The need of truth is more sacred than any other need.

Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.

Contemplating an object fixedly with the mind, asking myself, 'What is it?' without thinking of any other object or relating it to anything else for hours on end.

One should identify oneself with the universe itself. Everything that is less than the universe is subjected to suffering.

The real stumbling-block of totalitarian regimes is not the spiritual need of men for freedom of thought; it is men's inability to stand the physical and nervous strain of a permanent state of excitement, except during a few years of their youth.

The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have the capacity do not possess it.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.