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The universe is the totality

• Universe: All existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos. Oxford Dictionary
• Universe: Everything that exists, especially all physical matter, including all the stars, planets, galaxies, etc. in space. Cambridge Dictionary
• A model or conception of the earth and everything else that exists. American Heritage Dictionary
• Stars,  The sun,  The moon,  Wonder,  Science,  God

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The universe is a living thing

• You are Life passing through your body, passing through your mind, passing through your soul. Once you find that out, not with logic, not with the intellect, but because you can feel that Life – you find out that you are the force that makes the flowers open and close, that makes the hummingbird fly from flower to flower. You find out that you are in every tree, and you are in every animal, vegetable, and rock. You are that force that moves the wind and breathes through your body. The whole universe is a living being that is moved by that force, and that is what you are. You are Life. Don Miguel Ruiz
• The reason why the universe is eternal is that it does not live for itself; it gives life to others as it transforms. Lao Tzu  
• Never forget that the universe is a single living organism possessed of one substance and one soul, holding all things suspended in a single consciousness and creating all things with a single purpose that they might work together spinning and weaving and knotting whatever comes to pass. Marcus Aurelius

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The universe is a school

• The entire universe is a university. Everything and everybody is a professor to us. We constantly learn from everybody and everything. We learn even more through pain than through pleasure. Whether we want it to or not, the world will give us the experiences we need and make us grow. Sri Swami Satchidananda
• The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes, – every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy. Orison Swett Marden  
• If we learn how to inhabit now more – with awareness – then it’s almost as if the universe becomes your teacher. Because there’s no boundary to awareness. Jon Kabat-Zinn  
• Life is a university

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The universe is a process

• Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process. Anne Wilson Schaef, Ph.D.  
• Life is a process

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The universe is truly vast in scale …

• At 13.7 billion years old, 45 billion light years across and filled with 100 billion galaxies – each containing hundreds of billions of stars – the Universe as revealed by modern science is humbling in scale and dazzling in beauty. Professor Brian Cox
• For most people, we often marvel at the beauty of a sunrise or the magnificence of a full moon, but it is impossible to fathom the magnitude of the universe that surrounds us. Richard H. Baker
• The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to. Lockhart, We Were Liars  
• Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space. Douglas Adams  
• The universe is wider than our views of it. Henry David Thoreau  
• The size of the universe depresses many people, but not me, I’m delighted at it. Alan Watts  
• The Universe has as many different centres as there are living beings in it. Alexander Solzhenitsyn  
• Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards. Fred Hoyle
• It may be — I hope it is — redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable. William Golding, A Moving Target  
• There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe and what can be more special than that there is no boundary? Stephen Hawking  
• I don’t pretend to understand the Universe — it’s a great deal bigger than I am. Thomas Carlyle

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… populated by billions upon billions of stars and planets …

• The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars. Benjamin Franklin
• The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Henry David Thoreau
• The stars are the land-marks of the universe. Sir John Frederick William Herschel  
• When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe. Vera Nazarian  
• We don’t look at the stars in the universe and say how tragic they are, how bruised they are, even though that is what they are. We look at them and speak of the beauty they contain. The inspiration they give us. Even though stars are the scars of the universe we don’t see them as these broken pieces of gaseous matter, we see them as these majestic astrological blessings that give hope to billions. What if you saw yourself in that same light, or better yet what if you saw others in a similar way. Ricky Maye  
• Unknowingly, we plow the dust of stars, blown about us by the wind, and drink the universe in a glass of rain. Ihab Hassan
• If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile. Ralph Waldo Emerson 
• Stars

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… but mostly filled with infinite amounts of space …

• Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. Dominic Owen Mallary  
• The spaces between stars are where the work of the universe is done. Ivan Doig  
• All things tend toward entropy. The whole universe is moving outward, the stars pulling away from one another, God knows what falling through the cracks between them. Cassandra Clare
• The crux is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing. William J. Broad

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… just as we are

• To give you an idea of how vast the space is between celestial bodies, consider this: Light traveling at a constant speed of 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second takes just over one second to travel between the earth and the moon; light from the sun takes about eight minutes to reach the earth. Light from our nearest neighbor in space, a star called Proxima Centauri, which is the sun that is closest to our own sun, travels for 4.5 years before it reaches the earth. This is how vast the space is that surrounds us. And then there is the intergalactic space, whose vastness defies all comprehension. Light from the galaxy closest to our own, the Andromeda Galaxy, takes 2.4 million years to reach us. Isn’t it amazing that your body is just as spacious as the universe? Eckhart Tolle  
• The greatest miracle is this: That stillness and vastness that enables the universe to be is not just out there in space —it is also within you. Eckhart Tolle  

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The universe is within us …

• Everything you’ll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body. But you haven’t learned how to read the wisdom of the body. Dan Millman
• I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. Neil deGrasse Tyson  
• You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind. Yoko Ono
• Instead, look for what you cannot see. There are universes among us, within us. Our only way out of darkness is to learn how to see without light. Yvonne Woon
• Man is a piece of the universe made alive. Ralph Waldo Emerson  
• Man is a universe within himself. Bob Marley
• In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe. David Bohm  
• Man know thyself: then thou shalt know the Universe and God. Pythagoras
• The Truth is we are all one. Oneness. It’s not a tiny me in an vast universe, but the universe all in me. Adyashanti

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… for the universe hides within every atom

• As is the human body, so is the cosmic body. As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind. As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm. As is the atom, so is the universe. The Upanishads  
• Behind every atom of this world, hides an infinite universe. Rumi
• For the earth is only an atom in the universe of worlds. Edgar Cayce
• The universe is made up of stories, not atoms. Muriel Rukeyser  
• That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy. Jonathan Swift  
• The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together. Carl Sagan, Cosmos  
• All persons are contained within a single individual, just as all time is in a moment, and the entire universe is in a grain of sand. Brian herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
• Look inside yourself and you can see the universe. Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

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The universe is sacred and full of magic

• The Universe is sacred. You cannot improve it, if you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it. Lao Tzu
• The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. Eden Philpotts
• Sikh tradition begins with the simple premise that all the universe is sacred and worthy of respect. Every bush, ant and tree is, in its own way, engaged in worship. SikhNet.com
• Magic,  Wonder

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The universe is intensely strange …

• Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine – it is stranger than we can imagine. Arthur Stanley Eddington  
• Now my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J. B. S. Haldane
• The universe has no sides, no end, can’t be mapped. Enough to make a man talk about God, make a man superstitious and worship an idol. The science never gets as far as the strangeness. Jeanette Winterson
• The universe is far stranger and far richer–more wondrously strange–than our meager human imaginations can anticipate. Modern cosmology has driven us to consider ideas that could not even have been formulated a century ago. The great discoveries of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have not only changed the world in which we operate, they have revolutionized our understanding of the world–or worlds–that exist, or may exist, just under our noses: the reality that lies hidden until we are brave enough to search for it. Lawrence M. Krauss

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… and full of paradox …

• The world is a contradiction; the universe a paradox. Kedar Joshi
• The world of science lives fairly comfortably with paradox. We know that light is a wave, and also that light is a particle. The discoveries made in the infinitely small world of particle physics indicate randomness and chance, and I do not find it any more difficult to live with the paradox of a universe of randomness and chance and a universe of pattern and purpose than I do with light as a wave and light as a particle. Living with contradiction is nothing new to the human being. Madeleine L’Engle  
• The Universe is very, very big. It also loves a paradox. For example, it has some extremely strict rules.  Rule number one: Nothing lasts forever.  Not you or your family or your house or your planet or the sun. It is an absolute rule. Therefore when someone says that their love will never die, it means that their love is not real, for everything that is real dies.  Rule number two: Everything lasts forever.  Craig Ferguson, Between the Bridge and the River  
• Paradox

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… yet also rational

• Reason is the substance of the universe. The design of the world is absolutely rational. Hebbel
• In that world, you’ll be able to rise in the morning with the spirit you had known in your childhood: that spirit of eagerness, adventure and certainty which comes from dealing with a rational universe. Ayn Rand  
• The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes big round numbers. Scott Adams
• Rationality

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The universe is hugely complex  …

• The universe is simple; it’s the explanation that’s complex. Woody Allen
• The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. Albert Einstein  
• All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it’s pretty damn complicated in the first place. Douglas Adams  
• The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity. Seth Lloyd
• Complexity

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… some argue incomprehensibly so …

• There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. Douglas Adams  
• The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied. Douglas Adams  
• The deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. Albert Einstein  
• I believe God is a name we give to the mystery of the world that is beyond our capacity to understand. I believe that the energy of the universe is ordered by forces I cannot comprehend. Robert Jensen
• Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. Frank Herbert  
• What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there’s nothing to compare it with. Scott Adams  
• The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe. Peter De Vries  
• Some say that the universe is made so that when we are about to understand it it changes into something even more incomprehensible. And then there are those who say that this has already happened. Douglas Adams  
• I don’t pretend to understand the Universe — it’s a great deal bigger than I am. Thomas Carlyle

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… maybe even beyond conception and description by our limited minds …

• The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief. Frank Herbert
• The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, the mind itself being but a fact among others. Cormac Mccarthy
• What is wrong with us human beings, and has been wrong since time immemorial, is that without ever stating it in so many words, we believe that we have entered the realm of immortality. We behave as if we are never going to die – an infantile arrogance. But even more injurious than this sense of immortality is what comes with it : the sense that we can engulf this inconcievable universe with our minds. Carlos Castaneda  

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… but we are determined to understand it and that makes us special

• The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy. Steven Weinberg  
• We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special. Stephen Hawking  
• We simply do not understand our place in the universe and have not the courage to admit it. Barry Lopez  
• The Universe forces those who live in it to understand it. Those creatures who find everyday experience a muddled jumble of events with no predictability, no regularity, are in grave peril. The Universe belongs to those who, at least to some degree, have figured it out. Carl Sagan  
• All inquires carry with them some element of risk. There is no guarantee that the universe will conform to our predispositions. Carl Sagan
• To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit. Stephen Hawking
• Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. Carl Sagan
• We seek an understanding of the laws of nature and of our particular universe in which everything makes sense to us. We do not want to be reduced to accepting the strange features of our universe as brute facts. Sean M. Carroll  
• If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God. Stephen Hawking
• We must not look round on the universe with awe, and on man with scorn; for man, who can comprehend the universe and its laws, is greater than the universe, which cannot comprehend itself. William E. Channing
• Understanding

