Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

The gigantic tension before the shooting of an arrow, and the total relaxation seconds later, is my way of connecting to the universe.

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life – or at least the way life should be.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.

Information is not knowledge.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

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.

My head’s never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch ‚CSI‘ or ‚Law & Order,‘ where I have to follow the crime. If I can’t turn my head off during that, I know I’ve really got a problem.

Hate has no place in the house of God.

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.

If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and ocean in the world, were united to support me in the task to which I have now been dedicated with such solemnity.

There is so much that people take for granted.

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing little things well.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.

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

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

The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.

Do the best you can, and don’t take life too serious.

Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

No one can live without relationship. You may withdraw into the mountains, become a monk, a sannyasi, wander off into the desert by yourself, but you are related. You cannot escape from that absolute fact. You cannot exist in isolation.

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.

Our nation must come together to unite.

There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.

America isn’t Congress. America isn’t Washington. America is the striving immigrant who starts a business, or the mom who works two low-wage jobs to give her kid a better life. America is the union leader and the CEO who put aside their differences to make the economy stronger.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

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

I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.

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

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

Science is but an image of the truth.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Where a man can live, he can also live well.

I’m fascinated by the fact that we can’t grasp anything about time.

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

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

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.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.