The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to live with purpose

Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out

Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those others that have been tried

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time

Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted wrongly the first time as you are about to act now

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how

I do like clarity and exact thinking, and I believe they are important to mankind. Because when you allow yourself to think inexactly, your prejudices, your bias, your self-interest comes in in ways you won’t notice. And you’ll do bad things without knowing you are doing them. Self-deception is very easy

Neither look for nor expect gratitude but rather get whatever comfort you can out of the belief that your effort is constructive in purpose

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance

Until you have done something for humanity you should be ashamed to die

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread

It doesn't matter what you know, what matters is what you can do with what you know

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster

We do not learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted

There’s nothing more important than the stuff you notice that no one else does. That’s where every single innovation begins; that’s where all creativity begins. It’s honoring what you notice, what you tune into and what you care about.

Resistance and change often begin in art

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention

The radicals of one age are the reactionaries of the next

In its encounter with nature, science invariably elicits a sense of reverence and awe. The very act of understanding is a celebration of joining, merging, even if on a very modest scale, with magnificence of the cosmos