Detachment Quotes

I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. And it was after that that I found out the truth . I learnt the truth last November on the third of November, to be precise and I remember every instant since.

Can you deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course? Can you step back from you own mind and thus understand all things? Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing, acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue.

Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.

By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent.

You can't accumulate anything, because anything you get you have to give away. We all know this. We watch our bodies go through the aging process. We know we came in here with nothing, and we know we're going to leave with nothing. There's nothing to own. There's nothing to get. The only thing you can do with your life is give it away. The best, happiest moments in your life are always when you're giving something away.

The main motive for nonattachment is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work.

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that's always nice. And if they don't like them, then too bad.

When the last moment arrives, praise and blame will be the same to you, to me, and to others. We are here to work, and will have to leave all when the call comes.

Love means to reach for the skyand with every breath to tear ahundred veils. Love means to stepaway from the ego, to open the eyesof inner vision and not to take thisworld so seriously

The work is the work. The work is not me.

The virtue of art lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety. Until one thing comes out from theconnection of things, there can be enjoyment, contemplation, but no thought.

Act without expectation.

If something makes you happy in this world, you should think of what will happen to you if that thing were taken away.

I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes as common as the grass.

And never have I felt so deeply at one and the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.

As soon as we identify ourselves with the work we do, we feel miserable; but if we do not identify ourselves with it, we do not feel that misery.

You are the honoured guest,Do not weep like a beggarFor pieces of the world.

...The sage, traveling all day, Does not lose sight of his baggage. Though there are beautiful things to be seen, He remains unattached and calm.

How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.

I don't concern myself with award. I'd been to the party enough times to know it really didn't matter.

This craving for health, wealth, long life, and the like - the so - called good - is nothing but an illusion.

For knowledge, add something every day. For wisdom....subtract.

We are happy in proportion to the things we can do without.

Pain and happiness are simply conditions of the ego. Forget the ego.

If you attach yourself to gross energies - loving this person, hating that clan, rejecting one experience or habitually indulging in another - then you will lead a series of heavy, attached lives. This can go on for a very long and tedious time.

Neither seek nor avoid; take what comes. It is liberty to be affected by nothing. Do not merely endure; be unattached.

Neither seek nor avoid, take what comes.

With everything we do in life we identify ourselves. Here is a man who says harsh words to me. I feel anger coming on me. In a few seconds anger and I are one, and then comes misery. Attach yourselves to the Lord and to nothing else, because everything else is unreal. Attachment to the unreal will bring misery. There is only one Existence that is real, only one Life in which there is neither object nor [subject].

It is a good discipline to be forced to work for work's sake, even to the length of not being allowed to enjoy the fruits of one's labour.

Cast a cold eye on life, on death Horseman pass by

I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago, divorced myself from it emotionally. It gives me an artistic detachment that I find valuable. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise, for the sake of cell phones and Jet Skis.

But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

All things in nature work silently. They come into being and possess nothing. They fulfill their function and make no claim. All things alike do their work, and then we see them subside. When they have reached their bloom, each returns to its origin. . . . This reversion is an eternal law. To know that law is wisdom.

Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem.

The secret of a happy life lies in renunciation. Renunciation is life.

I don't know how much money I've got. I did ask the accountant how much it came to. I wrote it down on a bit of paper. But I've lost the bit of paper.

And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying face of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman.

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.

If I am identified with my relationship, with my house, or with my money, I am doomed to suffer.

Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure.

Reputation should be neither sought nor avoided.

Get your passion on the paper. Detach from the outcome. Forget about whether it's going to get published.

Regard a king as someone unconcerned with kingship.

I learned that you can't truly own anything, that true ownership comes only in the moment of giving.

The wine of this fleeting world caused your head to ache.

Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return-prepared to send beck our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, brother and sister, and wife and child and friends and never see them again,-if you have paid your debts and made your will, and settled your affairs and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.

It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety.

In the end, The treasure of life is missed by those who hold on and gained by those who let go

Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.

Take someone who doesn't keep score, who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing, who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality: he's free.

Let a stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear.

Detachment is not indifference. it is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often what we think is best for others is distorted by our attachments to our opinions. We want others to be happy in the way we think they should be happy. It is only when we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into others needs and understand how to serve them.

ALL things in Nature work silently. They come into being and possess nothing. They fulfil their functions and make no claim.

Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace.

Forget about winning and losing, forget about pride and pain

Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of Poverty: Having nothing and wanting nothing.

If you want to be given everything, give everything up.

If you can get rid of your attachment to a single thing, you are on the way to liberation.

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.