All things in the world come from being. And being comes from non-being.

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

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.

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

There is nothing permanent except change.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

Plato was a bore.

No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he who is ready and willing to quit it.

Error is always more busy than truth.

We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

Such is the feebleness of humanity, such is its perversity, that doubtless it is better for it to be subject to all possible superstitions, as long as they are not murderous, than to live without religion.

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

Heaven is long-enduring, and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.

I’m a strict, strict agnostic. It’s very different from a casual, ‚I don’t know.‘ It’s that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can’t present it as fact.

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

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

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

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

Rebellion cannot exist without the feeling that somewhere, in some way, you are justified.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

Real living is living for others.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

I was never ignorant, as far as being experienced in classrooms and learning about different subjects and actually soaking it up, so I checked into college for a little bit. I took classes at a community college in West L.A. I took psychology, English, and philosophy.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

You are doomed to make choices. This is life’s greatest paradox.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.