The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it.

If we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of why we and the universe exist.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

No ghost was every seen by two pair of eyes.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

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.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.

The truth is lived, not taught.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

I mean, if you didn’t get it or if you didn’t feel like you enjoyed it, sometimes that experience can change.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

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.

No obligation to do the impossible is binding.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

To live is to think.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

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.

If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.

The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended-and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

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.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

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.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

Science is but an image of the truth.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

There could be shadow galaxies, shadow stars, and even shadow people.

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man’s resources?

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

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

The magical, supernatural force that is with us every second is time. We can’t even comprehend it. It’s such an illusion, it’s such a strange thing.

Understand: any phenomenon in the world is by nature complex. The people you deal with are equally complex. Any action sets off a limitless chain of reactions. It is never so simple as A leads to B. B will lead to C, D and beyond.

Reason is the enemy of faith.

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

He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.