Where ignorance is bliss, 

'Tis folly to be wise.

Perhaps it would be better for science, 

that all criticism should be avowed.

Plato is my friend; 

Aristotle is my friend, 

but my greatest friend is truth.

Not a having and a resting, 

but a growing and becoming, 

is the character of perfection 

as culture conceives it.

Similarly, thought is a system. 

That system not only includes thought and feelings, 

but it includes the state of the body; 

it includes the whole of society — 

as thought is passing back and forth between people 

in a process by which thought evolved from ancient times.

Friendship is almost always 

the union of a part of one mind 

with the part of another; 

people are friends in spots.

To sit in the shade on a fine day 

and look upon verdure 

is the most perfect refreshment.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature.

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; 

the rest love not freedom, but licence.

Expose yourself to your deepest fear;

after that, fear has no power, 

and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. 

You are free.

Go as far as you can see; 

when you get there 

you'll be able to see farther.

Life is like music; 

it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, 

not by rule.

There is nothing constant in this world but inconsistency.

If we have not quiet in our minds, 

outward comfort will do no more for us 

than a golden slipper on a gouty foot.

The eye altering, 

alters all.

Sciences may be learned by rote, 

but wisdom not.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Falsehood is easy, 

truth so difficult.

 

It is dangerous to be right in matters 

on which the established authorities are wrong.

My fate has been 

that what I undertook 

was fully understood 

only after the fact.

Virtues, 

like essences, 

lose their fragrance 

when exposed.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, 

but in the achievement of it.

Thoughts create a new heaven, 

a new firmament, 

a new source of energy, 

from which new arts flow.

Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.

With enough courage, 

you can do without a reputation.

It does not matter how badly you paint 

so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

Everybody is ignorant, 

only on different subjects.

 

My imagination is a monastery 

and I am its monk.

The surest way to fail 

is not to determine to succeed.

How frail the human heart must be

 — a mirrored pool of thought.

Do not go gentle 

into that good night 

but rage, rage 

against the dying of the light.

The role of anxiety in the development of human personality is central, 

and it is intricate beyond our understanding.

Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. 

All wisdom is in our stories and songs. 

A story is how we construct our experiences.

Indeed, I would feel that an appreciation of the arts 

in a conscious, disciplined way 

might help one to do science better.

We carry within us 

the wonders we seek without us.

In all life 

one should comfort the afflicted, 

but verily, also, 

one should afflict the comfortable, 

and especially when 

they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Listen; 

there's a hell of a good universe next door: 

let's go.

One's life has many compartments.

The range of what we think and do 

is limited by what we fail to notice. 

And because we fail to notice 

that we fail to notice, 

there is little we can do to change; 

until we notice 

how failing to notice 

shapes our thoughts and deeds.

It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. 

Physics concerns what we say about Nature.

Truth is simply a compliment paid to sentences 

seen to be paying their way.

Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation 

that we induce in individuals 

by subjecting them to too much change 

in too short a time.

Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely 

is made for the eye of one who sees.

Good actions ennoble us, 

and we are the sons of our deeds.

The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.

Man is not the lord of beings. 

Man is the shepherd of Being.

If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, 

we have used them again 

because they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back 

to express basic psychological ideas.