The sacred is discovered in what moves and touches us, in what makes us tremble.

Consensual paranoia -- the pathology of the normal person who is a member of a war-justifying society -- forms the template from which all the images of the enemy are created. By studying the logic of paranoia, we can see why certain archetypes of the enemy must necessarily recur, no matter what the historical circumstances.

Good men and good women have fire in the belly. We are fierce. Don't mess with us if you're looking for someone who will always be 'nice' to you. Nice gets you a C+ in life. We don't always smile, talk in a soft voice, or engage in indiscriminate hugs. In the loving struggle between the sexes we thrust and parry.

Compassion begins with the acknowledgment of the single inescapable truth that is the foundation for the possibility of love between human beings -- an awareness of the tragic sense of life.

If we come from good families where we have been supported well, there is a disillusionment we have to undergo in terms of the culture's values. We have to get beyond our cultural mythology to find out who we are.

You don't go through a deep personal transformation without some kind of dark night of the soul.

The Greeks invented the idea of nemesis to show how any single virtue, stubbornly maintained gradually changes into a destructive vice. Our success, our industry, our habit of work have produced our economic nemesis. Work made modern men great, but now threatens to usurp our souls, to inundate the earth in things and trash, to destroy our capacity to love and wonder.

You can know what's in your life when you know what's in your heart.

We suffer from the illusion that the faster we run, the more likely we are to grasp happiness. The truth is that the velocity necessary for success rarely exceeds the rate of reflection.

The world is run largely by urban, sedentary males. The symbol of power is the chair.

If we don't preserve forest habitat for spotted owls, then soon we won't have trees to refresh the air we breathe. And we're realizing that this applies to social ecology, as well.

I think we have to trust ourselves in the darkness of not knowing. The God out of which we came and into which we go is an unknown God. It's the luminosity of that darkness and that unknowing that is, I think, the most human -- and the most sacred -- place of all.

Mounting an expedition to actualize a Compassionate Commonwealth of all peoples...is the great spiritual challenge of our time.

Every time I come across a rattlesnake on my farm I initially react in fear and am tempted to kill it. Then I realize I wouldn't want to live in a world where all wild things -- without and within -- are domesticated.

There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?'

If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.

Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.

What happens if I try to build a life dedicated to avoiding all danger and all unnecessary risk?

There is a saying in Bali: We have no art. We do everything as beautifully as possible. This reflects my philosophy of practice. I try to remember daily what a gift it is to have the privilege of living in this wondrous world.

I try to steer away from high metaphysical belief because I think we humans do best when we realize that we don't know all that much.

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.