To the dumb question, ‚Why me?‘ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, ‚Why not?‘

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

We might as well die as to go on living like this.

In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.

The universe is not indifferent to our existence – it depends on it.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

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

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.

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

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

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

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.

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

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

It is natural to die as to be born.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.

Science is but an image of the truth.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first upon yourself.

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

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

Every man is his own hell.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

When you hear people demanding that the Ten Commandments be displayed in courtrooms and schoolrooms, always be sure to ask which set. It works every time.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

As soon as you have a language that has a past tense and a future tense you’re going to say, ‚Where did we come from, what happens next?‘ The ability to remember the past helps us plan the future.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.

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

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

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

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

If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.

The good is the beautiful.

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

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

It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

There is nothing permanent except change.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.