“What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money ... but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth ... In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are "coins" for real things.”

“The art of meditation is a way of getting into touch with reality, and the reason for it is that most civilized people are out of touch with reality because they confuse the world as it with the world as they think about it and talk about it and describe it. For on the one hand there is the real world and on the other there is a whole system of symbols about that world which we have in our minds. These are very very useful symbols, all civilization depends on them, but like all good things they have their disadvantages, and the principle disadvantage of symbols is that we confuse them with reality, just as we confuse money with actual wealth.”

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”

“Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.”

“The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. On the other hand, the more we are forced to admit that we actually live in the real world, the more we feel ignorant, uncertain, and insecure about everything.”

“We therefore work, notfor the work's sake, but for money—and money is supposed to get uswhat we really want in our hours of leisure and play. In the UnitedStates even poor people have lots of money compared with the wretchedand skinny millions of India, Africa, and China, while our middle andupper classes (or should we say "income groups") are as prosperous asprinces. Yet, by and large, they have but slight taste for pleasure. Moneyalone cannot buy pleasure, though it can help. For enjoyment is an artand a skill for which we have little talent or energy.”

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.”