Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

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.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

I am not some goddess that dropped down from the sky to sing pop music; I am not some extra-incredible human person that needs to be told how wonderful they are all day and kissed.

I think if we didn’t contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

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

The truth is God created us to have relationship with us. He wants to love us and take care of us, and He wants us to love Him. That’s where our walk with Christ has to start.

Searching for music is like searching for God. They’re very similar. There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

To depend upon a profession is a less odious form of slavery than to depend upon a father.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.

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

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

If human beings were shown what they’re really like, they’d either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.

Risk is a part of God’s game, alike for men and nations.

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

The art is long, life is short.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.

Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

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

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.

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.

The highest proof of the spirit is love. Love the eternal thing which can already on earth possess as it really is.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

We moralize among ruins.

Contention existed before the earth was formed.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

God doesn’t do things halfway. He goes all out! When God does something, it’s not just barely enough, mediocre or lukewarm.