Truths and roses have thorns about them.

There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth. Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger. It may be considered the mother of the universe. I do not know its name; I call it Tao.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

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

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

Little by little, not by making big promises, I need to be calmer, read more, spend more time with my loved ones, and be more mindful about nature and environment.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.

Religions get lost as people do.

Men freely believe that which they desire.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

For greed all nature is too little.

Heaven is long-enduring, and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

Nothing is further than earth from heaven, and nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

I’m crepuscular.

It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur. The magnitudes of the rocks and trees and streams are so delicately harmonized, they are mostly hidden.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

Africa is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

Time stays, we go.

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

Ankles are nearly always neat and good-looking, but knees are nearly always not.

It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

No person who is well bred, kind and modest is ever offensively plain; all real deformity means want for manners or of heart.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

You know when you’re young and you see a play in high school, and the guys all have gray in their hair and they’re trying to be old men and they have no idea what that’s like? It’s just that stupid the other way around.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

It’s really easy to have a nice philosophy about openness, but moving the world in that direction is a different thing. It requires both understanding where you want to go and being pragmatic about getting there.

The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

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.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.

I love the natural world – it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.

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.

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.