Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

Nothing cannot exist forever.

Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?

I realized quickly what Mandela and Tambo meant to ordinary Africans. It was a place where they could come and find a sympathetic ear and a competent ally, a place where they would not be either turned away or cheated, a place where they might actually feel proud to be represented by men of their own skin color.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

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?

All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters, relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

Reality is a sliding door.

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

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

Sorry, I’m still a dialectical materialist.

Anybody who has been discriminated against, who comes from a group that’s been discriminated against, knows what it’s like.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Since the world has existed, there has been injustice. But it is one world, the more so as it becomes smaller, more accessible. There is just no question that there is more obligation that those who have should give to those who have nothing.

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.

I read Plato’s ‚Republic.‘ I read it through about five times until I could actually understand it.

To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.

I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody’s ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the ‚n‘ word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren’t pretty or they weren’t rich or they weren’t clever.

Every citizen has the real right to receive general education and professional training at no cost, something that the United States has not been able to ensure for all its inhabitants.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

Plato was a bore.

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

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.

I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

Ordinary morality is innate in my view.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

In a way, the whole tangible universe itself is a vast residue, a skeleton of countless lives that have germinated in it and have left it, leaving behind them only a trifling, infinitesimal part of their riches.

Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

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

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

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

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

Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

Poverty is the mother of crime.

In terms of mathematics textbooks, why can’t you have the scale of a national market? Right now, we have a Texas textbook that’s different from a California textbook that’s different from a Massachusetts textbook. That’s very expensive.

The virtues, like the Muses, are always seen in groups. A good principle was never found solitary in any breast.

A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

A person’s a person, no matter how small.

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

The biggest and most deadly ‚tax‘ rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits – food stamps, housing subsidies and the like – if their income goes up.

Heaven is long-enduring, and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.