Forever is composed of nows.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.

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

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

Life is a series of commas, not periods.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Tomorrow is nothing, today is too late; the good lived yesterday.

If danger arises in the present moment, there may be an emotion. There may even be pain. But that’s a challenge, not a problem. For a problem to exist, you need time and repetitive mind activity.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.

Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that’s very important for good health.

It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Once music ceases to be ephemeral – always disappearing – and becomes instead material… it leaves the condition of traditional music and enters the condition of painting. It becomes a painting, existing as material in space, not immaterial in time.

If life is a checker game, someone else is moving the pieces. It isn’t us. Don’t be surprised by amazing coincidences. There are no accidents. Consider, as I learned to do, the incredible interconnectedness of all of life.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

A jug fills drop by drop.

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

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

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Our present moment is a mystery that we are part of. Here and now is where all the wonder of life lies hidden. And make no mistake about it, to strive to live completely in the present is to strive for what already is the case.

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.

At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that.

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

States are not moral agents.

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is.

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.