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Surely we are up to the challenge …

• Instead of being overwhelmed by the universe, I think that perhaps one of the deepest experiences a scientist can have, almost approaching a religious awakening, is to realize that we are children of the stars, and that our minds are capable of understanding the universal laws that they obey. The atoms within our bodies were forged on the anvil of nucleo-synthesis within an exploding star aeons before the birth of the solar system. Our atoms are older than the mountains. We are literally made of star dust. Now these atoms, in turn, have coalesced into intelligent beings capable of understanding the universal laws governing that event. Michio Kaku
• Enlightened understanding is not knowledge about the universe, but the living experience of the nature of the universe. Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
• As long as we don’t cut off our hearts, the inner workings of the universe illuminate before us. Rivera Sun

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… as long as we’re not tempted to dumb it down or fall prey to delusion and wishful thinking

• Truth is something which can’t be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning. Anais Nin  
• The universe is the way it is. It’s not going to be changed by supplications. Buzz Aldrin
• It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Carl Sagan  
• Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. Andy Mulcahy

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Some argue the universe is an illusion …

• The entire universe is a great theater of mirrors. Alice Bailey
• Know that this universe is nothing but a dream bluff of nature to test your consciousness of immortality. Paramahansa Yogananda

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… a projection of the mind …

• The whole universe is a projection of the mind; therefore it is a mode of the mind. The true nature of the mind is bliss, and when the mind is stilled, bliss absolute is revealed. Avadhuta Gita
• Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you. Douglas Adams
• Each of us makes our own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which we inhabit. Fulton J. Sheen
• Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn’t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor. Hugh Elliott
• If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation. Chuang Tzu 
• The mind

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… not a physical entity but a giant thought     

• Why should any phenomenon be assumed impossible? The Universe begins to look more and more like a great thought, than a great machine. James Howard Jeans
• Thoughts are like burning stars, and ideas, they flood, they stretch the universe. Criss Jami  
• The cosmic psyche whispers to us softly in the gap between our thoughts. We can learn more about the universe “between our thoughts” than actually “from our thoughts”. Deepak Chopra
• The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind — a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you’ve just made a down payment on a house. Woody Allen

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Whatever it is, the universe is alive with mystery …     

• We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. Ray Bradbury  
• The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries. Carl Sagan  
• We don’t have to look far for miracles because they’re all around us. Everything is astonishing. The universe on it’s surface is alive with mystery. Terrence McKenna  
• The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image. Charles W. Chesnutt
• We are so impressed by scientific clank that we feel we ought not to say that the sunflower turns because it knows where the sun is. It is almost second nature to us to prefer explanations with a large vocabulary. We are much more comfortable when we are assured that the sunflower turns because it is heliotropic. The trouble with that kind of talk is that it tempts us to think that we know what the sunflower is up to. But we don’t. The sunflower is a mystery, just as every single thing in the universe is. Robert Farrer Capon
• Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe? Let each seek one’s own way to the highest, to one’s own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one’s ideal of life.  Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication.  Algernon Black  
• When all the words have been written, and all the phrases have been spoken, the great mystery of life will still remain. We may map the terrains of our lives, measure the farthest reaches of the universe, but no amount of searching will ever reveal for certain whether we are all children of chance or part of a great design. And who among us would have it otherwise?  Who would wish to take the mystery out of the experience of looking into a newborn infant’s eyes?  Kent Nerburn  
• The obscurest sayings of the truly great are often those which contain the germ of the profoundest and most useful truths. Genius rapidly traverses the living present to bury itself in the deepest mysteries of the universe; often making the grandest discoveries at a single glance. Joseph Mazzini
• I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand. Benjamin Alire Sáenz  
• It is clear that there is no classification of the Universe that is not arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what kind of thing the universe is. Jorge Luis Borges
• Mystery

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… mystery that we try our best to obscure with facts and data

• The problem with our time, perhaps, is that we have been seduced by facts and data, at the same time, become bereft of wonder. We want to know it all rather than to understand the meaning of it all for the good life here and now. The universe, however technological it may now be, is still the ultimate mystery, the essential human question, the greatest spiritual revelation. Everything else is distraction. To know all the elements, all the chemistry of life, is one thing; to know what it means to live a good life in the midst of the knowledge of what humans can do with them to destroy it is entirely another.  Joan Chittister  
• Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Stephen Hawking
• He’d tried believing in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he’d innocently started reading new books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He’d found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn’t really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it really was or even if it could theoretically exist. Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
• Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the universe. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.  
• Nothing we say about the nature of the universe should be taken as an absolute truth. Neither concepts nor mathematical formulae can explain the infinite. No thought can encapsulate the vastness of the totality. David R. Hawkins
• Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed. Dan Brown  

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The universe is alive with wonder …

• After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked-as I am surprisingly often-why I bother to get up in the mornings. Richard Dawkins
• All the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any. Walt Whitman
• At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far. Yann Martel
• Death: Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom. Terry Pratchett
• Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising than the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof. Celia Thaxter  
• I know that much of the structure and plan of the universe is beyond my understanding and not at all similar to anything of our earthly world that I have experienced so far. I marvel at the intellect and attention to detail, the precision manifested by the workings of this great and often unseen force of which we are all a part. Rosemary Altea
• Everything is created from moment to moment, always new. Like fireworks, this universe is a celebration and you are the spectator contemplating the eternal Fourth of July of your absolute splendor. Francis Lucille
• Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. Andy Mulcahy
• Wonder

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… and awakening to that wonder allows us to connect more deeply to the universe

• The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. John Muir  
• I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly – or ever – gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe. Brian Greene
• Most of our energy goes into maintaining our own importance. If we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free ourselves from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe. Deepak Chopra
• The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction. Rachel Carson
• The universe is celebrating. Let us celebrate with it. A child sees everything as wondrous. Walking the path of beauty means living moment to glorious moment, letting everything be new and exciting again. As I see beauty, I praise it. Give thanks for it. Fill my mind with it. With practice, I too will see God in a blade of grass and eternity in a grain of sand. John Kehoe  
• Even though our starting point may be the consideration of ordinary things, our objective is to go beyond the physical—to penetrate the object and find the source of its beauty, its form, its very existence! We point to something greater than the sum of its parts. The implication is that a mysterious wonder is embedded in every particle of the universe and that our purpose in living is constantly to increase our awareness of the Source of our being. Charles Lelly
• The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think they know how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination. Joseph Campbell  
• It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky… a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe. Victor Hugo
• Connection,  Connectedness

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The universe is alive with beauty     

• Beauty is an all-pervading presence. It unfolds to the numberless flowers of the Spring; it waves in the branches of the trees and in the green blades of grass; it haunts the depths of the earth and the sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone. And not only these minute objects, but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and the setting sun all overflow with beauty. The universe is its temple; and those people who are alive to it cannot lift their eyes without feeling themselves encompassed with it on every side. William Ellery Channing
• Beauty is the shadow of God on the universe. Gabriela Mistral
• How intoxicating is the triumph of beauty, and how right it is to name it queen of the universe! How many courtiers, how many slaves, have submitted to it! But alas! Why must it be that what flatters our senses almost always deceives our souls? de Surin  
• Nature is another important aspect of nourishing the soul. After a hike in the mountains where we live, for instance, I feel a remarkable sense of gratitude and awe. My mind quiets down and allows me to see more clearly the beauty of creation.  And through that gratitude, the beauty of the universe is reflected back to the creator. Joan Borysenko  
• The greatest beauty is organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Robinson Jeffers  
• The most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above us and the feeling of duty within us. Indian Proverb  
• Beauty

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The universe is alive with energy     

• The universe is energy that responds to expectations. James Redfield
• Just as there is no loss of basic energy in the universe, so no thought or action is without its effects, present or ultimate, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt. Norman Cousins
• Everything in the Universe, including you, is pure energy vibrating at different frequencies. Tania Kotsos  
• I believe God is a name we give to the mystery of the world that is beyond our capacity to understand. I believe that the energy of the universe is ordered by forces I cannot comprehend. Robert Jensen
• The basic stuff of the universe, at its core, is looking like a kind of pure energy that is malleable to human intention and expectation in a way that defies our old mechanistic model of the universe–as though our expectation itself causes our energy to flow out into the world and affect other energy systems. James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy
• I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. Robinson Jeffers
• There is only one emotion, one energy, in the universe. The energy, the emotion that we call love. When you know this, everything changes. Neale Donald Walsch

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The universe is alive with consciousness     

• Spirit is the essence of consciousness, the energy of the universe that creates all things. Each one of us is a part of that spirit – a divine entity. So the spirit is the higher self, the eternal being that lives within us. Shakti Gawain
• Love is the omnipresent force of the universe; it unifies energy and consciousness. John Pierrakos
• This new awareness has radical implications for each and every one of us. For it reveals a wholly interconnected, conscious and holographic universe, a Cosmos where consciousness is primary– and where we are therefore both creator and co- creator. Jude Currivan
• When I say ‘I am’, I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus, I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is known. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• You are a dynamic stream of consciousness, flowing freely, fully and fearlessly in, through and around the Universe in unlimited abundance. Reclaim your Spirit…  Robert Beno
• Consciousness . . . is the phenomenon whereby the universe’s very existence is made known. Roger Penrose
• Consciousness

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Let wonder of the universe be your religion     

• A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. Carl Sagan
• How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Carl Sagan  
• It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Carl Sagan  
• Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. Andy Mulcahy
• Religion,  Wonder

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Let joy in the universe be your religion     

• Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion. John Burroughs
• Joy is you at the deepest level, and your joy is one with the infinite timeless joy of this unbound universe. Robert Ellwood
• Listen to the clues. The next time you feel real joy, stop and think. Pay attention. Because joy is the universe’s way of knocking on your mind’s door. Hello in there. Is anyone home? Can I leave a message? Yes? Good! The message is that you are happy, and that means that you are in touch with your purpose. Steve Chandler
• Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.  Sarah Ban Breathnach  
• I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy! Louise Bogan  
• Joy

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The universe is governed by laws …     

