At these times:

QUOTATIONS FROM THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN by Carlos Cataneda

Power rests on the kind of knowledge that one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are

useless? They will not prepare us for our unavoidable encounter with the unknown.

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

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute

assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever

makes it might never live to regret it. When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites - to be

wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance - there are no mistakes for which he will

have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool.

If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful

regrets over that.

Dwelling upon the self too much produces a terrible fatigue. A man in that position is deaf and

blind to everything else. The fatigue itself makes him cease to see the marvels all around him.

Every time a man sets himself to learn, he has to labor as hard as anyone can, and the limits of his

learning are determined by his own nature. Therefore, there is no point in talking about knowledge.

Fear of knowledge is natural; all of us experience it, and there is nothing we can do about it. But no

matter how frightening learning is, it is more terrible to think of a man without knowledge.

To be angry at people means that one considers their acts to be important. It is imperative to cease

to feel that way. The acts of men cannot be important enough to offset our only viable alternative:

our unchangeable encounter with infinity.