It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.

The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power.

The momentum of freedom in our world is unmistakable – and it is not carried forward by our power alone. We can trust in that greater power Who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

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

Science is nothing but perception.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

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

I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.

What really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.

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

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with the gods above.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

Suppose you could gain everything in the whole world, and lost your soul. Was it worth it?

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

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.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

War – An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

Obama’s primary constituency was financial institutions. They were the core of the funding for his campaign. They expect to be paid back. And they were. They were paid back by coming out richer and more powerful than they were before the crisis that they created.

I am a little too absorbed by science to be able to philosophise much; but the more I look into myself, the more I find myself possessed by the conviction that it is only the science of Christ running through all things, that is to say true mystical science, that really matters. I let myself get caught up in the game when I geologise.

There’s nothing wrong with anger provided you use it constructively.