The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form—an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other.

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.

Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.

Ignorance never settle a question.

Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you do or as fast. There is a time when you didn't know what you know today.

He who has so little knowledge of human natures as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Much of the evil in the world is due to the fact that man in general is hopelessly unconscious.

All that is important in this moment is movement. Make the movement vital and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.

Diversity of opinion within the framework of loyalty to our free society is not only basic to a university but to the entire nation.

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Wherever there is injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.

If we are to achieve richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.

Be not swept off your feet by the vividness of the impression, but say, “Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you.”

The hardest thing to explain is the glaring evident which everybody had decided not to see.

Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.

Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

You must try to observe yourself more and more objectively, to look at everything in yourself as though another person.

It is an ecological, theological, and biological reality: The more we are in tune with eternal nature, the more we will be able to hear the still small voice within and have explosions of inspirational insight.

Appearance rules the world.

The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages.

Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.

I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

A great man is hard on himself; a small man is hard on others.

If everyone was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.