Life and Existence

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.

We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.

If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another name?

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man…

A cult is a religion with no political power.

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.

To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.