There is no particular theme to the quotes I have collected here, just some interesting, thought provoking, funny and occasionally confusing words of wisdom.
Collected quotes
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default. - J.K. Rowling
Fear knocked at the door, love answered, and found no one there. – Sufi maxim
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. - Nietzsche
I am all in favor of the skeptical mind. Do not believe anything unless you have experienced it. Do not believe anything – go on questioning, however long it takes. – Osho
The best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. – Dalai Lama
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it’s forever. – Carl Sagan
All I’m saying is that minerals are a very rudimentary form of consciousness; whereas other people [mainstream science] are saying that consciousness is a complicated form of minerals. - Alan W. Watts
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. - Andre Gide
I am, I am not, I will be, I will not be are vein thoughts which is a sickness and once all are eliminated no desire arises. – Buddha
Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. – Buddha
I am not in this world to live up to other people’s expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine. – Fritz Perls
Karma doesn’t have any hands, or any fists, so maybe it used your fist. – Randy Hickey
Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law. – Buddha
It is better to be a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success. – Malcolm McLaren
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places. – Ernest Hemingway
The Tao which can be spoken is not the true Tao. – Tao Te Ching
Not all who wander are lost. – J. R. R. Tolkien
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. – Buddha
The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order… the continuous thread of revelation. – Eudora Welty
It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard. – May Sarton
Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable. – Brenda Ueland
The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it. – Benjamin Disraeli
Everything in nature gives in its death. Stars die and whole solar systems begin to evolve from the impregnation of the exploded stellar matter. Trees die, and from their wood human beings build homes and furniture, statues and Stradivariuses. If humans died in a healthy culture, they would not lock out the earth in metal coffins and carve their names on stone monuments, but would instead place the naked body in the earth and plant a tree above the silent heart. – William Irwin Thompson
A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes the suffering. – Buddha