If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

I came to China to follow my star and to steep myself in the raw regions of the universe.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

There’s always going to be people who don’t understand or accept the united science, and I will just ignore them, as I’m only acting and communicating on the science.

We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied?

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

An overflow of good converts to bad.

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

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

I have a collective sense of suffering.

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.

Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

When you have enough understanding and compassion in you, then that amount of understanding and compassion will try to express itself in action. And your practice should help you to cultivate more understanding and compassion.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

Part of what confuses people in times of upheaval is that you’re getting so many different points of view and directions and so and so, how to do this and do that. And a lot of it is written in a language that honestly most people cannot understand.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.

I believe Karl Marx could have subscribed to the Sermon on the Mount.

Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.