Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

It seems sensible to me that we should look to the medical profession, that over the centuries has helped us to live longer and healthier lives, to help us die peacefully among our loved ones in our own home without a long stay in God’s waiting room.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

I got to Africa. I got the opportunity to go and learn, not about any animal, but chimpanzees. I was living in my dream world, the forest in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. It was Tanganyika when I began.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

First and foremost comes my family and my life with Brad. We have so much joy in raising our children and teaching them about the world that nothing really compares to that.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

In order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The sea, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death… these are things that unite us all.

I’m an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call ‚the last illusion.‘ The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what’s going on but that the planets know what’s going on.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

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

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

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?

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

Hell is other people.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you’re gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It’s yours. Seize your space.

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

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

For 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.

Over the years I’ve seen people lose a spouse and then withdraw and lose interest in life, and I believe we need to resist that.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Base souls have no faith in great individuals.

Do you know the only value life has is what life puts on itself?

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I’ve done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?