Man, if he is to remain man, must advance by way of consciousness. There is no road leading backward. … We can no longer veil reality from ourselves by renouncing self-consciousness without simultaneously excluding ourselves from the historical course of human existence.

- Karl Jaspers

External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It’s important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that’s unique for yourself.

- Amy Tan

If you tiptoe into cold water, you’re missing out on the rush of plunging in headfirst.

- Simone Elkeles

Suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.

- Romans 5:3-5

Yoga is the teacher of yoga; yoga is to be understood through yoga. So live in yoga to realize yoga; comprehend yoga through yoga; he who is free from distractions enjoys yoga through yoga.

- Sri Vyasa’s commentary on the Yoga Sutras in the Vishnu Purana

It is false to speak of realisation. What is there to realise?

The real is as it is always. We are not creating anything new or achieving something which we did not have before.We dig a well and create a huge pit. The space in the pit or well has not been created by us. We have just removed the earth which was filling the space there. The space was there then and is also there now. Similarly we have simply to throw out all the age-long samskaras [innate tendencies] which are inside us. When all of them have been given up, the Self will shine alone.

- Be As You Are, The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

I will tell you what I will do and what I will not do. I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use — silence, exile and cunning.

 - James Joyce