• As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. Henry David Thoreau  
• Following the basic laws of the Universe leads us to a life of total and complete joy in every moment. Arnold Patent
• I believe there are an infinite number of laws of the universe and that all progress or dreams achieved come from operating in a way that’s consistent with them. These laws and the principles of how to operate in harmony with them have always existed. We were given these laws by nature. Man didn’t and can’t make them up. He can only hope to understand them and use them to get what he wants. Ray Dalio
• I’m not religious in the normal sense. I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws. Stephen Hawking  
• Opulence is the law of the universe, an abundant supply for every need if nothing is put in the way of its coming. Ralph W. Trine  
• Perhaps the universe purely operates on wit, and the best joke, inducing the longest fit of cosmic giggles, becomes the operative law at the next quantum mind-shift? Daniel Pinchbeck  
• Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. Ambrose Bierce

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… and some argue that a great spirit is manifest in these laws …     

• Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. Albert Einstein
• The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. Thomas Henry Huxley  
• God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of the players, (ie everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. Neil Gaiman  

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… that the universe has a creator …     

• I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker. Voltaire
• If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle. Dave Barry  
• The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a ‘what’ created the universe; the theist believes a ‘who’ created the universe. Criss Jami  
• God is to me that creative Force, behind and in the universe, who manifests Himself as energy, as life, as order, as beauty, as tought, as conscience, as love. Henry Sloane Coffin  
• I am perfect because I am inseparable from the infinite, the force of life that creates the stars and the entire universe of light. I am God’s creation. I don’t need to be what I am not. Miguel Ruiz
• Patience is woven into the web of the universe because this universe reflects–in dim and fractured ways–the divine patience of its creator. Samuel Wells  
• That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy. Jonathan Swift  
• The celestial order and the beauty of the universe compel me to admit that there is some excellent and eternal Being, who deserves the respect and homage of men.
• In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea. Douglas Adams  
• My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. Brian Pickrell
• The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes big round numbers. Scott Adams

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… that God is master of the universe …     

• I’ve never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith — it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe. Robert A. Heinlein  
• I believe God is a name we give to the mystery of the world that is beyond our capacity to understand. I believe that the energy of the universe is ordered by forces I cannot comprehend. Robert Jensen
• The great soul that sits on the throne of the universe is not, never was, and never will be, in a hurry. Josiah Gilbert Holland
• The universe shows us the life of God, or rather it is in itself the life of God. We behold in it his permanent action, the scene upon which his power is exercised, and in which all his attributes are reflected. God is not out of the universe any more than the universe is out of God. God is the principle, the universe is the consequence, but a necessary consequence, without which the principle would be inert, unfruitful, impossible to conceive. Henri-Dominique Lacordaire
• God

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… while others disagree     

• My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests. George Santayana,  
• It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be. Sigmund Freud
• The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a ‘what’ created the universe; the theist believes a ‘who’ created the universe. Criss Jami  
• So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-  contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator? Stephen Hawking  
• Maybe there isn’t a God after all, maybe there’s only a universe rotating by itself like a millstone. Gao Xingjian
• What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. Stephen Hawking
• It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil — which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama. Richard Feynman

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Some argue the universe is benevolent …

• Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work. Abdul Kalam  
• Salvation is seeing that the universe is good, and becoming a part of that goodness. Arthur G. Clutton- Brock  
• The growing love I have for myself is mirrored by the love the Universe shows me.  Louise L. Hay  
• The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe. Albert Einstein
• Do you imagine the universe is agitated? Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question.  Lao Tzu  
• Look out into the universe and contemplate the glory of God. Observe the stars, millions of them, twinkling in the night sky, all with a message of unity, part of the very nature of God. Sai Baba
• Today we no longer regard the universe as the cause of our own undeserved troubles but perhaps, on the contrary, as the last refuge from the mismanagement of our earthly affairs. Rudolf Arnheim
• On awakening, bless the day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessing will call forth; for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all. Pierre Pradervand
• We live in a spiritual Universe. God is in, through, around and for us. Ernest Holmes  
• When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back; when you call out the name of God, it echoes inside you. Morihei Ueshiba

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… others argue the universe is hostile…

• Wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe. Marcus Cole  
• Perhaps the apparent favor of the universe is no more than the crocodile grin of a Doberman breathing hard and about to be hungry? Sarah Lindsay  
• The universe has a sense of irony, and sometimes you get reminded just how sadistic that can be. Laurell K. Hamilton
• Maybe this world is another planet’s hell. Christopher Morley  
• Humor is just another defense against the universe. Mel Brooks  

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… while others argue the universe is indifferent

• In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. Richard Dawkins
• The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent. John Hughes Holmes
• The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. Charles Darwin
• In reality there is no cause or effect, there is only the indifference of the universe. Al Goldstein
• It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be. Sigmund Freud

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Some argue the universe is full of purpose …

• Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you. Wayne Dyer  
• You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are! Eckhart Tolle  
• Is there an intelligence behind the origin of the Universe? Is there a purpose for its existence, and for our individual lives’? Or is the Universe simply an accident, something that emerged out of nothing’? Bernard Haisch
• I would say the universe has a purpose. It’s not there just somehow by chance. Roger Penrose
• Purpose

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… and meaning …

• Anyone informed that the universe is expanding and contracting in pulsations of eighty billion years has a right to ask, “What’s in it for me?” Peter De Vries  
• If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. S. Lewis  
• Most humans feel the transcendent temptation, the emotional drive to festoon the universe with large-scale meaning. Paul Kurtz
• The search for meaning is really the search for the lost chord. When the lost chord is discovered by humankind, the discord in the world will be healed and the symphony of the universe will come into complete harmony with itself. John O’Donohue  
• The question is how our own meanings are related to those of the universe as a whole. We could say that our action toward the whole universe is a result of what it means to be us. David Bohm
• Meaning

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… while others disagree

• I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here. I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. Richard P. Feynman  
• In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time. Edward P. Tryon  

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Some argue the universe has a moral law …

• The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Martin Luther King Jr.
• The first principle of value that we need to rediscover is this: that all reality hinges on moral foundations. In other words, that this is a moral universe, and that there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws.  Martin Luther King Jr.  
• Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Plato
• Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Theodore Parker
• The universe has no favourites; it is supremely just, and gives to every man his rightful earnings. James Allen

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… while others disagree

• Morality is a human creation. The Universe does not judge. Gary Zukav
• It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be. Sigmund Freud

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Not only does the universe have purpose …     

• Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you. Wayne Dyer  
• The outer purpose of the universe is to create form and experience the interaction of forms—the play, the dream, the drama, or whatever you choose to call it. Its inner purpose is to awaken to its formless essence. Then comes the reconciliation of outer and inner purpose: to bring that essence—consciousness—into the world of form and thereby transform the world. Eckhart Tolle  
• Purpose,  Meaning

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… but you are here to enable that purpose to unfold     

• You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are! Eckhart Tolle  
• It is through the world and ultimately through you that the Unmanifested knows itself. You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are! Eckhart Tolle  
• Awakened doing is the alignment of your outer purpose—what you do—with your inner purpose—awakening and staying awake. Through awakened doing, you become one with the outgoing purpose of the universe. Consciousness flows through you into this world. It flows into your thoughts and inspires them. It flows into what you do and guides and empowers it. Eckhart Tolle  
• There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.  Deepak Chopra  
• Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you. Wayne Dyer  
• It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe. Thomas Carlyle  

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You are a beloved child of the universe     

• Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. Max Ehrmann  
• Close your eyes. You might try saying. . . something like this: “The sun is shining overhead. The sky is blue and sparkling. Nature is calm and in control of the world–and I, as nature’s child, am in tune with the Universe.”  Or–better still-  -pray!  Dale Carnegie  
• Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. Adlai Stevenson  
• I love myself for I am a beloved child of the universe and the universe lovingly takes care of me now. Louise Hay  
• When you know that you are the beloved of the universe, then all of the energy that you have been using to convince the external world of who you are will now be yours to use for the beauty of simply being yourself just as you are. Michael Bernard Beckwith

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You are a way for the universe to know and experience itself     

• Each person’s life – each life form, in fact –represents a world, a unique way in which the universe experiences itself. Eckhart Tolle  
• It’s taken 14 billion years for matter to gain the capacity to become conscious of itself. If this is true, it wouldn’t make any sense that the whole point of enlightenment would be to escape from the whole process at the very instant that the universe is beginning to awaken to itself. Andrew Cohen  
• The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. Carl Sagan  
• We are the universe pretending to be individuals. Deepak Chopra  
• Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence. Alan Wilson Watts  
• It is through the world and ultimately through you that the Unmanifested knows itself. You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are! Eckhart Tolle  
• Evolution is the development of the energy of the universe in such a way that it has an increasing ability to consciously control itself and the universe around it. It is a progressive change from the unconscious to the conscious. We are the universe trying to comprehend itself. Man is the corporeal manifestation of the universe trying to control its own destiny. Man is God in the process of coming into existence. James Hart  
• We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself. Brian Cox  
• You are the Universe expressing itself as a human for a little while. Eckhart Tolle  
• Life is God’s experience

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The universe is infinitely creative …     

• There is no doubt that the creative power of the universe will answer; it always does. Ernest Holmes
• Say to yourself, ‘I’m here on purpose, I can accomplish anything I desire, and I do it by being in harmony with the all- pervading creative force in the universe.’ Wayne Dyer  
• If the fate of the universe was decided in a single moment at the instant of the Big Bang , that was the most creative moment of all. Deepak Chopra  
• Creativity

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… and you are here to co-create with it     

• This new awareness has radical implications for each and every one of us. For it reveals a wholly interconnected, conscious and holographic universe, a Cosmos where consciousness is primary– and where we are therefore both creator and co- creator. Jude Currivan  
• Spirit is the essence of consciousness, the energy of the universe that creates all things. Each one of us is a part of that spirit – a divine entity. So the spirit is the higher self, the eternal being that lives within us. Shakti Gawain
• During those rare moments of creativeness, when an ordinary person has something in common with the making of the universe, he feels a sense of transcendence, of moving beyond his daily life. What could be a greater reward? Joseph Zinker
• Thought is the first level of creation. Next comes the word. Everything you say is a thought expressed. It is creative and sends forth creative energy into the universe. Words are the second level of creation. Next comes action. Neale Donald Walsch
• To whatever degree you listen and follow your intuition, you become a creative channel for the higher power of the universe. Shakti Gawain
• Use the great command that calls forth creative power: I am. “I am” is the strongest creative statement in the universe. Whatever you think, whatever you say, after the words “I am” sets in motion those experiences, calls them forth, brings them to you. Neale Donald Walsch
• The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life. Henry Mille
• If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. Carl Sagan  
• Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses. Amy Tan

