We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.

Philosophy is the highest music.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

Evil is whatever distracts.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

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.

Fear is the mother of morality.

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.

The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

Nature does nothing in vain.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

Our life is made by the death of others.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God’s law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

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.

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

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

Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.