Steven Weinberg

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lift human life above the level of farce and give it some of the grace of tragedy.

Let us be grateful to Adam, our benefactor. He cut us out of the blessing of idleness and won for us the curse of labor.

Believe in something larger than yourself…get involved in the big ideas of your time.

[On religion:] Wasn’t it invented by man for a kind of solace? It’s as though he had said, ‘I’ll make me a nice comfortable garment to shut out the heat and the cold,’ and then it ends by becoming a strait-jacket.

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now? Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.

To follow the path, look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

Zen is not an art, it’s not a religion. It’s a realisation.

I prayed for your peace even if you started this whole war in me.

No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?