Science is nothing but perception.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.

Instead of judging people, we need to pray.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

The very elements of what constitutes good nursing are as little understood for the well as for the sick. The same laws of health or of nursing, for they are in reality the same, obtain among the well as among the sick.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it’s true.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

When I left Dortmund, I said it’s not important what people think when you come in but what they think when you leave.

The greatest service that can be offered to children who show personality traits or inclinations that might not be understood by the adults around them is to allow them to express their own unique humanity.

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

It’s really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.

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.

Women tend to be more intuitive, or to admit to being intuitive, and maybe the hard science approach isn’t so attractive. The way that science is taught is very cold. I would never have become a scientist if I had been taught like that.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

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

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

There may not be one Truth – there may be several truths – but saying that is not to say that reality doesn’t exist.

Electrical science has revealed to us the true nature of light, has provided us with innumerable appliances and instruments of precision, and has thereby vastly added to the exactness of our knowledge.

I believe in the Golden Rule – The Man with the Gold… Rules.

Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe.

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

Truth is what works.

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

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

I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.