All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

The earth’s crust has not yet stopped heaving and plunging under our feet. Mountain ranges are still being thrust up on the horizon. Granites are still growing under the continental masses. Nor has the organic world ceased to produce new buds at the tips of its countless branches.

No pressure, no diamonds.

The worst part of success is, to me, adapting to it. It’s scary.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be first to inquire diligently into the properties of things, and establishing those properties by experiments, and then to proceed more slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

I read Plato’s ‚Republic.‘ I read it through about five times until I could actually understand it.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

You want to play another kind of character in another genre, and it’s been something I’ve been trying to do if I can in the career so far, and it’s something I hope to continue because it’s interesting to me and you get to do different things as an actor.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

Life’s like a play: it’s not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

The less you know, the more you believe.

I have a memory, and I can just eliminate mistakes when they come up because I’ve already made them.

The bravest person I’ve ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.

There are half a dozen subjects that I return to time and time again, and that doesn’t bother me. Because most of my favorite writers do that, to hunt down the same topic or theme from different directions each time.

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

Life is a song to me.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. It extends along the western slope, in a nearly continuous belt about ten miles wide, from beyond the Oregon boundary to the south of Santa Cruz, a distance of nearly four hundred miles, and in massive, sustained grandeur and closeness of growth surpasses all the other timber woods of the world.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.