In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

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.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

Men willingly believe what they wish.

Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

I write songs that are like diary entries. I have to do it in order to feel sane.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

If it’s stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You’ve planned, you’ve trained, you’ve done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that’s facing you. And then after that, there’s nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.

If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.

If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.

All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

That is America. That is America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it. We embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

We do not see people as they are, but as they appear to us. And these appearances are usually misleading.

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.

Hell is other people.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they’re real for you whether they’re real or not.

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.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

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

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

Men’s actions are too strong for them. Show me a man who has acted, and who has not been the victim and slave of his action.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

Though she be but little, she is fierce.

There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?