Whether time is long or short, and whether space is broad or narrow, depends upon the mind. Those whose minds are at leisure can feel one day as a millennium, and those whose thoughts are expansive can perceive a small house to be as spacious as the universe.
-Hung Tzu-ch’eng (1593-1665)
My brother has his sword and I have my mind, and a mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone.
-Tyrion Lannister
Adversities strengthen the mind, as labour does the body.
-Seneca
Desire is merely the fixation of the mind on an idea. Get it out of its groove by denying it attention.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
When practitioners of Zen fail to transcend the world of their senses and thoughts, all they do has no value. Yet, when senses and thoughts are obliterated all the roads to universal mind are blocked and there is no entrance. The primal mind has to be recognised along with the senses and thoughts. It neither belongs to them nor is independent of them. Don’t build your understanding on your senses and thoughts, yet don’t look for the mind separate from your senses and thoughts. Don’t attempt to grasp Reality by pushing away your senses and thoughts. Unobstructed freedom is to be neither attached nor detached. This is enlightenment.
Huang-Po
