Science is nothing but perception.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Of all the senses, sight must be the most delightful.

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?

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.

No notice is taken of a little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

My faith helps me understand that circumstances don’t dictate my happiness, my inner peace.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

I have just got a new theory of eternity.

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

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

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

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

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

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

In my experience, many people confuse being cowardly with being nice.

Man the individual consoles himself for his passing with the thought of the offspring or the works which he leaves behind.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

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

I have finally decided to write my book on the spiritual life. I mean to put down as simply as possible the sort of ascetical or mystical teaching that I have been living and preaching so long. I call it ‚Le Milieu Divin,‘ but I am being careful to include nothing esoteric and the minimum of explicit philosophy.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.

When you really listen to another person from their point of view, and reflect back to them that understanding, it’s like giving them emotional oxygen.

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.

It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Which death is preferably to every other? ‚The unexpected‘.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

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

As long as your body is healthy and under control and death is distant, try to save your soul; when death is immanent what can you do?

It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

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.

What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.