I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

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

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which Philosophy distinguishes as the ‚Not Me,‘ that is, both nature and art, all other men and my own body, must be ranked under this name, ‚Nature.‘

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

The only possible effect one can have on the world is through unpopular ideas.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

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

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

I still close my eyes and go home – I can always draw from that.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.

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

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

Absence and death are the same – only that in death there is no suffering.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

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

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.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

If you are giving a graduate course you don’t try to impress the students with oratory, you try to challenge them, get them to question you.

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

My mum passing away wasn’t funny, but that funeral and what I went through, the things that happened, looking back at it, there were funny moments. You have to be strong enough to look back at it, to sit and assess the situation.

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.

If life is a checker game, someone else is moving the pieces. It isn’t us. Don’t be surprised by amazing coincidences. There are no accidents. Consider, as I learned to do, the incredible interconnectedness of all of life.

Shall I, that have destroyed my Preservers, return home?

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

A man’s character is his guardian divinity.

Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges.