In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued - they may be essential to survival.

All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.

We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.

The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.

A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps.

So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

The world is a stage and we are all actors. Each actor plays a unique part and is responsible for their own actions. Responsibility means doing the right thing no matter how big or small the task may be. Each one of us has a special role to play in the making the world a better place.

Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive and potentially orderly and constructive.

We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us - through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

Human nature is not of itself vicious.

Wicked men obey out of fear; good men, out of love.

Man is a piece of the universe made alive

Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning.

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

We are wiser than we know.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

We must be our own before we can be another's.

There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.

In the East people have condemned the body, condemned matter, called matter "illusory," maya - it does not really exist, it only appears to exist; it is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. They denied the world, and that is the reason for the East remaining poor, sick, in starvation. Half of humanity has been accepting the inner world but denying the outer world. The other half of humanity has been accepting the material world and denying the inner world. Both are half, and no man who is half can be contented. You have to be whole: rich in the body, rich in science; rich in meditation, rich in consciousness. Only a whole person is a holy person, according to me. I want Zorba and Buddha to meet together. Zorba alone is hollow. His dance has not an eternal significance, it is momentary pleasure. Soon he will be tired of it. Unless you have inexhaustible sources, available to you from the cosmos itself...unless you become existential, you cannot become whole. This is my contribution to humanity: the whole person.