Carlos Castaneda Quotes (47 Quotes)

Being timid prevents us from examining and exploiting our lot as men

To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warriors indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.

The only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die.

Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.

All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart!

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.

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldnt do years before. Those things themselves did not change what changed was his idea of himself.

A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting.

The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.

To believe the world is only as you think it is, is stupid.

The world around us is a mystery, and men are no better than anything else.

I am only a man who knows that hell never understand all that is around him.

Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything. He knows his death is stalking him and wont give him time to cling to anything so he tries, without craving, all of everything.

If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix itpurge it, make it perfectbecause there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhileTo seek the perfection of the warriors spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.

A warrior doesnt know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate ones acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.

The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something it us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.

Conclusions arrived at through reasoning have very little or no influence in altering the course of our lives.

Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesnt worry.

That is the misfortune of human beings. None of us have sufficient time, and your continuity has no meaning in this awesome, mysterious world.

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.

To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that.

Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.

They took money away from us for years, and we never got it back.

A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore hes clear and calm judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.

Our normal expectations about reality are created by a social consensus. We are taught how to see and understand the world. the trick of socialization is to convince us that the descriptions we agree upon define the limits of the real world. What we call reality is only one way of seeing the world, a way that is supported by social consensus.

The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.

But we just had to explain to them the advantages and disadvantages of amending our Constitution.

The world is a mystery. This, what youre looking at, is not all there is to it. There is much more to the world, so much more, in fact, that it is endless. So when youre trying to figure it out, all youre really doing is trying to make the world familiar. You and I are right here, in the world that you call real, simply because we both know it.

it's better to get something worthwhile done using deception than to fail to get something worthwhile done using truth.

All paths lead nowhere, so it is important to choose a path that has heart.

Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And abov

All paths are the same they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easyit does not make a warrior work at liking it it makes for a joyful journey as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.

The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warriors last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.

An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, thats all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.

My laughter is real, but it is also controlled folly because it is useless it changes nothing and yet I still choose to do it. I am happy because I choose to look at things that make me happy

There are worlds upon worlds, right here in front of us. And they are nothing to laugh at.

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.

All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between the average person and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this and stays alert, deliberately waiting, so that when this cubic centimeter of chance pops out, it is picked up.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.

Things don't change. You change your way of looking, that's all.

For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesnt use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.

Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.

The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesnt permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scra

We did disqualify a few for contributions they'd made to political parties. We wanted to make sure we got a neutral party.

A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.