Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, time, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods a man should himself lend a hand.

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.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

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

The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.

People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Human self-understanding changes with time, and so also human consciousness deepens.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

He who doesn’t pray to the Lord prays to the devil.

I didn’t want to submit to the army and then, on the day of judgment, have God say to me, ‚Why did you do that?‘ This life is a trial, and you realize that what you do is going to be written down for Judgment Day.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

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.

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.

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

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

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.

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

I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.

I’m still living at least five parallel lives, honestly! I wonder about it. I have no idea how that happens.

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

If danger arises in the present moment, there may be an emotion. There may even be pain. But that’s a challenge, not a problem. For a problem to exist, you need time and repetitive mind activity.

I believe life is an intelligent thing: that things aren’t random.

I used to say to my late wife, ‚I have great faith in the American people.‘

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens. From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals.

Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.

God is so big. It’s a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we’re small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.

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.