"Life is not permanent. Like the leaves that fall from a tree, all things are impermanent, nothing endures; there is always change and death. Have you ever noticed a tree standing naked against a sky, how beautiful it is? All its branches are outlined, and in its nakedness there is a poem, there is a song. Every leaf is gone and it is waiting for the spring. When the spring comes it again fills the tree with the music of many leaves, which in due season fall and are blown away; and that is the way of life."


– Jiddu Krishnamurti, Think on These Things

"You know when you see something like a marvelous mountain against the blue sky, the vivid, bright, clear, unpolluted snow, the majesty of it drives all your thoughts, your concerns, your problems away. Have you noticed that? You say, 'How beautiful it is,' and for two seconds perhaps, or for even a minute, you are absolutely silent. The grandeur of it drives away, for that second, the pettiness of ourselves. That immensity has taken us over. Like a child occupied with an intricate toy for an hour; he won't talk, he won't make any noise, he is completely absorbed in that. The toy has absorbed him. So the mountain absorbs you and therefore for the second, or the minute, you are absolutely quiet, which means there is no self. Now, without being absorbed by something - either a toy, a mountain, a face, or an idea - to be completely without the me in oneself, is the essence of beauty."


– Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Love and Loneliness, (with thanks to whiskey river)