When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it — this is knowledge.
— Confucius
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
— Albert Einstein
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.
— Richard P. Feynman
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
— Werner Heisenberg
The Cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.
— Carl Sagan
Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he contains all the faculties of the universe.
— John Dee
He who knows himself knows his Lord.
— Prophet Muhammad (attributed)
Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and demons.
— Pythagoras
God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
— Hermes Trismegistus, Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers
We are all letters of a unique and infinite book, which reads itself.
— Jorge Luis Borges
Nature is a temple where living pillars sometimes utter confused words; Man passes there through forests of symbols that watch him with familiar glances.
— Charles Baudelaire
The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already.
— Rumi
There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all, beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the light that shines in our heart.
— The Chandogya Upanishad
We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home.
— Aboriginal Australian proverb
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
— Albert Einstein (attributed)
The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
— Eden Phillpotts
Science is reticent too when it is a question of the great Unity of which we somehow form a part... It knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.
— Erwin Schrödinger
Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.
— Max Planck
The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter.
— Sir James Jeans
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.
— Albert Einstein
If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like. Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grow to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure… and you will apprehend God.
— Hermes Trismegistus, Corpus Hermeticum XI
That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of the one thing.
— Hermes Trismegistus, the Emerald Tablet
We must withdraw into ourselves… Knowledge of the One comes not by reasoning, nor by understanding, but by a presence transcending knowledge.
— Plotinus, the Enneads
Listening not to me but to the Logos, it is wise to agree that all things are one.
— Heraclitus
Take courage; the race of man is divine.
— Pythagoras, the Golden Verses
And when, after divesting thyself of thy mortal body, thou arrivest at the most pure Aether, thou shalt be a God, immortal, incorruptible, and Death shall have no more dominion over thee.
— Pythagoras, the Golden Verses
Tat tvam asi — that thou art.
— the Chandogya Upanishad
Aham brahmasmi — I am Brahman.
— the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die; nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be. It is unborn, eternal, immortal, and ageless; it is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.
— Krishna, the Bhagavad Gita
Beyond reckoning in space or time; without direction or locality; impossible to represent; ultimately indescribable… that state of overflowing fullness is Bhairavī, the essence of Bhairava.
— the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra
Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought.
— the Buddha, the Dhammapada
Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.
— the Buddha, the Dhammapada
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name.
— Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching
The kingdom of God is within you.
— Jesus, the Gospel of Luke
I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.
— Jesus, the Gospel of Thomas
I am that I am.
— the Book of Exodus
I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
— the Book of Isaiah
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
— Paul, 1 Corinthians
Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
— Ecclesiastes
Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth… Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He wills.
— the Qur'an
He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward; and He has knowledge of all things.
— the Qur'an
I died as mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
— Rumi, the Masnavi
I am the Truth.
— Mansur al-Hallaj (attributed)
The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me: my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, and one love.
— Meister Eckhart
O Sole God beside whom there is none! You made the earth as you wished, you alone… you made millions of forms from yourself alone.
— the Great Hymn to the Aten
To inspire awe by being silent is greater than to speak.
— Ptahhotep, the Maxims
Truly do we live on earth? Not forever on earth; only a little while here. Although it be jade it falls apart, although it be gold it wears away… only a little while here.