Quotes from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.

This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.


Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. ... Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Seek and see all the marvels around you. You will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else. - Don Juan”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow, you must not stay with it under any circumstances.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“I had been experiencing brief flashes of disassociation, or shallow states of non-ordinary reality.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Añadió que nada en este mundo era un regalo: todo cuanto hubiera que aprender debía aprenderse por el camino difícil.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“No tienes que hacer nada para caer bien o mal. O te acepta o te tira de lado.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions....

Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“- Birds fly like birds and a man who has taken the devil's weed flies as such.
- As birds do?
- No, he flies as a man who has taken the weed.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Solo allora saprai che qualsiasi strada è solo una strada, e che non c'è nessun affronto, a se stessi o agli altri, nel lasciarla andare se questo è ciò che il tuo cuore ti dice di fare. Ma il tuo desiderio di insistere sulla strada o di abbandonarla deve essere libero dalla paura e dall'ambizione. Ti avverto. Guarda ogni strada attentamente e deliberatamente. Mettila alla prova tutte le volte che lo ritieni necessario. Quindi poni a te stesso, e a te stesso soltanto, una domanda. Questa è una domanda posta solo da un uomo molto vecchio. Il mio benefattore me l'ha detta una volta quando ero giovane, e il mio sangue era troppo vigoroso perché la comprendessi. Ora la comprendo. Ti dirò cosa è: questa strada ha un cuore? Tutte le strade sono uguali; non portano da nessuna parte. Sono strade che passano attraverso la boscaglia o che vanno nella boscaglia. Nella mia vita posso dire di aver percorso strade lunghe, molto lunghe, ma io non sono da nessuna parte. La domanda del mio benefattore ha adesso un significato. Questa strada ha un cuore? Se lo ha, la strada è buona. Se non lo ha, non serve a niente. Entrambe le strade non portano da nessuna parte; ma una ha un cuore e l'altra no. Una porta a un viaggio lieto; finché la segui sei una sola cosa con essa. L'altra ti farà maledire la tua vita. Una ti rende forte. L'altra ti indebolisce.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless?”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“هرگاه انسان خودش را آماده ی یادگیری کند مجبور است سخت تلاش کند و محدودیت های یادگیری او توسط خود او معین می شوند .”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“تو وقتی از مردم عصبانی می شوی که احساس کنی عملشان مهم است .v”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“مرد دانا کسی است که سختی یادگیری را صادقانه و براستی دنبال کرده باشد. مردی که بی شتاب و شبهه و تا آنجا که در توانایی داشته به دنبال رموز قدرت و دانش رفته است .”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“تو همیشه باید به یاد داشته باشی که مسیر فقط مسیر است اگر حس کنی که نباید آن را بپیمایی تحت هیچ شرایطی نباید با آن بمانی.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“The journey by itself was sufficient; any hope of arriving at a permanent position was outside the boundaries of his knowledge.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“I asked him if there was a way in which he could accept just my desire to learn, as if I were an Indian.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“¡la claridad! Esa claridad de mente, tan difícil de obtener, dispersa el miedo, pero también ciega.
"Fuerza al hombre a no dudar nunca de sí. Le da la seguridad de que puede hacer cuanto se le antoje, porque todo lo ve con claridad. Y tiene valor porque tiene claridad, y no se detiene en nada porque tiene claridad. Pero todo eso es un error; es como si viera algo claro pero incompleto. Si el hombre se rinde a esa ilusión de poder, ha sucumbido a su segundo enemigo y será torpe para aprender. Se apurará cuando debía ser paciente, o será paciente cuando debería apurarse. Y tonteará con el aprendizaje, hasta que termine incapaz de aprender nada más.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

“Poco sabía yo en ese tiempo que don Juan no me estaba dando solamente una descripción intelectual atractiva; me estaba describiendo algo que él llamaba un hecho energético. Para él, los hechos energéticos eran las conclusiones a las que él y los otros chamanes de su linaje llegaron a involucrarse en una función que llamaban ver: el acto de percibir energía directamente como fluye del universo.”
― Carlos Castaneda, quote from The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

About the author

Popular quotes

“There is nothing more lonely than an action taken quietly on your own, and nothing more comforting than doing that same quiet action in parallel with fellow humans doing the same action, everyone alone next to each other.”
― Joseph Fink, quote from Welcome to Night Vale

“I — I mean," Kate stumbled on, "that with us there is a time past and time present, and time future, and with your gods perhaps there is time forever; but God in Himself has the whole of it, all times at once. It would be true to say that He came into our world and died here, in a time and a place; but it would also be true to say that in His eternity it is always That Place and That Time — here — and at this moment — and the power He had then, He can give to us now, as much as He did to those who saw and touched Him when He was alive on the earth.”
― Elizabeth Marie Pope, quote from The Perilous Gard

“Warren Jeffs is both a problem and the symptom of a problem. The FLDS has created a lot of Warrens, men who are intoxicated with their own power, believing they need at least three wives to get into heaven and wanting to dominate women and children. Generation after generation of believers have been conditioned to equate obedience with salvation. People who have never been taught of allowed to think for themselves don't suddenly change. Change it too frightening. ”
― Carolyn Jessop, quote from Escape

“If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“Phaethon asked: “Do you think there is something wrong with the Sophotechs? We are Manorials, father! We let Rhadamanthus control our finances and property, umpire our disputes, teach our children, design our thoughtscapes, and even play matchmaker to find us wives and husbands!”

“Son, the Sophotechs may be sufficient to advise the Parliament on laws and rules. Laws are a matter of logic and common sense. Specially designed human-thinking versions, like Rhadamanthus, can tell us how to fulfill our desires and balance our account books. Those are questions of strategy, of efficient allocation of resources and time. But the Sophotechs, they cannot choose our desires for us. They cannot guide our culture, our values, our tastes. That is a question of the spirit.”

“Then what would you have us do? Would you change our laws?”

“Our mores, not our laws. There are many things which are repugnant, deadly to the spirit, and self-destructive, but which law should not forbid. Addiction, self-delusion, self-destruction, slander, perversion, love of ugliness. How can we discourage such things without the use of force? It was in response to this need that the College of Hortators evolved. Peacefully, by means of boycotts, public protests, denouncements, and shunnings, our society can maintain her sanity against the dangers to our spirit, to our humanity, to which such unboundried liberty, and such potent technology, exposes us.”

(...) But Phaethon certainly did not want to hear a lecture, not today. “Why are you telling me all this? What is the point?”

“Phaethon, I will let you pass through those doors, and, once through, you will have at your command all the powers and perquisites I myself possess. The point of my story is simple. The paradox of liberty of which you spoke before applies to our entire society. We cannot be free without being free to harm ourselves. Advances in technology can remove physical dangers from our lives, but, when they do, the spiritual dangers increase. By spiritual danger I mean a danger to your integrity, your decency, your sense of life. Against those dangers I warn you; you can be invulnerable, if you choose, because no spiritual danger can conquer you without your own consent. But, once they have your consent, those dangers are all-powerful, because no outside force can come to your aid. Spiritual dangers are always faced alone. It is for this reason that the Silver-Gray School was formed; it is for this reason that we practice the exercise of self-discipline. Once you pass those doors, my son, you will be one of us, and there will be nothing to restrain you from corruption and self-destruction except yourself.

“You have a bright and fiery soul, Phaethon, a power to do great things; but I fear you may one day unleash such a tempest of fire that you may consume yourself, and all the world around you.”
― quote from The Golden Age

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.