One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

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

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

History should be written as philosophy.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

I don’t have a problem with Hulk Hogan. People say things and do things, and who am I to judge?

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one’s experiences in common.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time.

There are folks who now know black families – like the Johnsons on ‚Black-ish‘ or the folks on ‚Modern Family.‘ They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.

I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Plato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

Before you start a goal – let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

I am particularly drawn to the form of meditation called Japa. I know it works.

I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

It now appears that the way the universe began can indeed be determined, using imaginary time.

I try to speak in a way that people can understand.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

Temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

It is natural to die as to be born.

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.