Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of ‚I know.‘ Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

What you are comes to you.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m really confused now.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

Life is very difficult. One of the most ancient of religious ideas that emerges everywhere, I would say, is that life is essentially suffering.

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

I’m not a conservative of any kind.

America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn’t theirs.

I never go into a situation with any type of expectations.

Those thinkers who cannot believe in any gods often assert that the love of humanity would be in itself sufficient for them; and so, perhaps, it would, if they had it.

Some days I totally appreciate everything that’s happening to me, and some days I feel everyone’s waiting for me to mess up.

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

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

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

I am the freest author in the world.

Every time you think the problem is ‚out there,‘ that very thought is the problem.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

Convictions, in the end, they can be dangerous, but a world without them is just kind of an awful kind of gray, amorphous mass.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

The ‚Third World‘ is a term I don’t like very much because we’re all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.

Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are.

I’ve learned never to say never.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

I have always thought I was the best ever player.

I didn’t get trained by the school system like other kids, and when I did concentrate on learning, my mind was cluttered and locked by the programming of the system.

Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all.

Myths which are believed in tend to become true.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.

We’re close friends – the American people, the Israeli people, our governments. There’s absolutely no daylight – none – between us and the Israelis on the question of Israel’s security.

We can’t equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which is primarily Hindu. The third largest democracy is Indonesia, which is Islamic. Democracy and freedom are not dependent on Christian beliefs.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.

I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point, in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role, because all my freedom is there.

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.