“Nobody has ever managed to explain what it is they are longing after in religion, but it is quite clear what they are trying to escape from – this earthly vale of tears, one’s untenable existential situation.”

A Chinaman in My Bath

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 4
Context: Explanations are clear but since no one to whom a thing is explained can connect the explanations with what is really clear, therefore clear explanations are not clear. Now this is a simple thing that anybody who has ever argued or quarreled knows perfectly well is a simple thing, only when they read it they do not understand it because they do not see that understanding and believing are not the same thing.

Source: The Courage to Be (1952), pp. 123-124

Quoted in "The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's S.S." - Page 439 - by Heinz Höhne, R. Barry - 1969

2000s, Address at Stanford University (2005)

2005-09, Address at Stanford University (2005)
Context: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Source: 1Q84 BOOK 1

from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

Source: Himalayan Lust