“If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.”

As quoted in "Yearning for Change: Italian Diplomacy Just Got Younger" by Walter Mayr, in Der Spiegel (4 July 2014).

2000

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 134
Context: Brahman and Śakti are identical. If you accept the one, you must accept the other. It is like fire and its power to burn. If you see the fire, you must recognize its power to burn also. You cannot think of fire without its power to burn, nor can you think of the power to burn without fire. You cannot conceive of the sun's rays without the sun, nor can you conceive of the sun without its rays. You cannot think of the milk without the whiteness, and again, you cannot think of the whiteness without the milk. Thus one cannot think of Brahman without Śakti, or of Śakti without Brahman. One cannot think of the Absolute without the Relative, or of the Relative without the Absolute.

1984
Context: On live performance: "From the creative point of view, live music is always different to what appears on a record because everything is spontaneous and you’re influenced as a performer by your audience. The negative aspect of live work is that the audience expects to be entertained, and not only that, the record company and the promoters expect you to be successful. But to me, the theatre is a meeting place where something unpredictable happens, not necessarily successful, maybe pleasant, maybe not. That’s how I think a concert should be, but in reality things have to be planned down to the last detail, you have to rehearse with other musicians so the scope for improvisation is lessened, and these things prevent a concert from being a truly spontaneous affair. In a way, this reality makes me less keen to do concerts, but in essence I do like playing. I enjoy the risk".