Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

The word ‚happy‘ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.

In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist.

I don’t believe in death, neither in flesh nor in spirit.

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.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Man can believe the impossible, but man can never believe the improbable.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

My kids are normal. If they could eat burgers and fries and ice cream every day, they would. And so would I. But that doesn’t sustain us.

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

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

Where there is righteousness in the heart, there is harmony in the house; when there is harmony in the house, there is order in the nation; when there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

My philosophy is simple: It’s a down-home, common, horse-sense approach to things.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

We moralize among ruins.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

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.

Man’s unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth. Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger. It may be considered the mother of the universe. I do not know its name; I call it Tao.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

The first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.

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

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

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.

Don’t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.

The earth is supported by the power of truth; it is the power of truth that makes the sun shine and the winds blow; indeed all things rest upon truth.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

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.

The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.