All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past – whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

I’m too busy acting like I’m not Naive. I’ve seen it all, I was here first.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw’s plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.

Plato was a bore.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

Information is not knowledge.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Our life is made by the death of others.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.

No one but a fool is always right.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.

Love, we say, is life; but love without hope and faith is agonizing death.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!