Nagarjuna

Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.

In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.

Sincerity is the highest complement you can pay.

I could never be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

Associate reverently, as much as you can, with your loftiest thoughts.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

To him whom contemplates a trait of natural beauty, no harm nor despair can come. The doctrines of despair, spiritual or political servitude, were never taught by those who shared the serenity of Nature. For each phase of Nature, though not invisible, is yet not too distinct or obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not too demanding of our attention.

The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts.

It always seems impossible until its done.