It is natural to die as to be born.

A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident.

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.

I think Bible principles are principles for life.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

That’s another hallmark of truth, is that it snaps things together. People write to me all the time and say it’s as if things were coming together in my mind. It’s like the Platonic idea that all learning was remembering. You have a nature, and when you feel that nature articulated, it’s it’s like the act of snapping the puzzle pieces together.

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

My definition of country music is really pretty simple. It’s when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.

Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.

No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.

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

It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‚try to be a little kinder.‘

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

If anyone thinks they’d rather be in a different part of history, they’re probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You’d probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.

To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

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

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

Nothing in life is promised except death.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

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

You can’t imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

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.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.