Pain and pleasure, good and evil, come to us from unexpected sources. It is not there where we have gathered up our brightest hopes, that the dawn of happiness breaks. It is not there where we have glanced our eye with affright, that we find the deadliest gloom. What should this teach us? To bow to the great and only Source of light, and live humbly and with confiding resignation.

I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times... Man is a dialogue between nature and God. On other planets this dialogue will doubtless be of a higher and profounder character. What is lacking is Self-Knowledge. After that the rest will follow.

To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.

The senses do not deceive us, but the judgment does.

Don't give us your doubts, gives us your certainties, for we have doubts enough of our own.

If you treat men the way they are you never improve them. If you treat them the way you want them to be, you do.

What is not fully understood is not possessed.