It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient.

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

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

I have always reckoned the dignity of the republic of first importance and preferable to life.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time’s carcass.

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.

My life is the road, man. I need to keep moving.

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.

I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

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.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

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

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

Knowledge is power.

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.

Most of our lives aren’t that exciting, but the drama is still going on in the small details.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.