Carlos Castaneda
Carlos Castaneda
Carlos Castanedawas an American author with a Ph.D. in anthropology...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 December 1925
CountryUnited States of America
art thinking trying
A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use.
art pain warrior
Only a warrior can survive the path of knowledge because the art of the warrior is to balance the pain of being a man with the wonder of being a man.
dream art ideas
In the Art of Dreaming Don Juan tells Carlos, "... most of our energy goes into upholding our importance... if we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two we would provide ourselves with enough energy to ... catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe."
absolute actions acts conditions fools-and-foolishness four fulfilled lose lost man mistakes pitiful quality regret regrets suffers wide
When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisitesto be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurancethere are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.
men
The world around us is a mystery, and men are no better than anything else.
feeling
Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy, and vain.
examining exploiting men prevents timid
Being timid prevents us from examining and exploiting our lot as men
act convince learn short since
I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.
emptiness filled life
Theres no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim. Everything is filled to the brim, and everything is equal.
brought determines matter personal
It doesnt matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.
advantages constitution explain
But we just had to explain to them the advantages and disadvantages of amending our Constitution.
amount either ourselves quotes scholars-and-scholarship work
We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
deception fail using worthwhile
it's better to get something worthwhile done using deception than to fail to get something worthwhile done using truth.
mystery sheer thus treat understand
The world is incomprehensible. We wont ever understand it; we wont ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.