“It seems wisest to assume the worst from the beginning, and let anything better come as a surprise.”

Solitude, isolation, are painful things, and beyond human endurance.

He must have travelled everywhere, at least in the spirit.

It must be, for there is a logic to everything on this earth and nothing is done without a reason, that God sometimes lets scientists discover.

It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason.

We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones.

So is man’s heart. The desire to perform a work which will endure, which will survive him, is the origin of his superiority over all other living creatures here below. It is this which has established his dominion, and this it is which justifies it, over all the world.

What darkness is to you is light is to me.

The Great Architect of the universe built it of good firm stuff.

The chance which now seems lost may present itself at the last moment.

As long as the heart beats, as long as body and soul keep together, I cannot admit that any creature endowed with a will has need to despair of life.

I am very bad at expressing tender sentiments. The very word ‘love’ frightens me.

The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the ‘Living Infinite.

Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one.

How many things have been denied one day, only to become realities the next!

In presence of Nature’s grand convulsions man is powerless.

Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.

The end of great beginnings is to disregard the cognisance.

Healthy relationships should always begin at the spiritual and intellectual levels – the levels of purpose, motivation, interests, dreams,and personality.

I am afraid that if we begin to put our trust in human help, some of our Divine help will fail us.

I lift my hands in praise and all else begins to fade, for you are all that matters; lord take all of me.

Where we ended I began.

Yesterday ended last night. Every day is a new beginning. Learn the skill of forgetting. And move on.

Any society begins by realizing that together, by helping each other, you can survive better than if you fight each other and compete with each other.

The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.