Of all the hokum with which this country [America] is riddled, the most odd is the common notion that it is free of class distinctions.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.

No matter the situation, never let your emotions overpower your intelligence.

But there are people who'll try to hurt you through the good they see in you--knowing that it's the good, needing it and punishing you for it. Don't let it break you when you discover that.

Frustration is the wet nurse of violence.

Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.

...the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

I was raised on The Beatles. I loved Led Zeppelin growing up. Judy Garland. Doris Day. That's where things began. I took a lot from the '60s and maybe from the '40s or '50s as well.

I devoutly believe that there is no difficulty between two people for which both are not responsible.

Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself.

In 1980, Osho left India for America. I, like many other sannyasins, moved to Oregon where work had begun on the 'new commune'. Osho named it Rajneeshpuram.