Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

See him wandering alone,

The crowdless man,

He has no group,

He has no tribe,

He carries his identity in his pocket.

His pocket has a hole in it,

His story has a hole in it,

His tragedy is not a tune you can hum.

His suffering and sacrifice,

They have no handles;

His persecution has no logo,

No shrine, no yardstick.

His joy has no credentials,

His observations have no fixed address;

There are no awards whatsoever.

His gaze and yearning are way outside the loop, 

His pilgrimage has lots of holes in it. 

See him wandering alone. 

Beaming to himself.

Beware lest you lose the substance 

by grasping at the shadow.

The imagination imitates. 

It is the critical spirit that creates.

Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. 

And there is nobody watching.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

All action is of the mind 

and the mirror of the mind is the face, 

its index the eyes.

The artist, 

like the god of the creation, 

remains within
or behind
or beyond
or above his handiwork, 

invisible, 

refined out of existence, 

indifferent, 

paring his fingernails.

Nobody can have the consolations of religion or philosophy 

unless he has first experienced their desolations.

Interesting phenomena occur
when two or more rhythmic patterns are combined, 

and these phenomena illustrate very aptly 

the enrichment of information that occurs 

when one description is combined with another.

If you want others to be happy, 

practice compassion. 

If you want to be happy, 

practice compassion.

It will sometimes strike a scientific man 

that the philosophers have been less intent on finding out what the facts are, 

than on inquiring what belief is most in harmony with their system.

Knowledge about life is one thing; 

effective occupation of a place in life, 

with its dynamic currents passing through your being, 

is another.

Compared to what we ought to be, 

we are half awake.

When it comes to atoms, 

language can be used only as in poetry. 

The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts 

as with creating images.

It's not what you look at that matters, 

it's what you see.

I sit in my wooden box

and feel the edges damp and rough

the rain that falls upon the roof

is leaking down my back.

Everyone inside their rooms

but no one wants to play

the words with which we made up things

aren't working any more.

An open space where no one lives

we are strangers in this land

In the wet season on a light blue sky

and then no more.

I heard the old wobbly man say

one by one we drop hey hey

and all that’s good will drift away

like the waters down…down…down.

It is the hallmark of any deep truth 

that its negation is also a deep truth.

The world is full of magical things 

patiently waiting 

for our wits to grow sharper.

There are only two ways to live your life. 

One is as though nothing is a miracle. 

The other is as though everything is a miracle.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. 

Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

Do not go where the path may lead, 

go instead where there is no path 

and leave a trail.

I have just three things to teach: 

simplicity, patience, compassion. 

These three are your greatest treasures.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled 

but a fire to be kindled.

The purpose of art is to wash the dust of daily life off our souls.

Listen to many, 

speak to a few.

There is no wealth like knowledge, 

and no poverty like ignorance.

The true sign of intelligence
is not knowledge
but imagination.

It is the mark of an educated mind 

to be able to entertain a thought 

without accepting it.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,

To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect 

if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, 

nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

We don't know,

but we can dream,

can't we?

The keenest sorrow 

is to recognise ourselves 

as the sole cause 

of all our adversities.

Lives of great men all remind us, 

we can make our lives sublime, 

and, departing, leave behind us, 

footprints on the sands of time.

It is godlike ever to think 

on something beautiful 

and on something new.

A book should serve as the axe

 for the frozen sea within us.

Eternity is not the hereafter … this is it. 

If you don't get it here, 

you won't get it anywhere.

All our science, 

measured against reality,

is primitive and child-like —

and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, 

you know it’s not your path. 

Your own path you make with every step you take. 

That’s why it’s your path.

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.

We make the world significant

by the courage of our questions

and the depth of our answers.

Men fear thought 

as they fear nothing else on earth

 — more than ruin — 

more even than death … 

Thought is subversive and revolutionary, 

destructive and terrible, 

thought is merciless 

to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. 

Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. 

Thought is great and swift and free, 

the light of the world, 

and the chief glory of man.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, 

for every opinion now accepted 

was once eccentric.

I think that every artist dreams of renewing the forms which came before, 

but I think very few can be considered to have achieved that. 

We are all dwarves standing upon the shoulders of the giants who preceded us, 

and I think we must never forget that. 

After all, even iconoclasts only exist with respect to that which they destroy.

Every man's work, 

whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, 

is always a portrait of himself.

The man who has no inner-life 

is a slave to his surroundings.

In my solitude I have pondered much 

on the incomprehensible subjects 

of space, eternity, life and death.

To kill an error is as good a service as, 

and sometimes even better than, 

the establishing of a new truth or fact.

You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. 

You cannot create experience. 

You must undergo it.