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Many argue the universe and we are one …

• A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.  Albert Einstein  
• We know from science that nothing in the universe exists as an isolated or independent entity. Margaret J. Wheatley  
• According to the Buddhist point of view, nonattachment is exactly the opposite of separation. You need two things in order to have attachment: the thing you’re attaching to, and the person who’s attaching. In nonattachment, on the other hand, there’s unity. There’s unity because there’s nothing to attach to. If you have unified with the whole universe, there’s nothing outside of you, so the notion of attachment becomes absurd. Who will attach to what? John Daido Loori  
• Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.  Erwin Schrodinger  
• It’s difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe.  Everything beautiful in the world is within you.  Russell Brand  
• Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.  Alan W. Watts  
• I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. (This is physics, I believe, as well as religion.) The parts change and pass, or die, people and races and rocks and stars, none of them seems to me important in itself, but only the whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine. It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love and there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one’s affections outward toward this one God, rather than inwards on one’s self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions — the world of spirits. I think it is our privilege and felicity to love God for his beauty, without claiming or expecting love from him. We are not important to him, but he to us. Robinson Jeffers
• The Truth is we are all one. Oneness. It’s not a tiny me in an vast universe, but the universe all in me. Adyashanti
• Oneness,  Unity

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… in the same way that an ocean and its waves are one

• As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin. Alan Watts  
• You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean. Alan Wilson Watts  
• You are something that the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing. Alan Watts
• The ocean

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The universe is a connected web …

• All things are linked with one another, and this oneness is sacred; there is nothing that is not interconnected with everything else. For things are interdependent, and they combine to form this universal order.  There is only one universe made up of all things, and one creator who pervades them; there is one substance and one law, namely, common reason in all thinking creatures, and all truth is one- -if, as we believe, there is only one path of perfection for all beings who share the same mind.  Marcus Aurelius  
• When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it is tied to everything else in the universe. John Muir
• Quantum physics shows us the universe as a dynamic web of connection. Robert Moss  
• The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers. Stanley Kunitz
• Everything happens more out of a ‘we’ than a ‘me.’ Everything in the universe is involved with everything that happens. If everything in the universe participates in scratching your nose or having a thought or having a feeling, can you really call these experiences ‘yours?’  Nirmala
• Connectedness 

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… and we are connected to everything else in the universe …

• Zen goes directly to your own experience of the oneness of the universe, of your interconnectedness with all things. You learn to distrust whatever you clung to in your old sense of separation, and that realization can be the most liberating thing in your life, a freedom beyond anything you could have imagined. Jean Smith  
• When we think we’re separate, we lose power. Whenever I say “my,” I have lost my power.  Power is not my power; it is not enlarging oneself as a separate individual.  It is only gainable as part of a larger whole.  Then you communicate with the rest of yourself–which may be a tree.  You, reciprocally, are moved by the universe.  Whenever you shut down connectedness, you get depressed.  Psychic awareness breaks in as a gift.  It’s fearful to know we’re connected to everything in the universe, because then we’re responsible.  Glenda Taylor  
• The whole universe is your home. All are your family. Sri Neem Karoli Baba  
• When people go within and connect with themselves, they realize they are connected to the universe and they are connected to all living things. Armand Dimele  
• We are the universe pretending to be individuals. Deepak Chopra  

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… connected to every strand of the universe by love …

• Forgiveness entails the authentic acceptance of our own worthiness as human beings, the understanding that mistakes are opportunities for growth, awareness and the cultivation of compassion, and the realization that the extension of love to ourselves and others is the glue that holds the universe together. Forgiveness…is not a set of behaviors, but an attitude. Joan Borysenko
• Love is a force that connects us to every strand of the universe, an unconditional state that characterizes human nature, a form of knowledge that is always there for us if only we can open ourselves to it. Emily Hilburn Sell
• Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns it calls me on and on across the universe. John Lennon  
• Love is a force that connects us to every strand of the universe, an unconditional state that characterizes human nature, a form of knowledge that is always there for us if only we can open ourselves to it. Emily H. Sell
• Love is the omnipresent force of the universe; it unifies energy and consciousness. John Pierrakos  
• To exclude anything that appears in your universe is not love. Love joins with everything. It doesn’t exclude the monster. It doesn’t avoid the nightmare- it looks forward to it.  David Hawkins  
• When you have compassion and surrender to your own heart, you are surrendering to the hidden power in your heart, God. You are surrendering to love, because God is Love, the cohesive force of the universe that connects us all. Sara Paddison  
• When we practice giving love for no reason, we are saying ‘YES’ to the Universe that we trust and believe in our shared oneness. Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.  Leo Buscaglia  
• The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, this is love. Victor Hugo  

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…  connected biologically, chemically, atomically …

• Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us. Neil deGrasse Tyson  

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… as we can see clearly in nature     

• When we speak of Nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of Nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe. Henri Matisse
• When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It ‘inter-is’ with everything else in the universe. Thich Nhat Hahn  
• The universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf. The vapor climbs the sunbeam, and comes back in blessings upon the exhausted herb. The exhalation of the plant is wafted to the ocean. And so goes on the beautiful commerce of nature. And all because of dissimilarity– because no one thing is sufficient in itself, but calls for the assistance of something else, and repays by a contribution in turn. E. H. Chapin
• Nature

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Realising our oneness with the universe is at the heart of spiritual awareness and practices …     

• At the deepest level of ecological awareness you are talking about spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of being imbedded in a larger whole, a cosmic whole, of belonging to the universe. Fritjof Capra
• The unbroken realization that you are indivisible from the universe, from universal consciousness, from the source of everything – that you are that source, that there is no other, no second, nothing that is not part of that unity, except as transitory illusion. If you could maintain that realization at all times, through waking and sleeping states of consciousness, across the threshold of death itself, what would you be? Daniel Pinchbeck  
• Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe. Lao Tzu
• The secret of merging with Spirit and recognizing the oneness of the whole Universe cannot be learned in a lifetime, but can be revealed in a moment, for it has always lived within each and every one of us. Jonathan Lockwood Huie  
• This new awareness has radical implications for each and every one of us. For it reveals a wholly interconnected, conscious and holographic universe, a Cosmos where consciousness is primary– and where we are therefore both creator and co- creator. Jude Currivan  
• Your mind, this globe of awareness, is a starry universe. When you push off with your foot, a thousand new roads become clear. Rumi
• It does not matter what name you attach to it, but your consciousness must ascend to the point through which you view the universe with your God-centered nature. The feeling accompanying this experience is that of complete oneness with the Universal Whole.  One merges into a euphoria of absolute unity with all life.  Peace Pilgrim  

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… and at the heart of our spiritual relationship with the universe     

• The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe. Albert Schweitzer
• The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of men when they realise their relationship, their Oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realise that at the centre of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this centre is really everywhere, it is within each of us. Black Elk  
• Spirituality

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Realising our oneness with the universe brings beautiful rewards     

• To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the universe. Peggy Jenkins  
• When one realizes that one is the universe, complete and at one with All That Is, forever without end, no further suffering is possible.  David Hawkins  
• When I say ‘I am’, I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus, I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is known. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever. Nisargadatta Maharaj  
• For it’s only the illusion of individuality that is the origin of all suffering—when one realizes that one is the universe, complete and at one with all that is, forever without end, then no further suffering is possible. David R. Hawkins  
• Oneness

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To realise our oneness is to realise that everything we do effects the universe …     

• In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone. We all float on the collective level of consciousness of mankind, so that any increment we add comes back to us. We all add to our common buoyancy by our efforts to benefit life. It is a scientific fact that what is good for you is good for me. Dr. David R. Hawkins
• We are all connected to everyone and everything in the universe. Therefore, everything one does as an individual affects the whole. All thoughts, words, images, prayers, blessings, and deeds are listened to by all that is.  Serge Kahili King
• Interdependence

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… that it is important to mind our own corner of the universe with great care     

• There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self. Aldous Huxley  
• We’re all assigned a piece of garden, a corner of the universe that is ours to transform. Our corner of the universe is our own life- – our relationships, our homes, our work, our current circumstances– exactly as they are.  Every situation we find ourselves in is an opportunity, perfectly planned by the Holy Spirit, to teach love instead of fear.  Marianne Williamson  

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Some also argue the universe has a perfect order to it …     

• I stand by the river and I know that it has been here yesterday and will be here tomorrow and that therefore, since I am part of its pattern today, I also belong to all its yesterdays and will be a part of all its tomorrows. This is a kind of earthly immortality, a kinship with rivers and hills and rocks, with all things and all creatures that have ever lived or ever will live or have their being on the earth. It is my assurance of an orderly continuity in the great design of the universe. Virginia Eifert  
• Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos, including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic, and abstract beauty. Deepak Chopra
• The single harmony produced by all the heavenly bodies singing and dancing together springs from one source and ends by achieving one purpose, and has rightly bestowed the name not of “disordered” but of “ordered universe” upon the whole. Aristotle  
• The universe contains vastly more order than Earth-life could ever demand. All those distant galaxies, irrelevant for our existence, seem as equally well ordered as our own. Paul Davies  
• The Universe is in perfect order. The stars, the moon, and the sun are all operating in perfect Divine right order. There is an order, a rhythm, and a purpose to their pathways. I am part of the Universe; therefore, I know that there is an order, a rhythm, and a purpose to my life.  Louise L Hay  
• There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless. William Somerset Maugham
• There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own. Katherine Anne Porter  
• The only order in the universe is just a cycle of calm and chaos.  Toba Beta  
• There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don’t know what it’s a plan for. Fred Hoyle
• Order,  Trust in God

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… and that each of is part of that perfect order     

• There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.  Deepak Chopra  
• Everything is perfect in the universe – even your desire to improve it. Wayne Dyer  

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The universe has a rhythm and everything dances     

• Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. Maya Angelou
• Do you see that everything in the Universe is simply doing its dance, expressing itself the only way it can… and this is happening in every moment. Seeing this clearly brings instant relaxation and peace. Why? Because if everything is doing the only dance it can, what is there to worry about? Michael Jeffreys
• Our biological rhythms are the symphony of the cosmos, music embedded deep within us to which we dance, even when we can’t name the tune. Deepak Chopra  
• The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind. From this voyage no one returns poor or weary. Agnes De Mille  

