He who is not contented 

with what he has, 

would not be contented 

with what he would like to have.

The key to wisdom is this — 

constant and frequent questioning, 

for by doubting 

we are led to question 

and by questioning 

we arrive at the truth.

The only defence against the world 

is a thorough knowledge of it.

To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; 

all this is nothing but to perceive.

Nothing is more active than thought, 

for it travels over the universe, 

and nothing is stronger than necessity 

for all must submit to it.

Ideas are like stars; 

you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. 

But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, 

you choose them as your guides, 

and following them 

you will reach your destiny.

One should as a rule respect public opinion 

in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation 

and to keep out of prison, 

but anything that goes beyond this 

is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, 

and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, 

and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

Vivere est Cogitare

刚下过雨又要下雨的云

We are what we repeatedly do. 

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Wherever the poetry of myth is interpreted 

as biography, history, or science, 

it is killed.

Mythologies are in fact the public dreams 

that move and shape societies, 

and conversely 

one’s own dreams are the little myths 

of the private gods, antigods, and guardian powers 

that are moving and shaping oneself: 

revelations of the actual fears, desires, aims and values 

by which one’s life is subliminally ordered.

The courage to face the trials 

and to bring a whole new body of possibilities 

into the field of interpreted experience 

for other people to experience

 - that is the hero's deed.

The privilege of a lifetime

is being who you are.

'All life,' said the Buddha, 'is sorrowful'; 

and so, indeed, it is. 

Life consuming life: 

that is the essence of its being, 

which is forever a becoming. 

'The world,' said the Buddha, 'is an ever-burning fire.' 

And so it is. 

And that is what one has to affirm, 

with a yea! a dance! 

a knowing, solemn, stately dance 

of the mystic bliss beyond pain 

that is at the heart of every mythic rite.

I am tomorrow, 

or some future day, 

what I establish today. 

I am today 

what I established yesterday 

or some previous day.

The secret of dreams is that 

subject and object are the same. 

The object is self-luminous, 

fluent in form, 

multivalent in its meanings. 

It’s your dream, 

the manifestation of your will.

It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, 

without understanding what is the interest of the individual.

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. 

And that's what it is. 

The nature is your nature, 

and all of these wonderful poetic images of mythology 

are referring to something in you. 

When your mind is simply trapped by the image out there 

so that you never make the reference to yourself, 

you have misread the image.

Experience is not what happens to you; 

it's what you do with what happens to you.

The way is not in the sky. 

The way is in the heart.

I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, 

with epistemological signposts. 

No, 

we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, 

building our road behind us as we proceed.

A great pleasure in life 

is doing what people say 

you cannot do.

When God says, 

"I'm no metaphor. I'm a fact," 

you're in trouble.

The observer, 

when he seems to himself
to be observing a stone, 

is really, 

if physics is to be believed, 

observing the effects
of the stone upon himself.

Information is not knowledge.

Philosophy is questions 

that may never be answered. 

Religion is answers 

that may never be questioned.

The effort to understand the universe 

is one of the very few things 

that lifts human life 

a little above the level of farce, 

and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

My goal is simple. 

It is a complete understanding of the universe, 

why it is as it is 

and why it exists at all.

Man is slightly nearer to the atom than the stars. 

From his central position 

he can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, 

or the minutest works with the physicist.

True works of art contain their own theory 

and give us the measurement 

according to which we should judge them.

The important thing in science 

is not so much 

to obtain new facts 

as to discover new ways 

of thinking about them.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. 

 It prevents moderation from acquiring 

the deadening effect of a habit.

The recognition of cultural cycles is the recognition 

that there is in the history of a culture a beginning, a middle, and an end ... 

That is the pattern for all organic forms. 

Recognising cultural cycles means one sees 

cultures as an organism 

and cultural history as an organic history.

Philosophy is a battle 

against the bewitchment of our intelligence 

by means of language.

Science may set limits to knowledge, 

but should not set limits to imagination.

Leisure is the mother of philosophy.