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

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

I can’t play bridge. I don’t play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn’t seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

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.

A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.

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

If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly by the hand, before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.

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

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.

A daily portion is really all we need. We do not need tomorrow’s supply, for that day has not yet dawned, and its needs are still unborn.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

I don’t like to read things that people write about me. I’d rather read what kids have to say about me because it’s not their profession to do that.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

Always say ‚yes‘ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‚yes‘ to life – and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.

Solitude is independence.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

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.

In a way, the whole tangible universe itself is a vast residue, a skeleton of countless lives that have germinated in it and have left it, leaving behind them only a trifling, infinitesimal part of their riches.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

I always thought it was wrong for me to take credit for the work that I did. I don’t think that anymore.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? 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.

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

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

The truth is that there is no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it’s your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can’t package stress, touch it, or see it. There are only people engaged in stressful thinking.

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.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

There’s a gap between what I want to do, what I do on camera, and what gets edited. Right? So the goal is to try and close the gaps. What’s the biggest compliment is if I read a review and it’s exactly what I wrote down in my diary before ever filming it. That’s really cool. That’s the biggest signifier of closing the gaps.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor e’er shall be.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions – Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.