Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider than that.

The reason I'm pessimistic about the future of America is because I'm optimistic about the capacity of Americans to believe bullshit.

It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

Religion is like a pair of shoes. Find one that fits for you, but don't try to make everyone else wear your shoes.

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

The best cure for bullshit is knowledge. But there's no cure for stupidity.

Have you ever noticed that their stuff is shit, and your shit is stuff?

You know, there's a lot of things I don't understand, but one thing I do know is that you gotta be yourself. And that means being honest with yourself.

I’m not a big fan of the word ‘choice.’ I prefer the word ‘options.’

If you scratch a cynic you will find a sentimentalist underneath. And if you scratch a sentimentalist you will find a cynic underneath.

The difference between 'shit' and 'bullshit' is the quantity.

Most people have no problem believing something that they’ve heard, as long as it agrees with what they already think.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up entirely on their own, so why bring them together?

Just when you think you've finally hit rock bottom, you realize you've still got about five feet to go.

I'm not a religious person myself, but I respect other people's faith.

We're so worried about protecting the unborn, but what about the born? A lot of people seem to be very pro-life up until the point of birth.

The real problem is that people are being trained to be obedient, passive, and stupid from the time they’re born. That’s what education is for.

I don't like words that hide things. I don't like words that mislead. I don't like euphemisms.

The main reason I love dogs is because they will never ask you what you do for a living.

Be water, my friend.

Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

The key is to be honest to yourself. If you’re not honest to yourself, what else is there?

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done.

Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

The more we value things, the less we value ourselves.

To know oneself is to be enlightened.

Real living is living for others.

Don't fear failure. That is the way to learn.

Use only that which is truly necessary.

What you habitually do is what you become.

If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, nor you to mine.

Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

The only source of knowledge is experience.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

A person starts to die when they stop wanting new experiences.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and only cease at death.

The pursuit of science is a grand adventure.

If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

I don't care that they stole my ideas... I care that they don't have any of their own.

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

The present is theirs; the future, which I really worked for, is mine.

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

My money is my freedom.

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.

I have held many patents, but none have brought me fortune. I do not care for money. Money cannot enrich me. I am content if I can further the betterment of the world.

Inventions are the most important product of a creative mind. The ultimate purpose of life is to develop fully all of our potentialities. Dreams of today are the truths of tomorrow.

I am trying to develop… a machine that will eliminate all danger of earthquakes.

The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first a feeble spark, then a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.

Of all the frictional resistances, the one that most retards human movement is ignorance.

The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain.

Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.

The scientific man does not aim at being popular. He hopes to add to the sum total of human knowledge.

I have even ventured to call electricity the vital essence of the universe.

The mind is sharper and more concentrated in solitude. The more original the ideas you have, the more you depend on being alone.

Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment and merging of races.

Sooner or later, man will attach his wagon to the very wheelwork of nature, and his energy will be drawn from the inexhaustible sources.

What one man calls God, another calls the laws of physics.

The human brain is a far more intricate and delicate mechanism than any electric generator.

The more you know, the more you see that you don't know.

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You can see through walls with them.

Every man's nature is a mess of contradictions.

One of the most significant facts about our condition is that we can, as it were, transcend ourselves.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more inclined it is to solitude.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

That all men are equal is a proposition which at no sane time has ever been believed by any sane human being.

The end justifies the means... provided that there is such a thing as an end which justifies the means.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words where one will do.

Chronic remorse, the torture of a regret that time cannot mend, is perhaps the most terrible of all the punishments.

The real danger in life is not that we may fail; it is that we may fail to try.

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

I am not young enough to know everything.

I find television very educational. Every time somebody turns it on I go into the other room and read a book.

There's one thing I always wanted to do – and that's quit.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

If you're not having fun, you're doing something wrong.

Humor is reason gone mad.

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.

I would rather be caught dead than seen using public transport.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

No, I'm not a vegetarian, but I've always been very fond of lettuce and tomatoes.

A hospital is a place where you're nice to people you don't know.

I'm getting old, and my bones creak. I used to be able to make love for hours. Now I can barely make love for minutes.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

The real you is not a puppet manipulated by the strings of the past. You are the strings themselves.

Trying to define yourself is like biting your own teeth.

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the present moment. And in that engagement, you will find ecstasy.

You are an aperture through which the universe is viewing and experiencing itself.

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so simple and so obvious and so impossible to explain.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence becomes an act of rebellion.

Waking up to who you are requires no effort, because it is already who you are.

Your life is not a journey to a destination; it's a dance.

Every intelligent person should be a revolutionary.

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the present moment.

You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.

The menu is not the meal.

One is not separate from the world — one is the world.

Life is a series of surprises.

To have faith is to let go, and to trust that you will not fall.

The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already.

You have something special. You have greatness within you.

It's not over until I win.

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.

If you want to be successful, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

You must be willing to walk alone. Do not be afraid to be different.

Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality.

The greatest revenge is massive success.

The soul within me no man can degrade.

Your dream is possible.

Don't be afraid to fail. It's the only way to learn and grow.

You have the power to create the life you want.

Get up and do something. It's time to make your dreams a reality.

The world is waiting for you. Go out there and make your mark.

You are stronger than you think.

Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something.

Believe in yourself, even when no one else does.

You are capable of amazing things.

Most people fail in life not because they aim too high and miss, but because they aim too low and hit.

