You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

You cannot open a book without learning something.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

‚Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

What was God doing before the divine creation?

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs, these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge: the knowledge of God’s plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

You just have to have a simple faith.

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

When I did A Soldier’s Story, I was very young and green and thought I knew everything-now I know I know everything!

I don’t claim to be knowledgeable about theology. Most of my knowledge comes out of my experience and the lessons in the Bible. Every Sunday I’m home I teach 45 minutes and we boiled them down to one page for the new book, ‚Through the Year with Jimmy Carter.‘

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.

My old drama coach used to say, ‚Don’t just do something, stand there.‘ Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.

Our best thoughts come from others.

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Older and wiser voices can help you find the right path, if you are only willing to listen.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

Who is the wise man? He who sees what’s going to be born.

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.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.