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.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.

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

Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.

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

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.

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.‘

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

More law, less justice.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

That government is best which governs least.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you’re just one more deluded Pollyanna.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

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.

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

Stop this attitude that older people ain’t any good anymore! We’re as good as we ever were – if we ever were any good.

What we live by we die by.

I don’t think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.

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

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

There is nothing so stable as change.

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.

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

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.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

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

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

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.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

I believe in believing. My coach John Kavanagh is a big atheist, and he is always trying to persuade people to his way of thinking, and I think, ‚What a waste of energy.‘ If people want to believe in this god or that god, that’s fine by me; believe away. But I think we can be our own gods. I believe in myself.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.

A precedent embalms a principle.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.