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The universe is balanced …     

• There must be a positive and negative in everything in the universe in order to complete a circuit or circle, without which there would be no activity, no motion.  John McDonald  
• The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness. Terry Pratchett  
• The universe is so well balanced that the mere fact that you have a problem also serves as a sign that there is a solution. Steve Maraboli  
• Don’t give up! It’s not over. The universe is balanced. Every set-back bears with it the seeds of a come-back. Steve Maraboli  
• Balance

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… and harmonious     

• Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity. Jose Marti  
• The single harmony produced by all the heavenly bodies singing and dancing together springs from one source and ends by achieving one purpose, and has rightly bestowed the name not of “disordered” but of “ordered universe” upon the whole. Aristotle  
• Harmony

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In every moment, the universe is unfolding exactly as it should which makes this moment perfect     

• Everything is perfect in being what it is. When I fully accept this, I walk the path of beauty. When I cease my judging, criticizing, comparing, I see that all things have their place. In the grand scheme of the universe unfolding, all things are as they should be. Not so much as a hair is out of place in the universe. All things are unfolding in their special way. John Kehoe  
• I know that this moment is as it should be because the whole universe is as it should be. Deepak Chopra  
• The Universe is unfolding precisely as it should. We are all of us, exactly where it is perfect for us to be, all the time. And we need nothing more of our evolution than exactly what we have, and are experiencing, right now. Neale Donald Walsch
• Whether or not it is apparent to you, undoubtedly the universe is unfolding as it should. Pierre Trudeau
• Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances and events as they occur. I know that this moment is as it should be because the whole universe is as it should be. When I struggle against this moment, I struggle against the whole universe. I embrace the present and become one with it. I fully experience it. Deepak Chopra
• Do you see that everything in the Universe is simply doing its dance, expressing itself the only way it can… and this is happening in every moment. Seeing this clearly brings instant relaxation and peace. Why? Because if everything is doing the only dance it can, what is there to worry about? Michael Jeffreys
• This moment — the one you’re experiencing right now — is the culmination of all the moments you have experienced in the past. This moment is as it is because the entire universe is as it is. Deepak Chopra
• Don’t you realize,” Merlin said to his pupil, “that the history of the universe has brought us here to this second?” Deepak Chopra
• Situations seem to happen to people, but in reality, they unfold from deeper karmic causes. The universe unfolds to itself, bringing to bear any cause that needs to be included. Don’t take this process personally. The working out of cause and effect is eternal. You are part of this rising and falling that never ends, and only by riding the wave can you ensure that the waves don’t drown you. The ego takes everything personally, leaving no room for higher guidance or purpose. If you can, realize that a cosmic plan is unfolding and appreciate the incredibly woven tapestry for what it is, a design of unparalleled marvel. Deepak Chopra

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Nothing in the universe happens by chance     

• There are no coincidences in the universe. Neale Donald Walsch
• This is the ultimate truth of synchrodestiny—that the sum total of the universe is conspiring to create your personal destiny… We cannot even imagine the complex forces behind every event that occurs in our lives. There’s a conspiracy of coincidences that weave the web of karma or destiny and creates an individual’s personal life. Deepak Chopra
• God does not play dice with the universe! Dan Brown  
• In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen.  William S. Burroughs  
• Nothing in the universe happens by chance or accident. The universe is a coherent concurrence and interaction of innumerable conditions attendant on the infinite number of energy patterns. In the state of Awareness, all this is obvious and can be clearly seen and known. Outside that level of awareness, it could be likened to innumerable, invisible magnetic fields which automatically coalesce or repel one’s position and which interact according to the positions and relative strengths and polarities. Everything influences everything else and is in perfect balance. David Hawkins  
• Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?  Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences. Emery Allen  

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The universe gives us exactly what we need     

• At any given time the universe is giving you the best result possible. Deepak Chopra
• The universe is conspiring in your favor. It is placing before you in every moment all of the right and perfect people, circumstances, and situations with which to answer life’s only question: Who am I? Have you decided yet?  Neale Donald Walsch  
• Today I will trust that the events occurring in my life are not random. My experiences aren’t mistakes, and the Universe, my Higher Power, and life are not picking on me. I’m going through exactly what I need to go through to learn something valuable- something that will prepare me for the joy and love I’m seeking.  Melody Beattie  

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Trust in the flow of the universe and go with it     

• I trust in the ebb and flow of the universe. I trust that life’s bigger than what I can see. I trust that there is a divine order beyond my control. And I trust that no matter what happens, I will be all right. Oprah Winfrey
• Relax into the moment and let the universe do the driving. If there was a secret to happiness in life, I’d say that was it. Jed McKenna
• Today I will trust that the events occurring in my life are not random. My experiences aren’t mistakes, and the Universe, my Higher Power, and life are not picking on me. I’m going through exactly what I need to go through to learn something valuable- something that will prepare me for the joy and love I’m seeking.  Melody Beattie  
• Everything in the universe flows. You can’t get ahold of water by clutching it. Let your hand relax and you can experience it. Wayne Dyer
• Be as a cup, and the universe flows into you. Be as an arrow, and the universe retreats from you. Zen Proverb  
• Conventionally, we approach life from the having and doing domains, rather than from the being domain. But true power can only arise in reversing this order, because it is in this direction that the universe flows. Brad Swift
• The universe is like a river. The river keeps on flowing. It doesn’t care whether you are happy or sad, good or bad; it just keeps flowing. Some people go down to the river and they cry. Some people go down to the river and they are happy, but the river doesn’t care; it just keeps flowing. We can use it and enjoy it, or we can jump in and drown. The river just keeps flowing because it is impersonal, and so it is with the universe. The universe that we live in can support us or destroy us. It’s our interpretation and use of the laws that determine our effects or results. Robert Anthony
• Trust allows you to laugh. Laugh at the richness, the beauty and the playfulness of the universe. Gary Zukav
• Go with the flow,  Trust in God

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To struggle against this moment is to struggle against the universe     

• When you struggle against this moment, you’re actually struggling against the entire universe. Deepak Chopra
• The whole Universe has brought this moment about. Who am I to fight it? Eckhart Tolle
• At bottom, the whole concern of religion is with the manner of our acceptance of the universe. William James  
• Resisting is obstructing the power of the universe. Eckhart Tolle
• It’s no use crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it. Somerset Maugham

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To accept this moment is align with the flow and power of the universe     

• I will practice Acceptance. Today I will accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur. I will know that this moment is as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be. I will not struggle against the whole universe by struggling against this moment. My acceptance is total and complete. I accept things as they are this moment, not as I wish they were. Deepak Chopra
• Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe. Accepting means you allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling at that moment. It is part of the is-ness of the Now. You can’t argue with what is. Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer. Through allowing, you become what you are: vast, spacious. Consciousness (spirit) is freed from its imprisonment in form. Eckhart Tolle
• Going with the flow is responding to cues from the universe. When you go with the flow, you’re surfing Life force. It’s about wakeful trust and total collaboration with what’s showing up for you. Danielle LaPorte  
• Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. Pablo Casals  
• The present moment is the still point around which the universe arises and subsides, only to be reborn again, fresh as a new born child. Deepak Chopra  
• Accept this moment as it is

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The universe whispers to us all the time …     

• We all have an inner voice, our personal whisper from the universe. All we have to do is listen — feel and sense it with an open heart. Sometimes it whispers of intuition or precognition. Other times, it whispers an awareness, a remembrance from another plane. Dare to listen. Dare to hear with your heart. J. Heck  
• That whisper you keep hearing is the universe trying to get your attention. Oprah Winfrey  
• The Universe delivers messages to us all the time. It’s up to us to listen to them, figure out what they mean for us and act on them. When we don’t listen and act, the Universe is a little more adamant about its delivery the next time. Paige Burkes  
• The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button. Brené Brown
• Midlife: when the Universe grabs your shoulders and tells you “I’m not f-ing around, use the gifts you were given.” Brené Brown
• The universe continually sends us sensory messages, which we can never quite decode. Susan Hubbard

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… and we hear it best by being still     

• The cosmic psyche whispers to us softly in the gap between our thoughts. We can learn more about the universe “between our thoughts” than actually “from our thoughts”. Deepak Chopra
• To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. Zhuangzi
• To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. Chuang Tzu
• To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer the Universe. Eckhart Tolle
• Stillness

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To be still is to connect to the universe in its primordial state     

• Before the invader sound was born, the Universe was silent and shall be again. Robert E. Howard
• When you sink below the surface of the manifest world and awaken to the timeless depth of that empty ground, you find yourself contemplating consciousness in its primordial state, free from all content, before it entered the stream of time. In this dimension, nothing has ever happened. The universe has not yet emerged; you have not been born; even time itself has not yet begun.   Andrew Cohen  
• When the mind grows silent, the thought I am also disappears, and Pure Awareness shines forth to illuminate what one is, was, and always will be, beyond all worlds and all universes—infinite and beyond time. David R. Hawkins
• Within each of us there is a silence – a silence as vast as the universe. We are afraid of it… and long for it. When we experience that silence, we remember who we are: creatures of the stars, created from the cooling of this planet, created from dust and gas, created from the elements, created from time and space… created from silence. Silence is the source of all that exists, the unfathomable silence where vibration began – the first oscillation, the first word, from which life emerged. Silence is our deepest nature, our home, our common ground, our peace. Silence reveals. Silence heals. Silence is where god dwells. We yearn to be there. We yearn to share it. Lois Huey-Heck  
• We too should make ourselves empty, that the great soul of the universe may fill us with its breath. Laurence Binyon
• Presence is the original state before the universe was born. In every being, the essence of being itself is present as presence. Eckhart Tolle  

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In all things, ask what the universe is trying to tell you     

• Embrace each and everything that happens as an opportunity. When something “bad” happens ask, “What is the universe trying to tell me?” Often it’s saying stop, slow down, and come back to the present before your life zips passed you. And if it’s not saying that, it’s saying something. So listen. Accept situations as signs or opportunities, and remember that there is a purpose and a greater good to each. Look for the lesson rather than getting stuck in victim mode. Jackie Vecchio

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The universe bestows many gifts and we must be ready to receive them     

