I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

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.

Who, being loved, is poor?

I always say that people should not rush to change religions. There is real value in finding the spiritual resources you need in your home religion.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

It’s only I have seen enough of it and the funny thing is now, I know that I’m skinny, because I know there are even smaller clothes in the store. I think I’m big, when I was big, I never thought about it.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Life is wasted on the living.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

Since the beginning, it was just the same. The only difference, the crowds are bigger now.

To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.

He who doesn’t pray to the Lord prays to the devil.

How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact!

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

When you’re young, you look at television and think, there’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

Chinese people themselves, they really want change.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge – that is everywhere.

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

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.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

Peace is liberty in tranquillity.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

My musical taste and image is going to change naturally. It’s not forced; I do what comes natural to me. Sometimes, I like to be dark… other times, I like to be really light and ladylike.

Since God created the world, He also created reality.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

Men who think that a woman’s past love affairs lessen her love for them are usually stupid and weak.

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

We can, for example, be fairly confident that either there will be a world without war or there won’t be a world – at least, a world inhabited by creatures other than bacteria and beetles, with some scattering of others.

Plato was a bore.

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

I don’t believe in death, neither in flesh nor in spirit.

Unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.