Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

To cut short the question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent, and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

My life is my message.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

A lot of psychological principles and even medical principles, you see them coming around to what the Bible said hundreds of years ago: a merry heart is good like a medicine.

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.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

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

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a ‚race‘ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

All my life affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

Life would pall if it were all sugar; salt is bitter if taken by itself; but when tasted as part of the dish, it savours the meat. Difficulties are the salt of life.

My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

The strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

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.

The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror – not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

My life is my argument.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this – that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

It is perfectly possible to live a very moral life without a belief in God, and I think it’s perfectly possible to live a life peppered with ill-doing and believe in God.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

The art is long, life is short.

The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

Life tends to be an accumulation of a lot of mundane decisions, which often gets ignored.

If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

If you want to go somewhere, it is best to find someone who has already been there.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

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

If you had your life to live over again, do it overseas.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.