philosophy

"Staring at a world too horrible to comprehend, believing -- by dint of ignorance and innocence -- that beneath this unbearable contract of guilt and blame there is always an older contract that may bind and release in a more salutary way."

"He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon."

"ای آمده از عالم روحانی تفتحیران شده در چهار و پنج و شش و هفتمی خور چو ندانی ز کجا آمده ایخوش باش ندانی به کجا خواهی رفت"

"You can't just skip the boring parts.""Of course I can skip the boring parts.""How do you know they're boring if you don't read them?""I can tell.""Then you can't say you've read the whole play.""I think I can live a happy life, Meryl Lee, even if I don't read the boring parts of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.""Who knows?"she said. "Maybe you can't."

"Life is a book. We fill the pages."

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."

"Anyway—because we are readers, we don't have to wait for some communications executive to decide what we should think about next—and how we should think about it. We can fill our heads with anything from aardvarks to zucchinis—at any time of night or day."

"Remain true to yourself, child. If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie."

"When you're in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. That's the consolation of philosophy."

"The most important thing I gained from my travels was the knowledge that one could achieve anything with determination and an ounce of luck."

"Treat everyone you meet as if they were you."

"that you would not anticipate misery since the evils you dread as coming upon you may perhaps never reach you at least they are not yet come Thus some things torture us more than they ought, some before they ought and some which ought never to torture us at all. We heighten our pain either by presupposing a cause or anticipation"

"I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle."

"There's no greater show on earth than observing human nature"

"The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart."

"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago."

"Iran [10w] In Teheran daylight dawnswith minarets against skies of bronze."

"Putting food under lock and key was one of the great innovations of your culture. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key - and putting it there is the cornerstone of your economy.[...] Because if the food wasn't under lock and key, Julie, who would work?"

"Apocalypse is a frame of mind."[Nicodemus] said then. "A belief. A surrender to inevitability. It is a despair for the future. It is the death of hope."

"Of course there is no formula for success, except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life, and what it brings"