Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

You just have to have a simple faith.

All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.

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

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

History is written by the victors.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

North Americans don’t understand… that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.

I think humans are just hard-wired to process people’s faces and understand meaning and expression at such a more granular level than other types of communication.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

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.

For me, there are two types of people: the young and the experienced.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

What really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

Funny thing is that the poorer people are, the more generous they seem to be.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

When you give, it comes back to you.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

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

Man is always looking for someone to boast to; woman is always looking for a shoulder to put her head on.

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats – and one always secretes too much jelly.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

A lot of people think I’m a comedian.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

If I have something to say, I want it to be meaningful.

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

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

I don’t think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

I try to look on all the great things God’s done, and not focus on the negative. It’s a perspective.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.