The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.

That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.

A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.

The world, we are told, was made especially for man – a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God’s universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

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

Life is our dictionary.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all.

I like a man who grins when he fights.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.

Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

Man is unable to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind, neither is he able to see mankind unrelated to life, nor life unrelated to the universe.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man.

I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

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 love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.

The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

Being is the great explainer.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

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

I deserve respect for the things I did not do.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

What every genuine philosopher (every genuine man, in fact) craves most is praise although the philosophers generally call it recognition!

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

We can come to look upon the deaths of our enemies with as much regret as we feel for those of our friends, namely, when we miss their existence as witnesses to our success.

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.

Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive – that you can touch the miracle of being alive – then that is a kind of enlightenment.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

We’re a blip in the existence of the universe, and we’re constantly trying to pull each other down. Not doing things to help each other.

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

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.