A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

A Religion of Evolution: that, when all is said and done, is what Man needs ever more explicitly if he is to survive and ‚superlive,‘ as soon as he becomes conscious of his power to ultra-hominize himself and of his duty to do so.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

All nature is but art unknown to thee.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Being is the great explainer.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

That’s another hallmark of truth, is that it snaps things together. People write to me all the time and say it’s as if things were coming together in my mind. It’s like the Platonic idea that all learning was remembering. You have a nature, and when you feel that nature articulated, it’s it’s like the act of snapping the puzzle pieces together.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes, Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn’t take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

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

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.

Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.

With Kansas, I had a four-year deal. The initial two months were real tough. I had to adjust a lot. Then, things started looking up.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

People are more aware now of cities and of different ways of life. I suppose the writing I do is a bit in the past, and I’m not sure it’s the kind of writing I would do if I were starting now.

The lie is a condition of life.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

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

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

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

The only definition by which America’s best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

Someday, the capitalist system will disappear in the United States, because no social class system has been eternal. One day, class societies will disappear.

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.

Use, do not abuse… neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.

Even though you are on the right track – you will get run over if you just sit there.

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

Law is mind without reason.

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

I don’t think the government should be in the trailer-park business. I don’t think they know how to run a trailer park.

High-quality early-childhood programs and health coverage have expanded, and the number of mentoring relationships for at-risk youth has risen dramatically. That progress is encouraging, but it’s not evenly distributed.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

We walk together, we move together, we think together, we resolve together, and together we take this country forward.

In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

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