There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity of self-examination.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man’s task.

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.

To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

When civil fury first grew high, and men fell out they knew not why.

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

We must not allow ourselves to become like the system we oppose.

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.

When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?

What is a man in nature? Nothing in relation to the infinite, everything in relation to nothing, a mean between nothing and everything.

It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.

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.

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

One beautiful heart is better than a thousand beautiful faces.

Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

Appearance rules the world.