143 pages
Rating: (10.2K votes)
“The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe.
The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightening and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny. [ Brihadaranyaka IV.4.5 ]”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“He who sees all beings in his Self and his Self in all beings, he never suffers; because when he sees all creatures within his true Self, then jealousy, grief and hatred vanish.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Fire is His head, the sun and moon His eyes, space His ears, the Vedas His speech, the wind His breath, the universe His heart. From His feet the Earth has originated. Verily, He is the inner self of all beings.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Meditation here is not reflection or any other kind of discursive thinking. It is pure concentration: training the mind to dwell on an interior focus without wandering, until it becomes absorbed in the object of its contemplation. But absorption does not mean unconsciousness. The outside world may be forgotten, but meditation is a state of intense inner wakefulness.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Human beings cannot live without challenge. We cannot live without meaning. Everything ever achieved we owe to this inexplicable urge to reach beyond our grasp, do the impossible, know the unknown. The Upanishads would say this urge is part of our evolutionary heritage, given to us for the ultimate adventure: to discover for certain who we are, what the universe is, and what is the significance of the brief drama of life and death we play out against the backdrop of eternity.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Place this salt in water and bring it here tomorrow morning".
The boy did.
"Where is that salt?" his father asked?
"I do not see it."
"Sip here. How does it taste?"
"Salty, father."
"And here? And there?"
"I taste salt everywhere."
"It is everywhere, though we see it not. Just so, dear one, the Self is everywhere, within all things, although we see it not. There is nothing that does not come from it. It is the truth; it is the Self supreme. You are that, Shvetaketu.
You Are That.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“There is no joy in the finite; there is joy only in the Infinite.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“He who is rich in the knowledge of the Self does not covet external power or possession.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“As long as man is overpowered by the darkness of ignorance, he is the slave of Nature and must accept whatever comes as the fruit of his thoughts and deeds. When he strays into the path of unreality, the Sages declare that he destroys himself; because he who clings to the perishable body and regards it as his true Self must experience death many times.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“The fifth-century Greek writer we know as Dionysius the Areopagite once said that as he grew older and wiser his books got shorter and shorter.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“That which is not comprehended by the mind but by which the mind comprehends—know that...”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Who is better able to know God than I myself, since He resides in my heart and is the very essence of my being? Such should be the attitude of one who is seeking.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“There is enough in the world for everyone’s need; there is not enough for everyone’s greed.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“To darkness are they doomed who worship only the body, and to greater darkness they who worship only the spirit.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“As the sun, revealer of all objects to the seer, is not harmed by the sinful eye, nor by the impurities of the objects it gazes on, so the one Self, dwelling in all, is not touched by the evils of the world. (The Upanishads: Breath of the Eternal, pg. 35)”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“The general teaching of the Upanishads is that works alone, even the highest, can bring only temporary happiness and must inevitably bind a man unless through them he gains knowledge of his real Self.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“As a person acts, so he becomes in life. Those who do good become good; those who do harm become bad. Good deeds make one pure; bad deeds make one impure. You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“God is, in truth, the whole universe: what was, what is and what beyond shall ever be. He is the God of life immortal and of all life that lives by food. His hands and feet are everywhere. He has heads and mouths everywhere. He sees all, He hears all. He is in all, and He Is.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“The desire for liberation arises in human beings at the end of many births, through the ripening of their past virtuous conduct.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“What exactly is the difference between a dream and waking experience? What happens to the sense of “I” in dreamless sleep? And they sought invariants: in the constantly changing flow of human experience, is there anything that remains the same? In the constantly changing flow of thought, is there an observer who remains the same? Is there any thread of continuity, some level of reality higher than waking, in which these states of mind cohere?”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“The sages would say similarly, “Just for the heaven of it.” Just to reach for the highest. Human beings cannot live without challenge. We cannot live without meaning. Everything ever achieved we owe to this inexplicable urge to reach beyond our grasp, do the impossible, know the unknown. The Upanishads would say this urge is part of our evolutionary heritage, given to us for the ultimate adventure: to discover for certain who we are, what the universe is, and what is the significance of the brief drama of life and death we play out against the backdrop of eternity. In haunting words, the Brihadaranyaka declares: You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one,
