If somebody asked me to design a religion

I would make it all about snow.

No good or evil and no suffering.

Just perfect crystals spinning

In ecstasy, ecstasy, ecstasy, ecstasy.

Science is simply common sense at its best, 

that is, 

rigidly accurate in observation, 

and merciless to fallacy in logic.

Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... 

only much, much better.

Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible. 

Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. 

Thought is great and swift and free.

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge... 

observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. 

Observation collects facts; 

reflection combines them; 

experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Science is not only a disciple of reason 

but, also, one of romance and passion.

The saddest aspect of life right now is 

that science gathers knowledge faster 

than society gathers wisdom.

We should look to the mind, 

and not to the outward appearance.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves 

in order to be like other people.

I have never wished to cater to the crowd; 

for what I know
they do not approve, 

and what they approve
I do not know.

Time is a sort of river of passing events, 

and strong is its current; 

no sooner is a thing brought to sight 

than it is swept by 

and another takes its place, 

and this too will be swept away.

Is the system going to flatten you out 

and deny you your humanity, 

or are you going to be able to make use of the system 

to the attainment of human purposes?

The roots of education are bitter, 

but the fruit is sweet.

Time, 

which changes people, 

does not alter the image 

we have retained of them.

The endeavour to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

I hope it is true 

that a man can die 

and yet not only live in others 

but give them life, 

and not only life, 

but that great consciousness of life.

Those who have the strength and the love 

to sit with a dying patient 

in the silence that goes beyond words 

will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, 

but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body.

Life is a long preparation 

for something that never happens.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things 

than such as are both true and sufficient 

to explain their appearances.

Religions get lost as people do.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; 

it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, 

but of imagination.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, 

but the will to find out, 

which is the exact opposite.

Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.

He who possesses art and science has religion; 

he who does not possess them, needs religion.

The merit of originality 

is not novelty; 

it is sincerity.

Our duty, 

as men and women, 

is to proceed 

as if limits to our ability did not exist. 

We are collaborators in creation.

Reason is not what decides love.

The life of the dead 

is placed 

in the memory of the living.

Where the senses fail us, 

reason must step in.

A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.

All truth passes through three stages. 

First, it is ridiculed. 

Second, it is violently opposed. 

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. 

Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive — 

to release our inner selves from the spiritual death 

that comes with living behind a facade 

designed to conform to external definitions 

of who and what we are.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions 

from insufficient premises.

The highest reward for a person's toil is 

not what they get for it, 

but what they become by it.

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained 

not by its growth, 

but by washing away from it 

all that is not gold.

Penetrating so many secrets, 

we cease to believe in the unknowable. 

But there it sits nevertheless, 

calmly licking its chops.

You are the music 

while the music lasts.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. 

The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over 

and let the beautiful stuff out.

All we have to decide is 

what to do 

with the time that is given us.

'Tis the sharpness of our mind 

that gives the edge 

to our pains and pleasures.

Animals, whom we have made our slaves, 

we do not like to consider our equal.

There's a certain kind of scepticism that can't bear uncertainty.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, 

and the word happy would lose its meaning 

if it were not balanced by sadness. 

It is far better take things as they come along 

with patience and equanimity.

In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.

Two roads diverged in a wood 

and I took the one less travelled by, 

and that has made all the difference.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

To be is to do.

Music expresses that which cannot be said 

and on which it is impossible to be silent.