philosophy

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Hamlet

Without music, life would be a mistake. Twilight of the Idols

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?

The past has no power over the present moment.

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Time is a game played beautifully by children. Fragments

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world. Tao Te Ching

Do or do not; there is no try. (Yoda) Great science fiction film stories.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. The God Delusion

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike. An Ideal Husband

Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know. Tao Teh Ching

I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.

No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born. Flight to Arras

Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination. Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Fault always lies in the same place: with him weak enough to lay blame.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts."

Stop feeling sorry for yourself and you will be happy.

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. The Second Sex

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

If you win, you need not have to explain...If you lose, you should not be there to explain!

I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think

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

"I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings." -from the Fox The Little Prince

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Il est bien malaisé ... d'ôter à des insensés des chaînes qu'ils révèrent. (<em>It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.</em>) Le Dner Du Comte de Boulainvilliers. Par Mr. St. Hiacinte

I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning. My Name is Red

I think I am, therefore, I am... I think.

I consider it an extremely dangerous doctrine, because the more likely we are to assume that the solution comes from the outside, the less likely we are to solve our problems ourselves.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.

Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.

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? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? A Brief History of Time

When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.

Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

There are no ordinary moments. Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress