Short Zen Quotes & Sayings

The Lusitania remained a passenger liner, but with the hull of a battleship. — Erik Larson

Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. — Carlos Castaneda

I would have thought that I would have become one of those parents - just because it's my nature to be such a perfectionist - that anything falling short, I would have seen as a failure. But something has happened to me over the past few years - it's not Zen, believe me, I'm not at all Zen - but I'm so appreciative of even the chaos. — Brooke Shields

His one-eight feels a whole lot bigger when I spend time hanging around in his grey matter. — Neal Shusterman

Even though you read much Zen literature, you must read each sentence with a fresh mind. You should not say, "I know what Zen is," or "I have attained enlightenment." This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner."
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"When you are sitting in the middle of your own problem, which is more real to you: your problem or you yourself? The awareness that you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact. "
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"Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day after day, moment after moment, is the life of "form is form and emptiness is emptiness."
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"You may feel as if you are doing something special, but actually it is only the expression of your true nature; it is the activity which appeases your inmost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing zazen for the sake of something, that is not true practice."
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"The most important thing is to forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. In other words, just practice zazen in a certain posture. — Shunryu Suzuki

Sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, and love belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. — Harry Allen Overstreet

The right to express our thoughts means something only if we are able to have thoughts of our own — Erich Fromm

As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must indeed begin with an individual; it might be any one of us. Nobody can afford to look round and to wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself. — Carl Jung

Through doubt we can learn more than through naive trust, — Lee Strobel

It must be tempered with discipline. Ferocity is useless unless employed in the proper place ... — Jim Butcher

Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants. — Langston Hughes

The homes I like the best are totally occupied, busy, and useful, whether it's a tiny little house or a great big one. Rarely do you find a great big house that's used in a good way. So I prefer smaller spaces that are full of books, full of things that people are doing. — Martha Stewart

Anybody can make the simple complecated. Creativity is making the complecated simple. — Charles Mingus