Adi Shankara Quotes and Sayings

1. He who has killed the shark of the senses with the sword of firm dispassion can cross the sea of samsara without impediment.
    
2. One should never permit carelessness in one's adherence to God.
    
3. Who can disturb the peace and happiness of a man if he has the true spirit of renunciation and has controlled his desires, even if he be the poorest, sleeping only in the temple halls and choultries or under trees or on the bare ground and just with a deer skin to cover.
    
4. Crazy man ! Why do you worry so much about your wife and property? why don't you seek out the Truth ? Know that in these three worlds it is only the association with the good and holy that can help you in crossing safely the ocean of life.
    
5. So long as one has any association with this awful sense of being the doer there cannot be the least achievement of liberation which is something very different.
    
6. The ascetic with matted locks, the man with the shaven head or one with hair pulled out, or the man parading in the ochre robes -- they all have eyes but yet do not see. All these are but deceptions for cheating the world, for filling their bellies. ( Renunciation does not lie in external appearance, but in inward thought, attitude and feeling).
    
7. When the supreme reality is not understood, the study of the scriptures is useless, and study of the scriptures is useless when the supreme reality has been understood.
    
8. Realising one's true nature as pure consciousness, one should remain always established in oneself, like a king surrounded by his army, and should redirect all that is back into God.
    
9. Abandoning all actions and breaking free from the bonds of achievements, the wise and intelligent should apply themselves to self-knowledge.
    
10. It is wealth only that causes all harm and brings about one's ruin. Bear this truth in mind always. Know that the pursuit of wealth does not lead one to happiness at all. The rich fear and are even afraid of their own sons. This is the outcome of riches anywhere and ever.
     
11. Who are you ? Who am I ? From Where did I come ? Who is my mother, who is my father ? -- enquire thus and you will, then realise that the entire world of experience, all the worries and problems are but a dream, a mere hallucination, born of imagination and delusion. With such a realisation, you will be freed from the delusions of the world.