Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

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.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down. Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.

Thinking fragments reality – it cuts it up into conceptual bits and pieces.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

In a way, the whole tangible universe itself is a vast residue, a skeleton of countless lives that have germinated in it and have left it, leaving behind them only a trifling, infinitesimal part of their riches.

I think that we all know what evil is. We have a sense of what’s evil, and certainly killing innocent people is evil. We’re less sure about what is good. There’s sort of good, good enough, could be better – but absolute good is a little harder to define.

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.

Theology is unnecessary.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

I think ‚The Color Purple‘ is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.

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

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

Trust should be the basis for all our moral training.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

A President’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

I had nearly finished school because I was making effort not that bad on that. But there was a law in Germany after the war. You could not make your final examination before 18, so lots of people who were late because of the way had to do it first.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

I don’t believe in death, neither in flesh nor in spirit.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.