Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
Gautama BuddhaRead
The self of which you speak, whether it is the great self or the small self, is only a concept that does not correspond to any reality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that our idea of the 'self' is merely a conceptual construct without a tangible reality.
Gautama Buddha speaks to the nature of the self, suggesting that both the expansive and limited perspectives of selfhood are illusory notions. He indicates that these concepts do not reflect a true essence or reality, urging individuals to look beyond these identities to find a more profound understanding of existence.
Themes
SelfConceptRealityIllusionBuddhism
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about identity and existence.
More from Gautama Buddha
All quotes βA kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure; but the miser who hoards up his riches will have no profit.
Gautama BuddhaRead
There are having flowers in Spring, breezes in Summer, moon in Autumn, snows in Winter. If there is nothing worrying over you, it will be the best seasons at all times.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge.
Gautama BuddhaRead
When a wise man is advised of his errors, he will reflect on and improve his conduct. When his misconduct is pointed out, a foolish man will not only disregard the advice but rather repeat the same error.
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The tongue like a sharp knife ... Kills without drawing blood.
Gautama BuddhaRead
Similar quotes
No one knows what capacities for doing and suffering he has in himself, until something comes to rouse them to activity: just as in a pond of still water, lying there like a mirror, there is no sign of the roar and thunder with which it can leap from the precipice, and yet remain what it is; or again, rise high in the air as a fountain. When water is as cold as ice, you can have no idea of the latent warmth contained in it.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.
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Look, boys, it ever strike you that the world not real at all? It ever strike you that we have the only mind in the world and you just thinking up everything else? Like me here, having the only mind in the world, and thinking up you people here, thinking up the war and all the houses and the ships and them in the harbour. That ever cross your mind?
V. S. NaipaulRead
Certainly my inner world will never be a peaceful place of bloom; it will have some peace, and occasional riots of bloom, but always a little fight going on too. There is no way I can be peacefully happy in this society and in this skin. I am committed to Uneasy Street. I like it; it is my idea that this street leads to the future, and that I am being true to a way of life which is not here yet, but is more real than what is here.
James Tiptree Jr.Read
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If a man cannot tell what he wants to do, then he must find out what he ought to do. If desire has become complicated, then hold fast to duty.
Julian BarnesRead