There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Space is almost infinite. As a matter of fact, we think it is infinite.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

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.

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

You may say, ‚Well, dragons don’t exist.‘ It’s, like, yes they do – the category ‚predator‘ and the category ‚dragon‘ are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

If the experiments which I urge be defective, it cannot be difficult to show the defects; but if valid, then by proving the theory, they must render all objections invalid.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

Fear is the mother of morality.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

Knowledge is true opinion.

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

Love in all its subtleties is nothing more, and nothing less, than the more or less direct trace marked on the heart of the element by the psychical convergence of the universe upon itself.

We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

The world itself is the will to power – and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power – and nothing else!

Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.

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

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

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

Man is unable to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind, neither is he able to see mankind unrelated to life, nor life unrelated to the universe.

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

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

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

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.

The brain is wider than the sky.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

Justice… is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

Plato was a bore.

What was God doing before the divine creation?

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.