June 11

All the external changes in our life are insignificant in comparison with the changes taking place in our thoughts.

1

A human being who wants to change his feelings and actions must first of all change his thoughts. And in order to change his thoughts, a human being must focus on the consciousness of his spiritual nature and its demands.

2

The epochs of our lives are determined not by our conspicuous, intentional actions—marriage, getting a promotion, etc.—but by our thoughts, which come to us in our walks, at night, at lunchtime, and especially by the thoughts which, encompassing the whole of our past, tell us: this is what you did, but it would have been better to do otherwise. And all our future deeds are like slaves at the service of these thoughts, fulfilling their will.

— Thoreau

3

Every thought a human being dwells on, no matter whether or not he expresses it, is certain to either harm or help his life.

— Lucy Mallory

4

To avoid and conquer sins you must first recognize that the root of every sin is a bad thought. We are all merely the consequences of our thoughts.

— Buddha

5

What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

— Thoreau

6

A disorderly thought does to our mind the same thing that a disorderly person would do to our house if he were invited to live with us.

— Lucy Mallory

7

We can clearly see the changes taking place in the sphere of material life: we used to travel by tug, now we travel by steam, we used to burn splinters and fat, now we burn gas and use electricity; but we do not see the same changes in people’s spiritual world. And these changes are the most important.

We feel sad about losing a wallet with money in it, but a good thought, which had come to us or which we had heard or read—a thought which, if we had remembered it and applied it to our life, could have done a lot of good—we lose by forgetting it, and we do not feel sad about having lost something that is worth more than millions.