Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

When you look at the sun during your walking meditation, the mindfulness of the body helps you to see that the sun is in you; without the sun there is no life at all and suddenly you get in touch with the sun in a different way.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

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.

I’ve been fortunate to have had the life I had prior to Hollywood. I wasn’t starving; I was going to eat the next day.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you’re gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It’s yours. Seize your space.

If you are not living this moment, you are not really living.

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

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

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

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

I think Bible principles are principles for life.

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom… in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

I do know this: God does answer your prayers, but it’s not always in the way you expect. God knows what’s best for us, though, so there’s no need to worry when things don’t go how we originally wanted them to go.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

To be awake is to be alive.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?… It is necessary to accompany them with mercy.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.

What goes up must come down.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always come around to where you started again.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment.