You see, if you take pains and learn in order to get a reward, the work will seem hard; but when you work… if you love your work, you will find your reward in that.

There were no other eyes like those in the world. There was only one creature in the world who could concentrate for him all the brightness and meaning of life. It was she.

He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.

I must get used to the idea that no one will ever understand me. This fate must be common to all people who are very difficult to get along with.

I read [Gandhi’s] book with great interest because I think the question [of] passive resistance … is a question of the greatest importance … for the whole humanity.

A Christian cannot help being free, because in the pursuit and attainment of his object, no one can either hinder or retard him.

He had the unlucky capacity many men have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to take any serious part in it.

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.

He was a child; but he knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it as the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no one into his soul.

The more busy you are with the improvement of your inner life, the more active you become in social life, helping other people.

But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.

God is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part.

Great things are always simple and modest.

Rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour — such is my idea of happiness.

I wanted feeling to guide us in life, and not life to be the guide to feeling.

To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.

No longer able to believe in the Church religion, whose falsehood they had detected, and incapable of accepting true Christian teaching, which denounced their whole manner of life, these rich and powerful people, stranded without any religious conception of life, involuntarily returned to that pagan view of things which places life’s meaning in personal enjoyment.

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

The relation of word to thought, and the creation of new concepts is a complex, delicate and enigmatic process unfolding in our soul.

Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to our question, the only question important for us: ‘what shall we do and how shall we live.

Grow spiritually and help others to do so. It is the meaning of life.

Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.

Some mathematician said: ‘Pleasure lies not in discovering truth, but in seeking it.

Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.

To be good and lead a good life means to give to others more than one takes from them.

Even in the valley of the shadow of death, two and two do not make six.

It’s hard to love a woman and do anything.

Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.

Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.

Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand.

What is so exquisite is that not a word has been said by me or by her, but we understand each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones, that this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me.

He never chooses an opinion; he just wears whatever happens to be in style.

I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

Faith is a knowledge of the meaning of human life, the consequence of which is that man does not kill himself but lives. Faith is the force of life. If a man lives, then he must believe in something. Without faith it is impossible to live.

When two people have a dispute, both are to blame. And therefore, a dispute will stop only when at least one person understands that he or she is guilty.

Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.

The Kingdom of God is Within You.

One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love.

He felt he was himself and did not want to be otherwise. He only wanted to be better than he had been before.

Terrible is the situation of those who cannot perceive spiritual growth in themselves. They can see only physical life, which will disappear in time. When you understand your spiritual being and live with it, then instead of despairing you understand the joy that can never be destroyed, which always grows.

The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life.

I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.

It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.

People who love thus always love for life; for, the more, they love, the more they know the beloved object, and the easier it is for them to love; that is, to satisfy his desires.

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine.

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way, we see them.

I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live.

Serve humanity.

Anything is better than lies and deceit deceit!

Life is fragile and absurd.

Love is life.

Happy people have no history.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

If you want to be happy, try only to please God, not people.

Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us.

Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experience them.

Always remember that there is only one important time: Today – Here – Now!

I think … if so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

Pay bad people with your goodness; fight their hatred with your kindness. Even if you do not achieve victory over other people, you will conquer yourself.

Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.

If you’re not enjoying your work, you should either change your attitude or change your job.

I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.

The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people.

The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labor.

Be bad, but at least don’t be a liar, a deceiver!

Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?

Since corrupt people unite amongst themselves to constitute a force, then honest people must do the same.

Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Our invisible work at the improvement of our soul is the most important work in the world, and all other visible kinds of work are useful only when we do this major work.

We are asleep until we fall in love.

All governments are in equal measure good and evil. The best ideal is anarchy.

Every man had his personal habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth.

Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

We lost because we told ourselves we lost.

The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life.

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.

Talking and reasoning does not even have one thousandth the influence a true example has. All lessons about how to behave are worthless when children see the opposite in real life.

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.

A truly wise man is always joyful.

You may deal with things without love; you may cut down trees, make bricks, hammer iron without love, but you cannot deal with men without it, just as you cannot deal with bees without being careful.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

Perhaps it’s because I appreciate all I have so much that I don’t worry about what I haven’t got.

It is possible to love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved by divine love.

The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life – becoming a better person.

He was afraid of defiling the love which filled his soul.

The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every action.

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it.

When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.

There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

Let us forgive each other—only then will we live in peace.

It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that makes us see beauty.

The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

There is only one way to put an end to evil, and that is to do good for evil.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

the desire for desires—boredom.

If you look for perfection, you will never be satisfied.

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles, so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.

And all people live, Not by reason of any care they have for themselves, But by the love for them that is in other people.

If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living.

If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.

Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

Happiness is in your ability to love others.

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

God is the same everywhere.

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

If you want to be happy, be.

To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in undeserved sufferings.

Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.

People would rather go down before changing their habits.

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.

There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.

There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

Spring is the time of plans and projects.

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

It’s all God’s will: you can die in your sleep, and God can spare you in battle.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

If you make it a habit not to blame others, you will feel the growth of the ability to love in your soul, and you will see the growth of goodness in your life.

If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.