Everything that happens in the lives of individuals and human societies originates in thought. And that is why it is not past events that explain everything that happens to people, but the thoughts that preceded those events.
It is almost as important to know what not to think about as it is to know what to think about.
Our life is the product of our thoughts, it proceeds from our thoughts. If a human being speaks or acts with evil intentions, suffering inexorably follows him like a wheel after the legs of an ox pulling a cart.
Our life is the product of our thoughts, it is born in our heart, it is created by our thoughts. If a human being speaks or acts with good intentions, joy follows him like a steadfast shadow.
— The Dhammapada
Whitewashing a house will not change the person who lives in it. Increasing the availability of great amusements and material pleasures will not increase the good of a nation. The soul creates its body. Only thought can establish a dwelling worthy of it.
— Mazzini
Our habitual thoughts color everything we come into contact with in a way that is characteristic of them. These thoughts are false, and they distort the most exalted truths. The atmosphere around us created by our thoughts presents for us something that is more solid than the house in which we live. It is something akin to a snail’s shell, which it carries with it everywhere it goes.
— Lucy Mallory
Our thought, good or bad, sends us to heaven or hell, not in the sky or under the earth, but here, in this life.
— Lucy Mallory
Thought seems to us to be free, but there is something more powerful within a human being that can control it.
In order to change a habitual way of life, either yours or other people’s, what you need to struggle against are not events, but the thoughts that have produced and continue to produce them.
