In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

Nothing can come of nothing.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

There’s no one thing that is true. They’re all true.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune.

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

Change alone is unchanging.

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.

If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

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.

Thought is the parent of the deed.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

The world embarrasses me, and I cannot dream that this watch exists and has no watchmaker.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.

Science is nothing but perception.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

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

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

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 existentialist says at once that man is anguish.

I want to know all Gods thoughts; all the rest are just details.

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.

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.

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.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?