All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

Nothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

He who can be, and therefore is, another’s, and he who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have, is a slave by nature.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

I happen to believe there is evil in the world.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

Every man is his own hell.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

I don’t think there is any philosophy that suggests having polio is a good thing.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

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.

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

Surely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

Don’t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

How can one preach goodness and love to men without at the same time offering them an interpretation of the World that justifies this goodness and this love?