It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

Going to the woods is going home, for I suppose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature’s forests, the adventurous traveler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle.

I am against nature. I don’t dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

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.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

Reverence for life affords me my fundamental principle of morality.

A lie cannot live.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

I couldn’t take pictures of green rolling hills.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

When California was wild, it was the floweriest part of the continent.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Truth is a pathless land.

To be admitted to Nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.

Much learning does not teach understanding.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

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

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

What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.