• We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives. Gary Zukav
• Everything is a gift of the universe — even joy, anger, jealously, frustration, or separateness. Everything is perfect either for our growth or our enjoyment. Ken Keyes Jr.  
• Midlife: when the Universe grabs your shoulders and tells you “I’m not f-ing around, use the gifts you were given.” Brené Brown
• See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation –   to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe. Jon Kabat-Zinn  
• Awaken to the universe’s simple gift of the butterfly. Watch with fascination and joy as a jeweled treasure glides by and gently touches your soul. K. D’Angelo
• My deeply held belief is that if a god of anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence is provided by such a God. We would be unappreciative of that gift . . . if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. Carl Sagan

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The universe is staggeringly abundant …     

• I trust that as I live true to my purpose the Universe will provide everything I need for the expression of that purpose.  Brad Swift  
• Opulence is the law of the universe, an abundant supply for every need if nothing is put in the way of its coming. Ralph W. Trine  
• It’s an abundant universe. There is lots of everything for everyone if we but open ourselves up to it. Look at nature – lavish, extravagant, even wasteful in its abundance. Try and count the number of stars in the sky. Look at wildflowers in a field spreading out far beyond. John Kehoe
• The great universe is filled with an abundance of all things, filled to overflowing. All there is, is in her, waiting only for the touch of the right forces to cast them forth. Ralph W. Trine  
• The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. John Burroughs
• This is an abundant universe. Grasp your birthright. Success is a massive abundance of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. David Wolfe  
• When you follow your bliss you live in a constant space of joy. You open yourself to the abundance of the Universe. Lisa Nichols
• What is most necessary for people and what is given us in great abundance, are experiences, especially experiences of the forces within us. This is our most essential food, our most essential wealth.  If we consciously receive all this abundance, the universe will pour into us what is called life in Judaism, spirit in Christianity, light in Islam, power in Taoism.  Jacob Needleman
• Abundance

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… with more than enough for us to fulfil our purpose     

• The more awake, aware, and mindful we are of the abundant universe in which we live, the more we can live and express our Created Life Purpose because we know at the core of our being that we have available to us all the resources we need to be and to express this purpose. Bradford W. Swift  
• Let go of fear. The universe has an infinite supply of opportunity.  There is plenty to go around.  You may be surprised to see that something is coming your way right now! Richard Carlson  

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Trust in the abundant universe to provide     

• You have to believe that the universe will provide. Steve Crosby  
• Have faith in the universe and its capability to lead you to the path of abundance. Stephen Richards  
• When I gave up the pursuit of money, more of it flowed into my life than I had ever known before. Why? Because I was living my purpose and surrendering to the universe to provide for my needs. Wayne Dyer
• In this plate of food, I see the entire universe supporting my existence. A Zen blessing  

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The abundance of the universe flows to those who are open to it     

• I am open and receptive to all the good and abundance in the Universe. Louise L. Hay  
• I am totally open and receptive to the abundant flow of prosperity that the Universe offers. All my needs and desires are met before I even ask. Louise Hay
• I am one with the Power that created me. I am totally open and receptive to the abundant flow of prosperity that the Universe offers. All my needs and desires are met before I even ask. I am Divinely guided and protected, and I make choices that are beneficial for me. I rejoice in other’s successes, knowing there is plenty for us all. Louise Hay
• The Law of Abundance: You have within yourself everything required to make your earthly incarnation a paradise if you choose to accept that which is your divine birth-right. We live in a Universe of abundance, although the majority of those populating our planet appear to view it as a Universe of scarcity. Dick Sutphen 
• Openness

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The abundance of the universe flows to those who request it     

• Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the Universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request and everything your heart desires must come to you. Shakti Gawain

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The abundance of the universe flows to those who feel they are worthy of it     

• See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation –   to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe. Jon Kabat-Zinn  
• When you are not willing to fully receive, you are training the universe not to give to you! It’s simple: if you aren’t willing to receive your share, it will go to someone else who is. T. Harv Eker
• The Law of Attraction

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The abundance of the universe flows to those who celebrate and give thanks     

• Focus on what you’re grateful for in your life. If you don’t appreciate what you have, you won’t get any more . . . because the universe thinks it’s not important to you, and therefore you don’t need any more.   Harv Eker  
• This magnificent universe provides abundantly when you’re in a state of gratitude. Wayne Dyer
• Keep a grateful journal. Every night, list five things that happened this day that you are grateful for. What it will begin to do is change your perspective of your day and your life. If you can learn to focus on what you have, you will always see that the universe is abundant; you will have more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never have enough. Oprah Winfrey  
• I have noticed that the Universe loves Gratitude. The more Grateful you are, the more goodies you get. Louise L. Hay
• When you give thanks as though you have already received what you want, you are emitting a powerful signal to the Universe. Rhonda Byrne
• Spend a couple minutes each day writing down five to ten things you appreciate, no matter how small. Appreciation puts you in a receptive state that allows you to accept more and more from the universe. What you pay attention to expands!   Christiane Northrup  
• How could you expect more from the universe when I didn’t appreciate what I already had? Sarah Ban Breathnach
• To bless is to acknowledge the omnipresent, universal beauty, hidden to material eyes. It is to activate the law of attraction which for the furthest reaches of the universe will bring into your life exactly what you need to experience and enjoy. Pierre Pradervand
• Gratitude,  Appreciation

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The abundance of the universe flows to those who give freely     

• When we give, we simply make room for more to come in. When we become deeply, authentically generous, it signals to our abundant universe that there is a conduit open to receive and distribute. We become part of the vital natural system. Lenedra J. Caroll  
• The universe operates through dynamic exchange… giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. and in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives. Deepak Chopra
• The more you give, the more you receive because you keep the abundance of the universe circulating in your life. Deepak Chopra
• Money is life energy that we exchange and use as a result of the service we provide to the universe. Deepak Chopra
• Giving,  Generosity

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The abundance of the universe flows to those with a wealth consciousness     

• You will not suddenly develop wealth consciousness if and when you become wealthy. It’s the other way around. You develop wealth consciousness by eliminating worry, by trusting in the universe and in your own inner resources. Once you secure your wealth consciousness, true abundance is just around the corner. Richard Carlson
• The five pillars of wealth are financial, relational, mental, physical, and spiritual. Without these five pillars, you might be rich, but you’ll never be wealthy. Interestingly enough, I’ve found that the more you reach this state of true wealth, the more money rushes to you—and all that money can provide. The universe is at your command and lines up in joyous support of your awakening. James Arthur Ray
• Prosperity consciousness

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The abundance of the universe flows to those who let go     

• Holding on to anything is like holding on to your breath. You will suffocate. The only way to get anything in the physical universe is by letting go of it. Let go and it will be yours forever. Deepak Chopra
• Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe. C. JoyBell
• Letting go

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Live abundantly but also simply     

• At the same time of knowing and experiencing the infinitely abundant universe, we can stay in balance in our lives by continuing to live simply and elegantly. In other words, we do not need to try to complicate life with more stuff than we need just because we know we have access to an infinite supply of resources. Brad Swift  
• Simplicity,  Simple living

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Many wonder if we are alone in the universe …     

• Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. Arthur C. Clarke
• How alone everyone is in the vast tomb of the universe! Jean Paul  

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… whether there is a benevolent force that watches out for us     

• Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

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… whether there are other life forms out there somewhere     

• In the Universe it may be that primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth. Stephen Hawking
• Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living beings in that enormous immensity. Wernher Von Braun
• Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. Bill Watterson  
• The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren’t any space aliens. We can’t be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we’re not all there is. If so, we’re in big trouble. Ellen DeGeneres  
• I’m sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It’s just been too intelligent to come here. Arthur C. Clarke  
• The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space. Carl Sagan, Contact  
• The question is not so much whether there is life on Mars as whether it will continue to be possible to live on Earth. Teilhard de Chardin
• To suppose that God Almighty has confined his goodness to this world, to the exclusion of all others, is much similar to the idle fancies of some individuals in this world, that they, and those of their communion or faith, are the favorites of heaven exclusively; but these are narrow and bigoted conceptions, which are degrading to a rational nature, and utterly unworthy of God, of whom we should form the most exalted ideas. Ethan Allen

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The answer is we are certainly not alone in this universe for, at the very least, we have each other     

• Man can no longer live for himself alone. We must realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe. Albert Schweitzer
• If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.  Mitsugi Saotome      
• Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation.  We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.  Margaret J. Wheatley  
• Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism. His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality. Mahatma Gandhi
• Loneliness is like being the only person left alive in the universe, except that everyone else is still here. Simon Van Booy  
• The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit – this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass. H. Lawrence  

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The universe directs us through our desires …

• It would be helpful if the universe would give us one big clue, or a giant compass, if you will, pointing to the direction we should be taking. In fact, the compass is there. To find it, you need only look inside yourself to discover your soul’s purest desire, its dream for your life. Deepak Chopra  
• It is the Universe’s good pleasure to give me the things I desire. John Kehoe  
• There are no limitations set by this electric universe upon any man’s multiplication power. Each man sets his own limitations in accordance with his desires. He be a thin wire which gathers little energy and carries a weak current, or he may be a heavy one. That is true of all energy borrowed from the universe by all of us. It is there in unlimited quantities, but the gauge of the kind of wire each of us is set by ourselves. Walter Russell  
• There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth. Paulo Coelho  
• The entire Universe is set up to produce wanting within you. You cannot squelch wanting. You are born wanters. Wanting is a good thing. Abraham-Hicks  
• Desire

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… and responds to the power of desire

• Let the universe handle the details. Your intentions and desires, when released in the gap, have infinite organizing power. Trust that infinite organizing power of intention to orchestrate all the details for you. Deepak Chopra
• Anything you can imagine is yours to be or do or have. As you ask yourself why you want to have it, the essence of your desires is activated, and the Universe begins to bring it to you. The more intense your positive feelings, the faster it is coming to you. (It is as easy to create a castle as a button). Abraham-Hicks
• It is the Universe’s good pleasure to give me the things I desire. John Kehoe  
• I am totally open and receptive to the abundant flow of prosperity that the Universe offers. All my needs and desires are met before I even ask. Louise Hay
• The entire Universe is set up to produce wanting within you. You cannot squelch wanting. You are born wanters. Wanting is a good thing. Abraham-Hicks  
• The universe gives to those who ask without favor. The electric plug which connects you is desire. Walter Russell  
• Say to yourself, ‘I’m here on purpose, I can accomplish anything I desire, and I do it by being in harmony with the all- pervading creative force in the universe.’ Wayne Dyer  
• The reason for desires, goals, for finding those decisions or points of focus, is because they are the life- giving things of the Universe. Without objects of attention, or objects of desire, Life- Force does not come through any of us. Abraham-Hicks  
• The Universe expands in direct proportion to your desires. Abraham-Hicks

