“Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.”

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.

As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.

All men are Prophets or else God does not exist.

To think new thoughts you have to break the bones in your head.

Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being – like a worm.

I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati’s.

I’d come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

What is there to fear in such a regular world?

People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?

What is important is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

My eyes feel all soft, all soft as flesh. I’m going to sleep.

I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.

The hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted and spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past.

The past is no more; the future not yet. Nothing exists except the here and now. Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at our hands.

Let’s go invent tomorrow.

In the future, there will be opened a gateway and a road to a large and excellent science into which minds more piercing than mine shall penetrate to recesses still deeper.

There is no future without forgiveness.

When space travel becomes as common as air travel, the future of civilization will be assured.

Don’t let the mistakes and disappointments of the past control and direct your future.