Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

Knowledge is true opinion.

The object of the superior man is truth.

Life is wasted on the living.

‚Happiness‘ is a pointless goal.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth.

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.

As I approached my 95th birthday, I was burdened to write a book that addressed the epidemic of ‚easy believism.‘ There is a mindset today that if people believe in God and do good works, they are going to Heaven.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.

We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time’s carcass.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

And, after all, what is a lie? ‚Tis but the truth in a masquerade.

I am two with nature.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.

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.

Live the life you’ve dreamed.

I don’t have this feeling that 70 is really old.

I don’t look at a man who’s expert in one area as a specialist. I look at him as a rookie in ten other areas.

I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times.

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

It is as necessary for man to live in beauty rather than ugliness as it is necessary for him to have food for an aching belly or rest for a weary body.

I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

I actually don’t want a throne at all, because I don’t view myself as a queen; I view myself as one of my fans.

I think that man has a fundamental obligation to extract from himself and from the earth all that it can give; and this obligation is all the more imperative that we are absolutely ignorant of what limits – they may still be very distant – God has imposed on our natural understanding and power.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. The majestic crowns approaching one another make a glorious canopy, through the feathery arches of which the sunbeams pour, silvering the needles and gilding the stately columns and the ground into a scene of enchantment.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

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.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.