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The universe responds to the power of thought

• Thoughts are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency. As you think thoughts, they are sent out into the Universe, and they magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency. Everything sent out returns to the source—you. The Secret  
• Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything. So when you think a sustained thought it is immediately sent out into the Universe.  That thought magnetically attaches itself to the like frequency, and then within seconds sends the reading of that frequency back to you through your feelings.  Put another way, your feelings are communication back to you from the Universe, telling you what frequency you are currently on.  Your feelings are your frequency feedback mechanism!  Jack Canfield  
• Our job as humans is to hold on to the thoughts of what we want, make it absolutely clear in our minds what we want, and from that we start to invoke one of the greatest laws in the Universe, and that’s the law of attraction. You become what you think about most, but you also attract what you think about most. John Assaraf
• Thinking

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The universe responds to the power of words

• Words are the most powerful thing in the universe… Words are containers. They contain faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind. Charles Capps  
• We are all connected to everyone and everything in the universe. Therefore, everything one does as an individual affects the whole. All thoughts, words, images, prayers, blessings, and deeds are listened to by all that is.  Serge Kahili King  
• Thought is the first level of creation. Next comes the word. Everything you say is a thought expressed. It is creative and sends forth creative energy into the universe. Words are the second level of creation. Next comes action. Neale Donald Walsch
• Use the great command that calls forth creative power: I am. “I am” is the strongest creative statement in the universe. Whatever you think, whatever you say, after the words “I am” sets in motion those experiences, calls them forth, brings them to you. Neale Donald Walsch
• Words

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The universe responds to the power of love

• Love, peace, joy and harmony are the best vitamins in the universe. Philip Arnold
• The key to the universe is Love, together, in a partnership with Awareness. Robert Cosmar  
• True surrender is true power: the love-force that moves the universe is also the love-force that breathes your breath and beats your heart. When fear dissolves, you no longer separate yourself from this single flow of immense force. Love is continuity with infinite life-force, a oneness of being with no separation. Opening sexually is opening to this flow of life- force. And love is the key to this opening.  David Deida  
• There is no greater power in the Universe than the power of love. The feeling of love is the highest frequency you can emit. If you could wrap every thought in love, if you could love everything and everyone, your life would be transformed. Rhonda Byrne
• There is only one emotion, one energy, in the universe. The energy, the emotion that we call love. When you know this, everything changes. Neale Donald Walsch
• Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns it calls me on and on across the universe. John Lennon  
• It’s as though the laws of the universe bend for love. Financial laws bend. Temporal laws bend. Logistical constraints bend. By giving, we might just end up having more. Brent Kessel
• Love

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The universe responds to the power of emotion …

• It’s really important that you feel good, because this feeling good is what goes out as a signal into the Universe and starts to attract more of itself to you. The Secret 
• Emotions

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… including worry and fear     

• When you stop and observe yourself, you will find that you are unconsciously visualizing the worst possible scenarios, which is in turn making you feel bad and attracting more of those situations into your life. You’re essential telling the universe that you want more worry and stress. Henri Junttila 
• Worry,  Fear

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The universe responds to the power of action     

• The universe doesn’t give you what you ask for with your thoughts – it gives you what you demand with your actions. Steve Maraboli
• Action

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The universe responds to the power of imagination and vision

• If you have the ability to imagine it, or even to think about it, this Universe has the ability and the resources to deliver it fully unto you.  Esther and Jerry Hicks  
• Imagination is the most powerful force in the universe. Albert Einstein
• It is the imagination that gives shape to the universe. Barry Lopez
• It’s not your work to make anything happen. It’s your work to dream it and let it happen. Law of Attraction will make it happen. In your joy, you create something, and then you maintain your vibrational harmony with it, and the Universe must find a way to bring it about. That’s the promise of Law of Attraction. Abraham-Hicks
• You have sole ownership of your vision. And the Universe will give you what you want within your vision. What happens with most people is that they muddy their vision with “reality”. Their vision becomes full of not only what they want but what everybody else thinks about what they want, too. Your work is to clarify and purify your vision so that the vibration that you are offering can then be answered. Abraham-Hicks  
• Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out. Criss Jami
• Imagination,  Vision

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The universe responds to the power of intention

• Intent without dedicated action is simply not enough. Action without a clear intent is a waste. It is when these two powerful forces are aligned that the energy of the universe conspires in your favor. Steve Maraboli  
• Everything that happens in the universe starts with intention. Intention is the very basis of creation. Deepak Chopra
• Let the universe handle the details. Your intentions and desires, when released in the gap, have infinite organizing power. Trust that infinite organizing power of intention to orchestrate all the details for you. Deepak Chopra
• Set your intention, and trust the universe to take care of the details. Mike Fotheringham
• We are heirs to the results of our actions, to the intentions we bring to every moment we initiate. We make ripples upon the ocean of the universe through our very presence. Christina Feldman Jack Kornfield  
• You see, you do not have to launch an intention, and then hold doggedly to that thought, and only that thought, in order for the universe to bring it in. It’s not like casting out there with your great line, and hooking on to this fish of something that you want, and then having to keep tension on it in every moment, or it will shake off and get away from you. It isn’t like that at all. It is that once you have launched your intention, the universe is yielding it to you, and unless you are offering a vibration that opposes it, it is going to come into your experience. Abraham-Hicks
• Intention

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The universe responds to the power of choice

• I choose the life I want to live, and the universe accommodates my choice. Alan Cohen  
• Every choice before you represents the universe inviting you to remember who you are and what you want. Alan Cohen
• No matter what your spiritual condition is, no matter where you find yourself in the universe, your choice is always the same: to expand your awareness or contract it. Thaddeus Golas
• Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Choice

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The universe responds to the power of expectation …

• The universe is energy that responds to expectations. James Redfield
• The Universe is abundant with everything that you want. It’s not testing you. It’s benevolently providing for you. But you are the orchestrater. You are the definer, and you do it through your joyous anticipation. If there is an emotion that you are wanting to foster, that would serve you very, very well, it is positive expectation. It is excited anticipation. Abraham-Hicks
• Expectation

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… but also requires us to be open to new possibilities

• Release all expectations after you’ve set your goal. You never know what the universe might deliver to your doorstep. That’s why you want to have an open-mind, because what if the universe has something better in store for you? Henri Junttila
• The universe has much bigger plans for you than you ever dreamed of for yourself. Deepak Chopra
• If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience. Deepak Chopra  
• I am open and available to the infinite possibilities of the universe. My life is an extraordinary adventure. Darren R. Weissman  
• Possibility

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The universe responds when we know what we want

• The universe runs on a fundamental and oh-so-wonderful principle… when you get really clear and honest about what you want, everything in the universe conspires to help you get it. Michael Neill
• The Universe always conspires to help dreamers. Paulo Coelho  
• When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.  Paulo Coelho  
• The reason for desires, goals, for finding those decisions or points of focus, is because they are the life- giving things of the Universe. Without objects of attention, or objects of desire, Life-Force does not come through any of us. Abraham-Hicks  
• There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth… And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Paulo Coelho
• Become clear what you want

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The universe responds to our level of consciousness

• The universe is built to respond to our consciousness, but it will give back to us only the level of quality we put into it. Therefore, the process of discovering who we are and what we are here to do and of learning to follow the mysterious coincidences that can guide us is dependent, to a great extent, on our ability to stay positive and to find a silver lining in all events. James Redfield “The Celestine Vision”
• If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration. Nikola Tesla  
• Consciousness

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The universe responds to what we believe

• The Universe can only respond to what you believe about yourself and your life. Examine whatever negative thoughts you have about money, and then decide to release them and let them go. They haven’t served you well in the past and will not serve you well in the future. Louise L. Hay  
• Belief

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The universe responds to the degree we love ourselves

• The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out. Alan Cohen
• The reason you have to love yourself is because it is impossible to feel good if you don’t love yourself. When you feel bad about yourself, you are blocking all the love and all the good that the Universe has for you. Rhonda Byrne
• The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe. Deepak Chopra
• You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. Buddha
• You can search the entire universe and not find a single being more worthy of love than you. Buddha
• Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out. Alan Cohen
• Shame need not crouch In such an earth as ours / Stand—stand erect; / The universe is yours.  Emily Dickinson  
• Each aspect within us needs understanding and compassion. If we are unwilling to give it to ourselves how can we expect the world to give it to us? As we are, so is the universe. Debbie Ford
• Self-love

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The universe responds if we follow our bliss

• Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls. Joseph Campbell  
• Once the universe is your employer, very interesting things start to happen, even if someone else is cutting your paycheck. Jon Kabat-Zinn
• I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. Oprah Winfrey
• Do what you love

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The universe responds to prayer

• Where did you get the idea you aren’t allowed to petition the universe with prayer? You are part of this universe, Liz. You’re a constituent–you have every entitlement to participate in the actions of the universe, and to let your feelings be known. So, put your opinion out there. Make your case. Believe me–it will at least be taken into consideration. Elizabeth Gilbert
• Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy. Ambrose Bierce
• Prayer

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The universe responds to the power of confidence – to the lack of it

• If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Self-confidence is self-determinism. One’s belief in one’s ability to determine his own course. As long as one has that, he’s got the universe in his pocket. Ron Hubbard  
• If we do not believe in ourselves- neither in our efficacy nor in our goodness- the universe is a frightening place. Nathaniel Branden
• Self-confidence

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The universe responds to those who are what they seek

• You must be what it is that you’re seeking. This is a universe of attraction and energy. You can’t have a desire to attract a mate who’s confident, generous, non-judgmental, and gentle, and expect that desire to be manifested if you’re thinking and acting in nonconfident, selfish, judgmental, or arrogant ways… Wayne Dyer  

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The universe responds to those who say “yes” to it

• Say “Yes” to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say “Yes” to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say “Yes” to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia. Brooks Atkinson
• Say yes to life

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The universe responds to those who are open to change

• The universe cannot help those who are afraid of change. Phillip Arnold
• The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it. Marcus Aurelius
• Security is an attempt to try to make the universe static so that we feel safe. Anne Wilson Schaef
• Change

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The universe responds to courage

• The universe will reward you for taking risks on its behalf. Shakti Gawain
• Courage

