Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.

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

Forgiveness is not a feeling – it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God. It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man.

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

An architect should live as little in cities as a painter. Send him to our hills, and let him study there what nature understands by a buttress, and what by a dome.

When we trust God more than our feelings, it confuses the devil. I mean, when he throws you his best shot and he can’t budge you from believing God, he won’t know what to do with you anymore.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life – that is to say, over 35 – there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.

To you I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.

Man is unable to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind, neither is he able to see mankind unrelated to life, nor life unrelated to the universe.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

Prayer is simply talking to God like a friend and should be the easiest thing we do each day.

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.

But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

Surely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

God created man, but I could do better.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear.

If you do things, whether it’s acting or music or painting, do it without fear – that’s my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there’s nothing to lose.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

The word ‚happy‘ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

To those whose God is honor; only disgrace is a sin.

We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the first law of nature.

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don’t need an enemy.

Whenever I’m confused about something, I ask God to reveal the answers to my questions, and he does.