Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

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

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

Sometimes there are no good guys. There are no bad guys. It seems like everybody is in the middle.

If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

I know love is the answer.

Nothing can come of nothing.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

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

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

The more you know the less you need to say.

I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

I’m a strict, strict agnostic. It’s very different from a casual, ‚I don’t know.‘ It’s that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can’t present it as fact.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

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

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

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

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

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

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

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.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

What goes up must come down.

It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.