"What a man takes in by contemplation, he pours out in love."

"And a man shall be free, and as pure as the day prior to his conception in his mother's womb, when he has nothing, wants nothing and knows nothing."

"That which man acquires by contemplation he should spend in love."

"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing."

"The more we have the less we own."

"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

"The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary."

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

"We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us."

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it's two hours. That's relativity."

"Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible."

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."

"I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right."

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

"The life of the individual only has meaning insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value to which all other values are subordinate."

"It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it."

"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

"Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose."

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is all comprehensible."

"A man should look for what is, and not what he thinks should be."

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

"The important thing is not to stop questioning."

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

"The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man."

"The only source of knowledge is experience."

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us 'the universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts, and feelings, as something separate from the rest- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection of a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of understanding and compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler."

"We must learn to see the world anew."

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."

"The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self."

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."

"The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives."

"Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds."

"In my end is my beginning."

"And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

"Where is the knowledge that is lost in information? Where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge?"

"The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: Humility is endless."

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope. For hope would be hope for the wrong thing... So the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing."

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

"Let us be silent that we may hear the whisper of God."

"The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops but the kind of man that the country turns out."

"So far as a man thinks, he is free."

"I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching."

"Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow."

"Men talk as if victory were something fortunate. Work is victory."

"What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say."

"You become what you think about all day long."

"Many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it."

"Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is to you."

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary person, but he is braver five minutes longer."

"Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they are executed."

"We are wiser than we know."

"Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other."

"Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain."

"The first wealth is health."

"The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck."

"There is a crack in everything God has made."

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense."

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."

"It is very hard to be simple enough to be good."

"The reward of a thing well done is to have done it."

"It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself."

"God offers every mind its choice between truth and repose."

"A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can."

"Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones."

"Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves."

"To fill the hour- that is happiness; to fill the hour and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval."

"Let us be posied, and wise, and our own, today."

"Only so much do I know, as I have lived."

"Wherever we go, whatever we do, self is the sole subject we study and learn."

"God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches and religions."

"There is no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn't matter who gets the credit."

"People only see what they are prepared to see."

"The invisible mark of wisdom is seeing the miraculous in the common."

"The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away."

"We boil at different degrees."

"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment."

"Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty."

"Roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of existence."

"As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way."

"Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit... People wish to be settled; but only so far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them."

"Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary."

"Men who know the same things are not long the best company for each other."

"A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway."

"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."

"The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests."

"It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."

"Learn to wish that everything should come to pass exactly as it does."

"It is difficulties that show what men are."

"Our lives... are but a little while, so let them run as sweetly as you can, and give no thought to grief from day to day. For time is not concerned to keep our hopes, but hurries on its business, and is gone."