long as the mind believes in the possibility of escape from what it is at this moment, there can be no freedom.

But how can we be free to look and learn when our minds from the moment we are born to the moment we die are shaped by a particular culture in the narrow pattern of the ‘me’? For centuries we have been conditioned by nationality, caste, class, tradition, religion, language, education, literature, art, custom, convention, propaganda of all kinds, economic pressure, the food we eat, the climate we live in, our family, our friends, our experiences – every influence you can think of – and therefore our responses to every problem are conditioned.

No technique of the mind will free you from the mind.

I do not think the coerced mind ever really learns an art.

One cannot alter a condition with the same mind set that created it in the first place.

Every human being has been conditioned to think and behave in certain ways– conditioned genetically as well as by their childhood experiences and their cultural environment. That is not who they are, but that is who they appear to be. When you pronounce judgment upon someone, you confuse those conditioned mind patterns with who they are. To do that is in itself a deeply conditioned and unconscious pattern. You give them a conceptual identity, and that false identity becomes a prison not only for the other person but also for yourself. (Ch 8)

The mind, once stretched by an idea, never returns to its original dimension.

Am I free to change my mind? Of course not. It can only change me.

A spring never free from the pressure of some foreign body at last loses its elasticity; and so does the mind if other people’s thoughts are constantly forced upon it.

A negative mind will never give you a positive life.

Except in dreams, you're never really free.

[] no man is ever free and probably could not bear it if he were...

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

None can be free who is a slave to, and ruled by, his passions.