Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

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.

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

The truth is lived, not taught.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.

Speak the truth, and all things alive or brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there, do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

I don’t think there is any philosophy that suggests having polio is a good thing.

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

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

I don’t feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don’t have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you’ve got the money to be able to afford it, then it’s really good to buy something from me, but don’t buy too much.

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

And yet it moves.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

Law is mind without reason.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

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.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

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?

All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.