So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be first to inquire diligently into the properties of things, and establishing those properties by experiments, and then to proceed more slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

We must no more ask whether the soul and body are one than ask whether the wax and the figure impressed on it are one.

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

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

Philosophy is the highest music.

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.

To abandon oneself to principles is really to die – and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

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.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

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.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

The existentialist says at once that man is anguish.

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

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

I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

I still think like a Marxist in many ways.

Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning and which permeates all heaven.

To me, the extraordinary aspect of martial arts lies in its simplicity. The easy way is also the right way, and martial arts is nothing at all special; the closer to the true way of martial arts, the less wastage of expression there is.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.

One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?

The great question of our time is, ‚Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?‘

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

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

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

My religion encompasses all religions. I believe in God, I believe in the universe. I believe you are god, I believe I am god; I believe the earth is god and the universe is god. We’re all god.

In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life – or at least the way life should be.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.