“Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.”

“Every acquisition, every step forward in knowledge is the result of courage, of severity toward oneself, of cleanliness with respect to oneself.”

“Every achievement, every step forward in knowledge, is the consequence of courage, of toughness towards oneself, of sincerity to oneself”

“It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.”

“For it is just as sinful from the standpoint of nature and of truth to be above oneself as to be below oneself.”

“Meditation is not a withdrawal from life. Meditation is a process of understanding oneself. And, when one begins to understand oneself, not only the conscious but all the hidden parts of oneself as well, then there comes tranquility. Meditation demands constant watchfulness, constant awareness of every word, thought and feeling, which reveals the state of our own being, and as that is arduous, we escape into every kind of conformity, deceptive thing and call it meditation.”