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.

I should like to save the Shire, if I could – though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

This is the truth: as from a fire aflame thousands of sparks come forth, even so from the Creator an infinity of beings have life and to him return again.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we’re atheist.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

Contention existed before the earth was formed.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air we wawl and cry. When we are born we cry, that we are come to this great state of fools.

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.

Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way, you are justified.

I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

I don’t pretend to understand the Universe – it’s a great deal bigger than I am.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

Go up in an airplane. Go high enough, and it’s like we don’t even exist.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.

And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

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

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

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

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

It is natural to die as to be born.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.

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.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

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.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

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

God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

Surely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is.

It has been discovered that all the world is made of the same atoms, that the stars are of the same stuff as ourselves. It then becomes a question of where our stuff came from. Not just where did life come from, or where did the earth come from, but where did the stuff of life and of the earth come from?

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Real life? Well, I just hope mine isn’t investigated. They might find that I don’t really exist – that I’m just a hologram.