Life and Existence

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

When one is out of touch with oneself, one cannot touch others.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind—a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you’ve just made a down payment on a house.

I don’t see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them unless we were meant to be immortal.

Our Creator would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them unless we were meant to be immortal.

Showing up is 80 percent of life.

Luck is not chance, it’s toil. Fortune’s expensive smile is earned.

It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity.

It is the wounded oyster that mends its shell with pearl.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is.

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Love beauty; it is the shadow of God on the universe.