I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

I really do feel part of America to my very bones; at the same time, I know that I come from somewhere else.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

Everyone, no doubt, remains first and foremost a man of his own country and continues to draw from it his motive force.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

Truth is a pathless land.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

If you deny people their own voice, you’ll have no idea of who they were.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

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

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

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

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

You’ve got to reach a hand of friendship across the aisle and across philosophies in this country.

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

I guess it’s flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

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.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Nothing in the universe is contingent, but all things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

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.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.

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

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.

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

By the sole fact of his entering into ‚Thought,‘ man represents something entirely singular and absolutely unique in the field of our experience. On a single planet, there could not be more than one centre of emergence for reflexion.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.