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

Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it’s like they didn’t fade away at all.

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.

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

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

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’re all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

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

Why was I born with such contemporaries?

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

The body politic, as well as the human body, begins to die as soon as it is born, and carries itself the causes of its destruction.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

But if I have a lot of imagination, I could tell myself whatever I wanted, you know. I handle myself quite well. I’m kind of fascist with myself, you know. There’s no discussion. There is an order. You follow it.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

What you are comes to you.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

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

What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

I’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.

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.

The Hindu religions gave me the impression of a vast well into which one plunges in order to grasp the reflection of the sun.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.

Yeah, it’s pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

We can’t have, like, willy-nilly proliferation of fake news. That’s crazy. You can’t have more types of fake news than real news. That’s allowing public deception to go unchecked. That’s crazy.

I think whether you’re having setbacks or not, the role of a leader is to always display a winning attitude.

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.

Why don’t you start believing that no matter what you have or haven’t done, that your best days are still out in front of you.

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

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.