In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

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

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

The great question of our time is, ‚Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?‘

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

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

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

We are the representatives of the cosmos; we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

I don’t think that faith, whatever you’re being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don’t want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There’s so much mystery. There’s so much awe.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

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

The paradox of courage is that a man must be a little careless of his life even in order to keep it.

What we live by we die by.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

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

Beauty and folly are old companions.

I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills. All I have done is to try experiments in both on as vast a scale as I could.

In every parting there is an image of death.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand.

I think in the ’70s that there was a general feeling of chaos, a feeling that the idea of the ’60s as ‚ideal‘ was a misnomer. Nothing seemed ideal anymore. Everything seemed in-between.

You don’t have the same mentality as you did five years ago – even one year. People are always changing, and I believe that everyone deserves the space to change and for people to recognize their change.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.