We come to know all things made out of iron -
That they differ only in name and form,
While the stuff of which all are made is iron -
So through spiritual wisdom, dear one,
We come to know that all of life is one.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Birth is but the beginning of a trajectory to death; for all their love, parents cannot halt it and in a sense have “given us to death” merely by giving us birth.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“materialism leads us to lose awareness of our inner life, which is bad enough; but to be hypnotized by our own feelings and sensations and forget about others and the world around us is worse.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“As by knowing one tool of iron, dear one, we come to know all things made out of iron: that they differ only in name and form, while the stuff of which all are made is iron- so through that spiritual wisdom, dear one, we come to know that ll of life is one.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Only he who has a co-ordinated understanding of both the visible and the invisible, of matter and spirit, of activity and that which is behind activity, conquers Nature and thus overcomes death.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“Not everyone who attains Self-realization can make a reliable guide. I have been saying “he,” but this is not a role for men alone. My own teacher is my mother’s mother.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“What the— Oh hell no. Candice! Open the door!” She pounded her hand against the door. “Candice Marie Jenkins! I am in my pajamas and do not have my purse, cell phone, or keys. Open the damn door! I hear you two laughing!” If I hadn’t been so pissed off at Mason for sending Rachel over here and for her agreeing to it, I’d have been laughing too. “I swear, if you do not unlock this door and let me in, I will go Cali bitch on your asses!” Okay, now I was laughing. The door next to ours opened and a middle-aged man looked between Rachel and me. He had his cell in his hand like he couldn’t decide if he was going to call the cops or not. “I will cut you!” Rachel swore and continued beating on the door; my neighbor looked at his phone and I groaned. Pushing away from the wall, I took the few steps over to Rachel, grabbed around her waist, and pulled her back with me. “Let me go, Kash. Candice! Open the door!” “Calm down, you’re freaking the neighbors out.” “I don’t care! I do not want to be locked out of my apartment so I’m forced to spend time with you! You’re rude, did you know that?” I couldn’t help but laugh at her. “I’m rude? If you hate me so much, you should have never agreed to come ‘help’ me.” I nodded and gave a reassuring smile to the now-confused-looking neighbor before walking us into my apartment and releasing her. “Excuse me for trying to be nice! That’s what people do, they help people, especially when they’re new to the— Holy crap, where’s all your stuff?” She looked around at our living room, which was mostly bare save for the two boxes Mason brought. “We—” “Is this what Mason was talking about? He said I’d know it when I saw it.” Wait. What? “What are you talking about?” “Mason said you needed me for something in here. I asked him what that something was, and he said as soon as I walked into the apartment I’d see what you needed help with.” Fuck. Me. “Oh shit, Rachel. Um . . .” “When is all your furniture coming?” She began walking around the place and her eyes got bigger with each empty room she came across. “Did you guys sleep in here last night?” “Uh, yeah. Good news? Floor is actually pretty comfortable. So there’s that.” “Bad news?” “We don’t have anything coming, we need to go buy new stuff.” I took a deep breath and blew it out quickly. “And I’m starting to think that’s what Mason was sending you over here for.” She”
― Molly McAdams, quote from Forgiving Lies
“Sometimes what seems like surrender isn't surrender at all. It's about what's going on in our hearts. About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it, whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater." Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer.”
― Nikki Sex, quote from Bound and Freed Boxed Set
“I hum while I work, like one of Snow White’s dwarfs, only I’d be called Stabby.”
― Francette Phal, quote from Flawed
“I wasn’t home. Home wasn’t that bed and that pain. Home didn’t hurt. There were no strangers who hid their faces or their voices from me. Home held no secrets.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight
“you became a positive, productive Self-Talker,”
― quote from What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
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.