I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

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

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

It is natural to die as to be born.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

In the game of cricket, a hero is a person who respects the game and does not corrupt the game. The one who doesn’t or corrupts the game, they are the villain. They should be punished, and they have been punished in the past.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

I love life because what more is there?

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

Water is life, and clean water means health.

The way to know life is to love many things.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

The truth is you don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. Life is a crazy ride, and nothing is guaranteed.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.

Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

Religion is the opium of the masses.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.

Instead of judging people, we need to pray.

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

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

All the time, I’ve felt that life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn’t.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

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?

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.