And yet it moves.

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

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

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.

One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

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

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

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.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

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

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

I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

Freedom without limits is just a word.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.

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

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

I’m never going to go to Mars, but I’ve helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars.

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difficult to get used to, and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyone – both to the novice and to the experienced physicist.

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.

The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to create him.

Things in themselves have no life in them. A car can’t comfort or encourage you. A house means nothing if there’s no life and love inside.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified.

Nothing can come of nothing.

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.