There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.

The optimum population is modeled on the iceberg- eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above.

The world is an illusion, but an illusion which we must take seriously.

Let us be kinder to one another.

The thing that impresses me most about this country is its hopefulness. It is this which distinguishes it from Europe, where there is hopeless depression and fear.