Chuang-Tzu and a friend were walking along a riverbank.

"How delightfully the fishes are enjoying themselves in the water!" Chuang-Tzu exclaimed.

"You are not a fish," his friend said. "How do you know whether or not the fishes are enjoying themselves?"

"You are not me," Chuang-Tzu said. "How do you know that I do not know that the fishes are enjoying themselves?"

I am a stag: Of seven tines,
I am a flood: Across a plain,
I am a wind: On a deep lake,
I am a tear: The sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: Above the cliff,
I am a thorn: Beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: Among flowers,
I am a wizard: Who but I
Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

I am a spear: That roars for blood,
I am a salmon: In a pool,
I am a lure: From Paradise,
I am a hill: Where poets walk,
I am a boar: Ruthless and red,
I am a breaker: Threatening doom,
I am a tide: That drags to death,
I am an infant: Who but I
Peeps from the unhewn dolman arch?

I am the womb: Of every holt,
I am the blaze: On every hill,
I am the queen: Of every hive,
I am the shield: For every head,
I am the tomb: Of every hope.

All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean -
In scorn of which I sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom I desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.

It was a virtue not to stay,
To go my headstrong and heroic way
Seeking her out at the volcano's head,
Among pack ice, or where the track had faded
Beyond the cavern of the Seven Sleepers:
Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,
With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips -

Green sap of spring in the young wood a-stir
Will celebrate the Mountain Mother,
And every song-bird shout awhile for her;
But I am gifted, even in November
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of her nakedly worn magnificence
I forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall

Love alone matters.

Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.

De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace.

Boldness, again boldness, and ever boldness.

What canst thou see elsewhere which thou canst not see here? Behold the heaven and the earth and all the elements; for of these are all things created.

You are he who puts together and resolves. You are he who speaks with the light of day. You are he who speaks with terror.

The wizard of the cave of Les Trois Freres does a ritual dance high above a medley of animals of ancient times. His head is crowned with reindeer antlers; his ears are those of the wolf, and his face is bearded like a lion's. He has a horse's tail and bear paws. The wide and startling eyes appear to see not only the creatures gamboling beneath him but through the timeless space separating us from this paleolithic vision.

Your sword has no blade. It has only your intention. When that goes astray you have no weapon.

"There is always just enough time when you do something right, no more, no less."

"The secret of a happy life, Lewis, is to know when to stop and then to go that little bit further."

Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: Why then, should we desire to be deceived?

Do you think that you shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as come to those who passed away before you?

To its accomplishments it lays no claim. It loves and nourishes all things, but does not lord it over them. The Tao, without doing anything, leaves nothing undone.

The Fates lead him who will, him who won't they drag.