Take away love 

and our earth is a tomb.

The voice of the intellect is a soft one, 

but it does not rest 

until it has gained a hearing.

Sit down before fact
as a little child, 

be prepared to give up
every conceived notion, 

follow humbly
wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, 

or you will learn nothing.

We never completely comprehend ourselves, 

but we can do far more than comprehend.

It is not knowledge, 

but the act of learning, 

not possession 

but the act of getting there, 

which grants the greatest enjoyment.

You never really understand a person 

until you consider things from his point of view.

All day long the door of the sub-conscious remains just ajar; 

we slip through to the other side, 

and return again, 

as easily and secretly as a cat.

Too long has the public mind considered religion to be synonymous with priestcraft.

The fate of our times is characterised

 by rationalisation and intellectualisation 

and, above all, 

by the disenchantment of the world.

Conventionality is not morality.

Philosophy and Art both render the invisible visible by imagination.

Knowledge of the past 

and of the places of the earth 

is the ornament and food 

of the mind of man.

I believe we are put here to improve civilisation.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, 

never fearing to follow truth and reason 

to whatever results they led, 

and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

The insatiable thirst
for everything which lies beyond, 

and which life reveals, 

is the most living proof of our immortality.

The best portion of a good man's life 

is his little, nameless, unremembered acts 

of kindness and of love.

A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; 

and as the judgment, 

so also the conscience, 

may be erroneous.

Read as you taste fruit 

or savour wine, 

or enjoy friendship, love or life.

If you shut up truth, 

and bury it underground, 

it will but grow.

You must accept the truth 

from whatever source it comes.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

I accept that there may be things far grander and more incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine.

The poison of selfishness destroys the world.

Comedy makes the subversion of the existing state of affairs possible.

Research is what I'm doing 

when I don't know what I'm doing.

The consequences of an act 

affect the probability 

of its occurring again.

The majority is always wrong; 

the minority is rarely right.

Logic will get you from A to B. 

Imagination will take you everywhere.

Truth is the cry of all, 

but the game of few.

All human beings are also dream beings. 

Dreaming ties all mankind together.

No idea is isolated, 

but is only what it is 

among all ideas.

Genius is eternal patience.

The fewer species there are 

and the fewer species we know about, 

the fewer questions we even know to ask.

The earth is the mother of all people, 

and all people should have equal rights upon it.

Unless someone like you 

cares a whole awful lot, 

nothing is going to get better. 

It's not.

The writer must believe that what he is doing
is the most important thing in the world. 

And he must hold to this illusion 

even when he knows it is not true.

One has to go beyond the mind 

to experience the spiritual bliss 

of desirelessness.

An artist, 

under pain of oblivion, 

must have confidence in himself, 

and listen only to his real master: 

Nature.

The more unintelligent a man is, 

the less mysterious existence seems to him.

You owe it to all of us 

to get on with what you're good at.

Physics is experience, arranged in economical order.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

I think it will be found that experience, 

the true source and foundation of all knowledge, 

invariably confirms its truth.

I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free 

so as to give up any hypothesis, 

however much beloved 

(and I cannot resist forming one on every subject), 

as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it.

If you accept your limitations

 you go beyond them.

Let us be moral. 

Let us contemplate existence.

Basically, I have been compelled by curiosity.

The highest ecstasy is the attention at its fullest.

Better pass boldly into that other world, 

in the full glory of some passion, 

than fade and wither dismally with age.

Curiosity is the one thing invincible in Nature.