It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

A cat is only itself, representative of the strong forces of life that won’t let go.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

I don’t think that faith, whatever you’re being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don’t want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There’s so much mystery. There’s so much awe.

Information is not knowledge.

The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.

When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

Sometimes I’m fascinated with how famous my work could be while I’m not so famous.

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this ‚hopey changey stuff,‘ she was right: there was nothing there.

To the dumb question, ‚Why me?‘ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, ‚Why not?‘

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.

I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

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.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.

I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Love, we say, is life; but love without hope and faith is agonizing death.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

I find it amusing that I’m on the Internet now, because I’ve criticized it, but mainly I’ve criticized it on the basis of, ‚What are you going to do with it?‘

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man’s most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

The Internet made fame wack and anonymity cool.

You are a child of the sun, you come from the sun, and that is something true with the Earth also… your relationship with the Earth is so deep, and the Earth is in you and this is something not very difficult, much less difficult then philosophy.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you’d experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.

No sanction can stand against ignited minds.

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.