Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.

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

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Death, like birth, is a secret of Nature.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.

What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle.

Courage is a mean with regard to fear and confidence.

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.

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.

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

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

Life is wasted on the living.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

Nature is not human hearted.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

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

You’re born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there’s a loophole.

The art is long, life is short.

Who, being loved, is poor?

Man – a being in search of meaning.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.

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

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

One who does not know when to die, does not know how to live.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.