Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?
Henry David ThoreauMen are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.
EpictetusAbsence and death are the same – only that in death there is no suffering.
Theodore RooseveltNature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.
Jean-Jacques RousseauTo be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.
Henry KissingerNature abhors annihilation.
Marcus Tullius CiceroNothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.
Isaac NewtonTo appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe Hindu religions gave me the impression of a vast well into which one plunges in order to grasp the reflection of the sun.
Pierre Teilhard de ChardinI conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.
Benjamin FranklinMy theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.
Thomas JeffersonBefore God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.
Albert EinsteinExistence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.
Friedrich NietzscheAnybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.
Bob DylanEvery fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.
Ralph Waldo EmersonPerhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
Friedrich NietzscheOnly on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.
Henry AdamsLife is hard. After all, it kills you.
Katharine HepburnWhat we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.
C. S. LewisTo abandon oneself to principles is really to die – and to die for an impossible love which is the contrary of love.
Albert CamusThe nature of the human mind is such that unless it is stimulated by images of things acting upon it from without, all remembrance of them passes easily away.
Galileo GalileiLight thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
Terry PratchettIf particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.
PlatoWords are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.
Mark TwainHabit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.
Blaise PascalJudgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.
Friedrich NietzscheIt is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.
Immanuel KantThere is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.
Gilbert K. ChestertonWonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
PlatoIf one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.
AristotleThe man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.
Arthur SchopenhauerAdmiration is the daughter of ignorance.
Benjamin FranklinBuddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver.
Alan WattsThere is no love of life without despair of life.
Albert CamusMy fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.
Huey NewtonSkepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
Napoleon BonaparteMan is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.
Thomas CarlyleI did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘
Noam ChomskyNo man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
Khalil GibranWe are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
Isaac NewtonMen would be angels, angels would be gods.
Alexander PopeYou say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.
Friedrich NietzscheNothing is more terrible than activity without insight.
Thomas CarlyleFor one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.
AristotleHow could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?
Lao TzuMankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
Thomas JeffersonNo policy that does not rest upon some philosophical public opinion can be permanently maintained.
Abraham LincolnPlato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.
AristotleThe misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.
EpicurusSometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.
Albert EinsteinI have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.
Albert SchweitzerIf one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaMan’s greatness lies in his power of thought.
Blaise PascalThe most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
Albert EinsteinNothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.
Friedrich NietzscheI think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Florence NightingaleAs far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Albert EinsteinI think the materialist conception of history is valid.
Christopher HitchensIt is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaThose who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.
Albert Camus