You were born to win.

It ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!

Going in one more round when you don't think you can – that's what makes all the difference in your life.

I believe there's an inner power in all of us. The more you use that inner power, the more you will discover there is.

Life is going to hit you hard sometimes. It will knock you down, get you dirty, and sometimes it will kick you when you're down. But that's okay, because that's what life is about.

Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.

Don't quit before the miracle happens.

Don't let fear hold you back. Don't let anything hold you back.

I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I'm not going to let anyone outwork me.

It's O.K. to be scared. Being scared means you're about to do something really brave.

There's no such thing as talent. It's hard work and dedication.

The only way to truly satisfy yourself is to do what you believe is great work.

You can't get to where you're going by looking back.

I believe that anyone can become a champion if they have the will to win.

I'm a fighter. I've been knocked down more times than I can count, but I always get back up.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to yourself.

You have to be a little bit crazy to make it in this world.

I'm not afraid of growing old. I'm just trying to make the most of every day.

I've learned that the most important thing in life is to be true to yourself.

I don't believe in failure. I believe in learning from your mistakes.

The only person who can stop you from achieving your dreams is you.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.

It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these all counts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by the vegetating in one little corner of the life.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

A single spark can start a fire that burns down the whole forest.

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

If you are patient, even the mulberry leaf will turn into silk.

The early bird catches the worm.

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.

A book is like a garden carried in your pocket.

One kind word can warm three winter months.

The tongue is sharper than any sword.

A closed mouth catches no flies.

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.

Dig the well before you are thirsty.

A jade stone is useless before it is polished.

A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.

Don't use a cannon to kill a mosquito.

A wise man makes his own decisions, a fool follows public opinion.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

One day of happiness is worth more than a thousand years of sorrow.

Even the mightiest tree grows from a tiny seed.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

The greatest joy in life is to be used for a purpose that you recognize as a mighty one.

I am not young enough to know everything.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can find Him there any day.

The art of living is a continual readjustment to our surroundings.

There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

The true joy of life is the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

A man who tells the truth has nothing to fear.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing else like it. Don't waste it.

You can't have good without evil, for it is the contrast that makes it good.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Study the past if you would define the future.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the things that will unlock the door to personal excellence.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.

Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.

To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

Do not worry that your speed is slow; worry only that you are not consistent.

The more you give of yourself, the more you find yourself.

When anger rises, think of the consequences.

Faced with what is right, to know it and not to do it is a lack of courage.

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Never, never, never give up.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

To improve is to change; so to be perfect is to change often.

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

History is written by the victors.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

For myself I am an optimist. It does not seem to be much use being anything else.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace.

It is wonderful what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

When you're going through hell, keep going.

The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

We are all born atheists, babies don't believe in God until they are taught.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, or even because of, the lack of evidence.

Science is about doubt. Religion is about certainty.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic bully.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to be curious.

The illusion of conscious will is very powerful. We feel that we are the authors of our actions.

Human suffering has always been the raw material of jokes.

I am thrilled to be alive at this time. I do have hopes for the future, and our children deserve a future.

Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.

The idea that faith can be moved by prayer is, I think, an insult to any god.

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed.

It is a strange and wonderful fact that inert matter can, under certain conditions, organize itself into living beings.

The universe is very, very big. It's much bigger than anything we can imagine.

We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish genes that created us.

The only way to understand the natural world is to study it.

Science is the poetry of reality.

We are here on Earth to make a glorious and beautiful ruckus.

Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree respectfully.

The idea that children automatically inherit the religious beliefs of their parents is an abuse of childhood.

The core of science is not a mathematical proof. It is empirical data, observation.

We must find ways to promote science without turning it into a religion.

The problem with religion is that it forces good people to do bad things.

The best available evidence suggests that human consciousness requires a functioning brain.

One of the most unethical things you can do to someone is to deliberately misrepresent their beliefs.

We don't need religion to have morals.

It is time we abandoned the idea that rational discourse can be replaced by simply naming things – 'racist,' 'sexist,' 'homophobic.'

The boundary between science and philosophy is not as crisp as many people believe.

Lying is, almost by definition, a refusal to cooperate with reality.

Words matter. The words we use to describe the world often shape how we see it.

The illusion of free will is itself an illusion.

Atheism is not a religion. It is a way of thinking.

The goal of science is not to answer every question, but to understand the world around us.

We have a responsibility to be as rational as we can be about the world.

The more we understand about the brain, the more we realize how little we know.

The future of humanity depends on our ability to think rationally about the world.

We are all, at bottom, bundles of impulses and desires, conditioned by both our genes and our environment.

The world is full of suffering. It is our responsibility to try to reduce that suffering.

The most important questions in life are not answered by religion.

Science and reason are the best tools we have for understanding the world.

The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.

We are a very small part of a vast and ancient cosmos.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambitions.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

If we long for our long lost home, it is because we have come from there.

We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the universe atomically.

For small creatures such as we the vastness of space is bearable only through love.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star-stuff.

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusions, however satisfying.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

We are the custodians of life on Earth. We have a responsibility to cherish it.

A book is a device to ignite the imagination.

We are here to learn, to question, to explore.

The universe is so vast and so old that it is indifferent to our concerns.

We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. How precious is life and how fragile is our world!

Understanding is joy.

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.