Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down .

To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th‘ observer’s sake.

Hell is other people.

There is nothing your highest self wants more than peace. This peace makes you feel worthy of all of the richest blessings of the universe, and when you radiate this out into the world, it is returned to you without fail.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

I wouldn’t say that anyone in fashion is on my side. I don’t think there’s anyone on my side.

Measure your wealth by what you’d have left if you lost all your money.

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

It may be, it just may be, that life as we know it with its humanity is more unique than many have thought.

What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle.

The divisions of Perspective are 3, as used in drawing; of these, the first includes the diminution in size of opaque objects; the second treats of the diminution and loss of outline in such opaque objects; the third, of the diminution and loss of colour at long distances.

Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

There’s no one thing that is true. They’re all true.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‚Why the hell not?‘

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

This is not a bad life.

I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.

To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

The infinitely little have a pride infinitely great.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can’t solve the equations, directly in the abstract.

They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.

In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

I’m astounded by people who want to ‚know‘ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.

History is written by the victors.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

Death to me means nothing as long as I can die fast.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

There are definitely people who disagree with certain creative decisions you make. Pleasing everyone is pretty hard.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.