Charles Horton Cooley Quotes

The legislative agenda reflects the complication of society.

I have no designs on society, or nature, or God. I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future. I love to live.

The nature of man is intricate. The objects of society are of the greatest complexity and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs.

Society is one word, but many things.

Wasn't it Emerson who said, 'My life is for itself and not for a spectacle'? I have a happy, full, good life because I hold it private.

I reckon I've done my bit. I want to enjoy myself a bit now, with less responsibility, less frantic rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say.

I'm not looking for anybody or anything. I'm just living my life.

I started since 1996. From that time, whenever there is an opportunity, I would tell the people it is time for me to go and live as peaceful as possible a life as a normal citizen of the country.

Sanity consists in not being subdued by your means. Fancy prices are paid for position, and for the culture of talent, but to thegrand interests, superficial success is of no account.

Life is simple unless we find a way to make it complicated.

I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.

Meditation means undoing what the society has done to you. It has reduced you to a machine; you have to de-automatise yourself, you have to become a man again. You have to come out of this state of unconsciousness, of mechanicalness. You have to come out of this sleep. It is possible only through meditation. There is no other way, there has never been, there will never be. The only way to reduce a man to a machine is take away his consciousness force him to function unconsciously. And just the opposite is the way of meditation: give him back his consciousness.

I considered myself liberated long before it became the fashion. First I liberated myself from debilitating habits, and went on to free myself of combative, aggressive thoughts. I have also cast aside any unnecessary possessions. This, I feel, is true liberation.

Most of my life is over. I am going to enjoy my family and friends before any of us depart this earth. I'll never start another company. I'll never work long hours again. At this point in my life, I only answer to God, my wife, and my kids. Everything else is secondary - especially the expectations of strangers.

I never think I am successful. If I am successful, then I should be retired. If I am not retired, then that means I should still be working hard, keeping the company running.

Having a good home, eating good food, wearing good clothes, are a means to living well; they are not the goals of our life. The quality of your life is decided by how peaceful and joyful you are.

My life can be insanely complicated sometimes, and there's a certain simplicity that I crave.

Have you ever known anyone who was happy? And was still in his right mind, I mean.

So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.

Buddha says: Life should be simple, not complex. Life should be based on needs, not on desires. Needs are perfectly okay: you need food, you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need love, you need relationship. Perfectly good, nothing wrong in it. Needs can be fulfilled; desires are basically unfulfillable. Desires create complexity. They create complexity because they can never be fulfilled. You go on and on working hard for them, and they remain unfulfilled, and you remain empty.

But the individual was not a tool for something. He was the maker of tools. He was the one who must build. Even for the best purpose it is criminal to turn an individual into simply a means for some ultimate end. A society in which the dignity of the individual is destroyed cannot hope to be a decent society.

You can call it wisdom, or sanity, or health, or enlightenment. I use the word God as a short-cut. I am comfortable with the word God because I don't have the foggiest idea of what it means.

True freedom means freeing oneself from the dictates of the ego and its accompanying emotions.