You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life.
We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.
In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.
A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.
We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.
For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.
Nobody knows who I am or what I do. Not even I. Don Juan Matus
Think about it: what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.
You say you need help. Help for what? You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life.
The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.
Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level or awareness you find yourself to be.
Seek and see all the marvels around you. You will get tired of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind to everything else. - Don Juan
Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow, you must not stay with it under any circumstances.
Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't then it is of no use to us.
For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor.
Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.
We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.
Beware of those who weep with realization, for they have realized nothing.
I had been experiencing brief flashes of disassociation, or shallow states of non-ordinary reality.
To ask me to verify my life by giving you my statistics is like using science to validate sorcery. It robs the world of its magic and makes milestones out of us all.
The art of being a warrior is to balance the wonder and the terror of being alive.
A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as a grounds for regret but as a living challenge.
Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because it is the nature of his lot, for good or bad.
If one is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
The hardest thing in the world is for a warrior to let others be.
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance.
A warrior, or any man for that matter, cannot possibly wish he were somewhere else; a warrior because he lives by challenge, an ordinary man because he doesn't know where his death is going to find him.
There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn’t do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.
Nothing is pending in the world…nothing is finished, yet nothing is unresolved…Everything is filled to the brim.
To seek the perfection of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.
We either make ourselves miserable, or make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.
A warrior must focus his attention on the link between himself and his death . . .. He must let each of his acts be his last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts have their rightful power.
The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
Those fibers join a man to his surroundings;
