“As to the kind of truth one finds in books, it is a truth that enables us sometimes to discern what things are not, without ever enabling us to discover what they are.”

Stupidity is far more dangerous than evil, for evil takes a break from time to time, stupidity does not.

He would not stoop even to pick up the old manuscript I am going to seek with so much trouble and fatigue. And in truth man is made rather to eat ices than to pore over old texts.

For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.

Yet, every now and then, there would pass a young girl, slender, fair and desirable, arousing in young men a not ignoble desire to possess her, and stirring in old men regrets for ecstasy not seized and now forever past.

Our passions are ourselves.

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel.

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance?

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.

All the good writers of confessions, from Augustine onwards, are men who are still a little in love with their sins.

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.

We have never heard the devil’s side of the story, God wrote all the book.

It is good to collect things, but it is better to go on walks.

Whatever one may do, one is always alone in the world.

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. You cannot build a program of discovery on the assumption that nobody is smart enough to figure out the answer to a problem.

On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.

After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.

There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you’ve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you’ve made a discovery.

Have you ever felt trapped in circumstances, then discovered that the only trap was your own lack of vision, lack of courage, or failure to see that you had better options?

By the help of microscopes, there is nothing so small, as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible world discovered to the understanding.

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on Sept. 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.