It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

In the past there were people who were not rich but contented with their living style, laughing and happy all day. But when the new rich people appear, people look at them and ask, ‚why don’t I have a life like that too, a beautiful house, car and garden,‘ and they abandon their values.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

I used to wonder if it was God’s plan that I should be alone for so much of my life. But I found peace. I found happiness within people and the world.

I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

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.

France has more need of me than I have need of France.

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

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

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

Affluence means influence.

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.

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.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

But if nothing but soul, or in soul mind, is qualified to count, it is impossible for there to be time unless there is soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, i.e. if change can exist without soul.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

Money has a language of its own.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

Forever is composed of nows.

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

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

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

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

If we don’t know life, how can we know death?

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Americans are apocalyptic by nature. The reason why is that we’ve always had so much, so we live in deadly fear that people are going to take it away from us.

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

In a rich man’s house there is no place to spit but his face.

We are doomed to cling to a life even while we find it unendurable.