Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.

Religions get lost as people do.

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Information is not knowledge.

A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

Without gambling, I would not exist.

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

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.

Nothing in life is promised except death.

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

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

And, after all, what is a lie? ‚Tis but the truth in a masquerade.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.

The lie is a condition of life.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.

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

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

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

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.

I think when you see an aircraft fire, these angry, black puffs of smoke, knowing that one of them could kill you that you – you – you understand the seriousness of the mission. And you understand your own mortality.

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

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.