The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, 

who obeys any authority, 

but that of reason.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. 

It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. 

The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. 

The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.

Nationalism is an infantile disease. 

It is the measles of mankind.

Reason is the natural order of truth; 

but imagination is the organ of meaning.

Come forth into the light of things, 

let nature be your teacher.

Our species needs, 

and deserves, 

a citizenry with minds wide awake 

and a basic understanding 

of how the world works.

The eye sees 

what it brings the power to see.

Wherever you go, 

go with all your heart.

The past is what you remember, 

imagine you remember, 

convince yourself you remember, 

or pretend you remember.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

The greater danger for most of us lies 

not in setting our aim too high 

and falling short; 

but in setting our aim too low, 

and achieving our mark.

He who cannot do what he wants,

let him want what he can do.

Love is simply the name for the desire and the pursuit of the whole.

Beauty, 

whether moral or natural, 

is felt, more properly 

than perceived.

What is it that really makes us, us? 

It's our collective intelligence. 

It's our ability to write things down, 

our language and our consciousness.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself 

is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity.

Æsthetic matters are fundamental 

for the harmonious development 

of both society and the individual.

Ancient sun worshippers believed 

the sun died at the end of the winter solstice 

and then three days later 

it would be reborn 

at the start of its cycle — 

December 25.

It is possible 

that in the remote regions of the fixed stars,

or perhaps far beyond them,

there may be some body absolutely at rest,

but it is impossible to know 

from the positions of bodies to one another in our regions

whether any one of these do not keep the same position

to that remote body.

It follows that absolute rest cannot be determined

from the position of bodies in our region.

My 'fear' is my substance, 

and probably the best part of me.

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,

Stains the white radiance of Eternity.

Wisdom is nothing but
a preparation of the soul, 

a capacity, 

a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing
thoughts of unity 

at every moment of life.

In music 

the passions enjoy themselves.

Art evokes the mystery 

without which 

the world would not exist.

Look deep into nature, 

and then you will understand everything better.

Beauty is that which is simultaneously attractive and sublime.

The universe as we know it 

is a joint product of the observer and the observed.

We cannot observe external things without some degree of thought; 

nor can we reflect upon our thoughts, 

without being influenced in the course of our reflection 

by the things which we have observed.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

I do not conceive of any reality at all 

as without genuine unity.

The product of the scientific imagination 

is a new vision of relations — 

like that of artistic imagination.

One touch of nature 

makes the whole world kin.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind 

as the ability to investigate systematically and truly 

all that comes under thy observation in life.

You can't depend on your eyes 

when your imagination is out of focus.

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. 

It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, 

something that never has been 

and never could have been experienced 

by anyone else.

We live in a wonderful world 

that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. 

There is no end to the adventures that we can have 

if only we seek them with our eyes open.

Separation of the observer
from the phenomenon to be observed
is no longer possible.

For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich

The world as we have created it
is a process of our thinking. 

It cannot be changed
without changing our thinking.

A man has as many social selves 

as there are individuals who recognise him.

The reality we can put into words is never reality itself.

'Pure experience' is the name I gave 

to the immediate flux of life 

which furnishes the material 

to our later reflection 

with its conceptual categories.

What we observe is not nature itself, 

but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

Science at its best 

is an open-minded method of inquiry, 

not a belief system.

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

The freethinking of one age 

is the common sense of the next.

Many fires burn below the surface.

Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.

Experience by itself is not science …

Natural objects, for example, must be experienced 

before any theorising about them can occur.