A weak man is just by accident. A strong but non-violent man is unjust by accident.

Nothing cannot exist forever.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Time stays, we go.

Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to.

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

To live is to think.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

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

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else.

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

I’m not somebody that just wants to hold up a white flag and say, ‚Let’s all just get along.‘ I think people that do horrible things should be held accountable.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

As we are, so we associate. The good, by affinity, seek the good; the vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus of their own volition, souls proceed into Heaven, into Hell.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

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?

Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

If life is a checker game, someone else is moving the pieces. It isn’t us. Don’t be surprised by amazing coincidences. There are no accidents. Consider, as I learned to do, the incredible interconnectedness of all of life.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

Simplicity is the most deceitful mistress that ever betrayed man.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

The Tao teaches us not to intervene and interfere. The things we love we have to learn to leave alone. And the people we love we have to learn to let them be.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.