"You wake from dreams of doom and--for a moment--you know: beyond all the noise and the gestures, the only real thing, love's calm unwavering flame in the half-light of an early dawn."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"The Simple Path
Silence is Prayer
Prayer is Faith
Faith is Love
Love is Service
The Fruit of Service is Peace"
— Mother Teresa

"So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown."
— John O'Donohue

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk
with love and reverence."
— Henry David Thoreau

"'If you are eager to find the reason I became the Kvothe they tell stories about, you could look there, I suppose.'

Chronicler's forehead wrinkled. 'What do you mean, exactly?'

Kvothe paused for a long moment, looking down at his hands. 'Do you know how many times I've been beaten over the course of my life?'

Chronicler shook his head.

Looking up, Kvothe grinned and tossed his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. 'Neither do I. You'd think that sort of thing would stick in a person's mind. You'd think I would remember how many bones I've had broken. You'd think I'd remember the stitches and bandages.' He shook his head. 'I don't. I remember that young boy sobbing in the dark. Clear as a bell after all these years.'

Chronicler frowned. 'You said yourself that there was nothing you could have done.'

'I could have,' Kvothe said seriously, 'and I didn't. I made my choice and I regret it to this day. Bones mend. Regret stays with you forever.'"
— Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind)

"The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day."
— Proverbs 4:18

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading"
— Buddha

"I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures."
— Gary Snyder

"For the likes of you, the path to happiness is one mean son of a bitch of a path."
— Dean Koontz (Dead and Alive)

"The moon shines on the river,
The wind blows through the pines,--
Whose providence is this long beautiful evening?
The Buddha-nature jewel of morality
Is impressed on the ground of my mind,
And my robe is the dew, the fog, the cloud, and the mist."
— Yoka Genkaku

"Drawn some sixty years ago by karma
I turned life upside down
And climbed straight on to lofty summits.
Between my eyes a hanging sword,
The Triple World is pure.
Empty-handed, I hold a hoe, clearing a galaxy.

As the 'Ocean of the Knowing-mind' dries up,
Pearls shine forth by themselves;
Space smashed to dust, a moon hangs independent.
I threw my net through Heaven,
Caught the dragon and the phoenix;
Alone I walk through the cosmos,
Connecting the past and its people."
— Hsu Yun

"The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly--we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone's life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole cycle of becoming. And if I can tell an old-time story now about a man who is walking about, waudjoset ndatlokugan, a forest lodge man, alesakamigwi udlagwedewugan, it is because I spent many years walking about myself, listening to voices that came not just from the people but from animals and trees and stones."
— Joseph Bruchac

"He is one of those who has had the wilderness for a pillow, and called a star his brother. Alone. But loneliness can be a communion."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"To preserve the silence within--amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grain ripens--no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"In the construction of houses, choice of woods is made. Straight un-knotted timber of good appearance is used for the revealed pillars, straight timber with small defects is used for the inner pillars. Timbers of the finest appearance, even if a little weak, is used for the thresholds, lintels, doors, and sliding doors, and so on. Good strong timber, though it be gnarled and knotted, can always be used discreetly in construction."
— Miyamoto Musashi (The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi)

"They thought that it would be a disgrace to go forth as a group. Each entered the forest at a point that he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path. If there is a path it is someone else's path and you are not on the adventure."
— Joseph Campbell (The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work)

"It is not we who seek the Way, but the Way which seeks us. That is why you are faithful to it, even while you stand waiting, so long as you are prepared, and act the moment you are confronted by its demands."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"Mystics are not themselves. They do not exist
in selves. They move as they are moved,
talk as words come, see with sight
that enters their eyes. I met a woman
once and asked her where love had led her.
'Fool, there's no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite.'"
— Farīd al-Dīn ʻAṭṭār

"They roar with Dharma-thunder;
They strike the Dharma-drum;
They spread clouds of love, and pour ambrosial rain.
Their giant footsteps nourish limitless beings;
Sravaka, Pratyeka, Bodhisattva--all are enlightened;
Five kinds of human nature all are emancipated."
— Yoka Genkaku

"Humility before the flower at the timber line is the gate which gives access to the path up the open fell."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation."
— Thomas Merton

"We have been brought up to live by rules that mostly have nothing to do with making our lives worth living; some of them in fact are guaranteed not to. Many of our institutions and traditions introduce cultural distortions into our vision, provide us with beliefs and definitions that don't work, distract us from the task of building lives that are fully worth living, and persuade us that other things are more important. In one's own eyes, we have been programmed to see the world in terms of one's deficiencies. As emphasis on such needs can led to a denial of individual uniqueness and may make us vulnerable to exploitation. The outcome for the individual can be devastating, and the rich promise of human potential remains unfulfilled. All such distortions will exact their price by robbing you of tone: by causing you to drink too much or worry too much or keep your body in continuous stress, and miss the joy of being alive."
— Herbert A. Shepard

"When the path ignites a soul,
there's no remaining in place.

The foot touches ground,
but not for long."
— Hakim Sanai

"Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path .. A thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do .. To find this path, and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him."
— Thomas Carlyle

"The obstacle is the path."
— Zen saying

"Like wind-- In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is bent flat, it gathers all the power of the wind without hampering its course.

Like light-- In light, lit through by light, transformed into light. Like the lens which disappears in the light it focuses.

Like wind. Like light.

Just this--on these expanses, on these heights."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape."
— Rebecca Solnit (Wanderlust: A History of Walking)

"You know yourself what you are worth in your own eyes; and at what price you will sell yourself. For men sell themselves at various prices. This is why, when Florus was deliberating whether he should appear at Nero's shows, taking part in the performance himself, Agrippinus replied, 'Appear by all means.' And when Florus inquired, 'But why do not you appear?' he answered, 'Because I do not even consider the question.' For the man who has once stooped to consider such questions, and to reckon up the value of external things, is not far from forgetting what manner of man he is."
— Epictetus (The Golden Sayings of Epictetus)

"Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,
things standing shall fall,
but the moving ever shall stay."
— Basava (The lord of the meeting rivers: Devotional poems of Basavanna)

"Pardon all runners,
All speechless, alien winds,
All mad waters.

Pardon their impulses,
Their wild attitudes,
Their young flights, their reticence.

When a message has no clothes on
How can it be spoken."
— Thomas Merton

"My home drove me
into the wilderness.
Few look for me. Few hear me."
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Markings)

"Song for the Puberty Rite of a Girl Named Cowaka:

A poor man takes the songs in his hand
And drops them near the place where the sun sets.
See, Cowaka, run to them and take them in your hand,
And place them under the sunset. "
— American Indian Songs, tr. Frances Densmore