In the beginning, there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing has so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all.

The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.

The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians.

Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.

The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.

What you can imagine depends on what you know.

There are no forces on this planet more dangerous to all of us than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism.

There may be things that are completely unknowable to us, so we must be careful not to treat the limits of our knowledge as sure guides to the limit of what there is.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

There is no polite way to suggest to someone that they have devoted their life to a folly.

Suffer women once to arrive at an equality with you, and they will from that moment become your superiors.

It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals.

If beating yourself up worked you'd be rich, thin, and happy. Try loving yourself instead.

I really feel like if everyone listened to their angels the world which shift. We wouldn't see any kind of greed or competition - it would really be the world of kindness .

Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the "life eternal"!

Whenever I'm reading a book I enjoy, I always develop a mental list of the people I want to share it with.

As much horror as we have always created, we are a species that keeps moving forward, seeing new sights in new ways, and enjoying the journey.

A lot of people misunderstand me. That's because they don't know me at all.

A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.

This physical world, though necessary to our evolution, is the embodiment of impermanence, of constant change. Thus, we take care not to become overly attached to it.