Salman Rushdie Quotes

Some are born virtuous, some become virtuous. To be good by nature is indeed fortunate but to become good is like walking on a double-edged sword; it takes a longer time and is more painful.

Every man's path is for himself; let him accomplish his own desires that he may thus be able to rise above them to the eternal goal.

The Bible improved my ethical IQ. I started to act like a good person. I tried not to gossip, and lie, and covet, and just by pretending I was a good person, I think I actually became a little bit better of a person. I'm not Gandhi or Angelina Jolie, but it was a baby step.

... and it's always been a thing with me to feel that all men know the truth, see? ... The truth itself doesn't have a name on it. To me. Each man has to find this for himself, I think. I believe that men are here to grow themselves into the best good that they can be... I'm not interested in trying to say what it will be, I don't know. But I believe that good will only bring good.

There are paths and ruts in the spirit world as there are in the physical and mental world. One must take the tools of the spirit world and make one's own path rather than exactly follow the paths of those who once were . . . You must not seek their path and their understanding, but you must seek your own. The ruts of the spirit are trying to follow others and it cannot be done.

There are no "facts"- there is only the fact that man, every man everywhere in the world, is on his way to ordination. Some men take the long route and some take the short route. Every man is working out his own way and nobody can be of help except by being kind, generous, and patient.

All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path.

So let us go forward quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light.

But one thing this doctrine, so clean, so venerable, does not contain: it does nto contain the secret of what the Sublime One himself experienced, he alone among the hundreds of thousands. This is why I am continuing my wanderings not to seek another, better doctrine, because I know there is none, but to leave behind all the teachings and all teachers, and either attain my goal alone or die.

I am still raw. I say I may be back. You know what lies are for. Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet.

Sin and virtue are a game of resistance we play with God in His efforts to draw us towards perfection.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.

Life is a way of perfection. You need to work on yourself. You become a good person. If you do your work you will discover sublime feelings.

My spiritual journey has been a good kind of thing I've been on. I guess some people would say I'm obsessed with it, but in a really good way. It's just enjoyable. I don't really have crazy obsessions about things.

There can be no progress-real, moral prgress-except in the individual and by the individual himself.

I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission.

Man's nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity.

Clearly I miss Him, having been brought up in religion. But now a man must be responsible to himself.

There is no short-cut no patent tram-road, to wisdom. After all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must still be trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time.

the buddhists say there are 149 ways to god. i'm not looking for god, only for myself, and that is far more complicated.

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

Every one of us comes into this life with lessons to learn and gifts to give.

Awakening into love is a lifelong path.

Character is the result of hundreds and hundreds of choices you make that gradually turn who you are, at any given moment, into who you want to be.

The whole journey of life is a journey of preparation... to see, to feel, to understand the beauty of what lies ahead, of the homeland towards which we walk.