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

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.

I’m an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call ‚the last illusion.‘ The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what’s going on but that the planets know what’s going on.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn’t everything.

On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one’s own town.

There is so much that people take for granted.

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

To be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

When I listen to a song, I don’t say, ‚Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.‘ I’m thinking, ‚That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.‘

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we look closely, we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

I’m different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I’m thinking about what I’m going to do tomorrow. It’s as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.

Bitterness is cancer – it eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

Hell is a half-filled auditorium.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

To be honest, I think kids have got a lot more going on than adults. They’ve got their heads screwed on a lot better.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.

People in Latin America… love America from afar and emulate America in some ways but also hate a lot of things that America does to them.

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

I can be almost terminally grief-stricken because things are so dire, but at the same time, there’s a real lightheartedness about just the recoverability of life, of how things change, how they’re not the same, ever again.

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Sorry, I’m still a dialectical materialist.

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.

I don’t see that my majority opinions are going to be undone.