The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

This industry has been really good to me. It’s been a great life. I’m not through yet. I’m ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.

What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

Life would pall if it were all sugar; salt is bitter if taken by itself; but when tasted as part of the dish, it savours the meat. Difficulties are the salt of life.

This is not a bad life.

I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Life must be lived as play.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

A sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold.

Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.

The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be first to inquire diligently into the properties of things, and establishing those properties by experiments, and then to proceed more slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

Change alone is unchanging.

I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.

Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.

I argue thee that love is life. And life hath immortality.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

My life is my argument.

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.

Ethics is the activity of man directed to secure the inner perfection of his own personality.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

Worshipping is stripping ourselves of our idols, even the most hidden ones, and choosing the Lord as the centre, as the highway of our lives.

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

That’s another hallmark of truth, is that it snaps things together. People write to me all the time and say it’s as if things were coming together in my mind. It’s like the Platonic idea that all learning was remembering. You have a nature, and when you feel that nature articulated, it’s it’s like the act of snapping the puzzle pieces together.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.