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.

Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.

Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

This industry has been really good to me. It’s been a great life. I’m not through yet. I’m ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain – we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.

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.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

The object of the superior man is truth.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

My mother’s love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.

I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

To the dumb question, ‚Why me?‘ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, ‚Why not?‘

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office.

Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.

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

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

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

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

‚Happiness‘ is a pointless goal.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal living conditions on this earth?

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

I know of only one duty, and that is to love.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

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

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

One may no more live in the world without picking up the moral prejudices of the world than one will be able to go to hell without perspiring.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

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.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

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.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.