If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

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

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

There is a fundamental question we all have to face. How are we to live our lives; by what principles and moral values will we be guided and inspired?

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

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

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.

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

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

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

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.

I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

I would never say I was an icon, but so many people have said I am, so I suppose I am. I mean, I can’t not be what everyone says I am. But I don’t feel like an icon.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

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

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

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.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

From wonder into wonder existence opens.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

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.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

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

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

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.

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

I don’t think that faith, whatever you’re being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don’t want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There’s so much mystery. There’s so much awe.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.

Religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.

The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.

Death is just life’s next big adventure.

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.

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.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

At twelve I looked like a girl of seventeen. My body was developed and shapely. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.

There is nothing so stable as change.

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

The work is the work. The work is not me.