We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‚Why the hell not?‘

Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

This is not a bad life.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.

No man was ever wise by chance.

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men. Ordinary persons find no difference between men.

The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

We as women, we have to understand that we know more, just even instinctively, than we think we do.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

Truth is a pathless land.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

Contrary to the claims of some of my critics and some of the editorial pages, I am an ardent believer in the free market.

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

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.

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

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

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

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

I’ll tell you one thing, since I’m married, single people look absolutely ridiculous to me.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

It’s only I have seen enough of it and the funny thing is now, I know that I’m skinny, because I know there are even smaller clothes in the store. I think I’m big, when I was big, I never thought about it.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people’s tragedies.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever will be born must destroy a world.

By indignities men come to dignities.

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

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.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver.

You hear about actors being late and all that sort of stuff, but you never find that with an actor who’s directed, because an actor who’s directed understands all the problems your production is going through.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

How we experience memory sometimes, it’s not linear. We’re not telling the stories to ourselves. We know the story; we’re just seeing it in flashes overlaid.

Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

We are not the sum of our possessions.