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Tune into the great intelligence of the Universe

• The universe is an intelligence test. Timothy Leary  
• Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you. Wayne Dyer  
• I ask wide questions that tune me into the universe and my inner intelligence: Where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say and to whom? Susan Jeffersen
• Intelligence

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Be in harmony with the universe and its laws

• The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. Dr. Carl Saga
• Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.  Anatole France  
• Love, peace, joy and harmony are the best vitamins in the universe. Philip Arnold
• Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity. Jose Marti  
• He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. Marcus Aurelius
• The single harmony produced by all the heavenly bodies singing and dancing together springs from one source and ends by achieving one purpose, and has rightly bestowed the name not of “disordered” but of “ordered universe” upon the whole. Aristotle  
• Say to yourself, ‘I’m here on purpose, I can accomplish anything I desire, and I do it by being in harmony with the all- pervading creative force in the universe.’ Wayne Dyer  
• I believe there are an infinite number of laws of the universe and that all progress or dreams achieved come from operating in a way that’s consistent with them. These laws and the principles of how to operate in harmony with them have always existed. We were given these laws by nature. Man didn’t and can’t make them up. He can only hope to understand them and use them to get what he wants. Ray Dalio
• Harmony

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Resign as general manager of the universe

• As Aunt Naomi was listing all the things she was going to do to help this person, her friend stopped her in mid- sentence. “Naomi, girl,” she said, “you need to resign as general manager of the universe. You need to learn that sometimes the best way to help a person is to let them help themselves. Otherwise, they never learn how. And they are always going to make their problems your problems.  Patti LaBelle  
• Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  
• The most pleasant and useful persons are those who leave some of the problems of the universe for God to worry about. Don Marquis
• The Universe knows what it’s doing. So don’t develop a big ego, and don’t be afraid.  Benjamin Hoff 

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Let go of your need to judge the universe

• I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe. The Dalai Lama
• The first thing to understand about the universe is that no condition is “good” or “bad.” It just is. So stop making value judgments. The second thing to know is that all conditions are temporary. Nothing stays the same, nothing remains static. Which way a thing changes depends on you. Neale Donald Walsch
• Open hearts always recognize each other. Open hearts do not judge the universe. When you dive into an open heart, you fall into infinity. Suchi Kumar
• Let go of the need to judge

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Contemplate the vastness of the universe and your place in it to get a sense of perspective

• Contemplate your problem in the context of space and time. Visualise yourself (and the worries facing you) as a microscopic dot on earth, which is a tiny part of the Milky Way, which makes up an infinitesimal speck of the universe. Recognise that your problems are trifling.
• When we look up, it widens our horizons. We see what a little speck we are in the universe, so insignificant, and we all take ourselves so seriously, but in the sky, there are no boundaries. No differences of caste or religion or race. Julia Gregson
• For as long as there been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night. Carl Sagan  
• If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe. Joe Rogan  
• Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. Carl Sagan
• It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. Neil Armstrong
• Contemplation

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Stop seeing yourself as the centre of the universe …

• In traditional Zen training that’s what is meant by breaking through the first barrier. We break out of the limited perspective, where we see the self as the center of the universe. Dennis Genpo Merzel  
• Simply see that you are at the centre of the universe, and accept all things and beings as parts of your infinite body. When you perceive that an act done to another is done to yourself, you have understood the great truth. Lao Tzu  
• Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretence, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging. Ernst Cassirer
• It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. Andrew J. Holmes
• When they discover the centre of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it. Bernard Bailey

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… and thinking that the universe was made with you in mind …

• I suppose that one reason I have always detested religion is its sly tendency to insinuate the idea that the universe is designed with ‘you’ in mind or, even worse, that there is a divine plan into which one fits whether one knows it or not. This kind of modesty is too arrogant for me. Christopher Hitchens  
• If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits? Carl Sagan   
• The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts. John Muir  
• I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck. Aleister Crowley

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… and you will align yourself with the power of the universe …

• If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe. What looks like weakness to the ego is in fact the only true strength. This spiritual truth is diametrically opposed to the values of our contemporary culture and the way it conditions people to behave. Eckhart Tolle

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… and enjoy the freedom that humility brings

• Humility has nothing to do with depreciating ourselves and our gifts in ways we know to be untrue. Even “humble” attitudes can be masks of pride. Humility is that freedom from our self which enables us to be in positions in which we have neither recognition nor importance, neither power nor visibility, and even experience deprivation, and yet have joy and delight. It is the freedom of knowing that we are not in the centre of the universe, not even in the centre of our own private universe. David F. Wells  
• Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It *is*–is nothing, yet at the same time one with everything. It is in this sense that humility is absolute self- effacement. Dag Hammarskjöld 
• Freedom,  Humility

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Explore the universe to find yourself and vice versa

• We may explore the universe and find ourselves, or we may explore ourselves and find the universe. It matters not which of these paths we choose. Diana Robinson  
• Exploration,  Self-knowledge

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Conquer yourself to conquer the universe

• Just a little relaxation, just a little looking inwards, and the doors of immense potentialities open up. You are no more a beggar. Without conquering the world you have conquered the whole universe. Just conquer yourself. Rajneesh  
• Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the universe. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.  

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Make a dent in the universe

• Listen to me. We’re here to make a dent in the universe. Otherwise why even be here? Steve Jobs   

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Affirm your own rightness in the universe

• When you affirm your own rightness in the universe, then you co-operate with others easily and automatically as part of your own nature. You, being yourself, helps others be themselves. Because you recognize your own uniqueness you will not need to dominate others, nor cringe before them.  Jane Roberts
• When I learn something new–and it happens every day–I feel a little more at home in the universe, a little more comfortable in the nest. Bill Moyers  

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Music gives soul to the universe

• Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. Lao Tzu
• Music is a holy place, a cathedral so majestic that we can sense the magnificence of the universe, and also a hovel so simple and private that none of us can plumb its deepest secrets. Don Campbell
• Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Plato
• Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe. Douglas Adams  
• Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe. Hazrat Inayat Khan
• Music

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The body is the temple of the universe

• There is but one temple in the universe and that is the body of man. Novalis
• There is but one temple in this Universe: The Body. We speak to God whenever we lay our hands upon it.  Thomas Carlyle
• The body

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Thoughts on the keys to the universe     

• The key to the universe lies dormant within the self, waiting to awaken through self-discovery. Taejoon Lee
• The key to the universe is Love, together, in a partnership with Awareness. Robert Cosmar  
• Non-resistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe. Accepting means you allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling at that moment. It is part of the is-ness of the Now. You can’t argue with what is. Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer. Through allowing, you become what you are: vast, spacious. Consciousness (spirit) is freed from its imprisonment in form. Eckhart Tolle

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Thoughts on the universe and possibility     

• We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. Ray Bradbury
• The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that’s the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me. Steven Moffat  
• At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. Jean Houston
• ..in an infinite universe, anything that could be imagined might somewhere exist. Dean Koontz  
• Possibility

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Thoughts on the universe, books and reading

• At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book–that string of confused, alien ciphers– shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader. Alberto Manguel
• The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Ray Bradbury
• And books, they offer one hope — that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved. Anne Rice  
• A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe. Madeleine L’Engle  
• Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn’t mean we deserve to conquer the universe. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.  

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Thoughts on the universe and stupidity

• Only two things are certain: the universe and human stupidity and I’m not certain about the universe. Albert Einstein
• The two most abundant things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. Harlan Elison  
• The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. But not in that order. Edward P. Tryon  
• Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that.  I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.  Frank Zappa  
• There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. Frank Zappa 
• Stupidity

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Thoughts on the universe and the throwing of dice     

• All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion. Stephen Hawking   
• God does not play dice with the universe. Albert Einstein  

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• At the end of the universe you’ll find a door labeled “Do Not Enter.” No great mysteries are hidden there—it’s just a supplies closet. Jarod Kintz 
• Black holes are where God divided by zero. Bill Watterson 
• Christian fundamentalism is the doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life. Andrew Lias 
• Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. Oprah Winfrey 
• For animals the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with (b) eat (c) run away from and (d) rocks. Terry Pratchett
• For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.
• I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. Woody Allen
• I’m what you would call a teleological existential atheist. I believe that there’s an intelligence to the universe with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey. Woody Allen
• I’m worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It’s not holding a charge. Rich Cook
• I’ve never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith — it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe. Robert A. Heinlein
• If chaos is a necessary step in the organization of one’s universe, then I was well on my way. Wendelin Van Draanen
• If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little. George Carlin
• If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle. Dave Barry
• If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe. Joe Rogan 
• In order to make an apple pie from scratch you must first create the universe. Carl Sagan
• In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea. Douglas Adams 
• Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought – particularly for people who cannot remember where they left things. Woody Allen 
• My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. Brian Pickrell
• Only two things are infinite the universe and human stupidity and I’m not sure about the former. Albert Einstein
• Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. Ambrose Bierce
• Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. Bill Watterson
• Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space. Douglas Adams 
• Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you; tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch it to be sure.
• The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes big round numbers. Scott Adams
• The discovery of a wine is of greater moment than the discovery of a constellation. The universe is too full of stars. Benjamin Franklin, circa 1700s
• The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and vinyl. Dave Barry
• The Miss Universe pageant is fixed. All the winners are from Earth.
• The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest. Albert Einstein
• The most powerful force in the universe is gossip. Dave Barry
• The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage. Mark Russell
• The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. Harlan Ellison
• The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind — a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you’ve just made a down payment on a house. Woody Allen
• The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button. Brené Brown
• The universe is simple; it’s the explanation that’s complex. Woody Allen
• The Universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding / In all of the directions it can whizz / As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know, / 12 million miles a minute, and that’s the fastest speed there is. / So remember when you’re feeling very small and insecure / How amazingly unlikely is your birth / And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space / Because there’s bugger all down here on earth. Galaxy Song,  Monty Python 
• There comes a point I’m afraid where you begin to suspect that if there’s any real truth, it’s that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. Douglas Adams 
• There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe and it has a longer shelf life. Frank Zappa
• There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman. Henry Fielding 
• Tune your television to any channel it doesn’t receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe. Bill Bryson 
• When science discovers the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it. Bernard Baily
• When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. Muir’s Law
• Why is the winner of the Miss Universe contest always from Earth? Rich Hall
• Woman is the most powerful magnet in the universe and all men are cheap metal and they all know where ‘North’ is.   Larry Miller

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