Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

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

Life’s short. Anything could happen, and it usually does, so there is no point in sitting around thinking about all the ifs, ands and buts.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.

Plato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can’t have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I’d rather not be in a cage. I’d rather be dead. And it’s real simple. And I think it’s not that uncommon.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

They died hard, those savage men – like wounded wolves at bay. They were filthy, and they were lousy, and they stunk. And I loved them.

We should all start to live before we get too old.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

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.

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

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

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.

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

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.

The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.

Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

Truth is what works.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

Let us all remember this: one cannot proclaim the Gospel of Jesus without the tangible witness of one’s life.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

It’s in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life. It’s not in happiness. It’s not in impulsive pleasure.

The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

I happen to believe there is evil in the world.

Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to create him.

I have such incredible experiences in my life.

I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.

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

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.