No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

The truth is lived, not taught.

It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.

Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor.

A man’s character is his guardian divinity.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

I believe Karl Marx could have subscribed to the Sermon on the Mount.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

I’m grateful to intelligent people. That doesn’t mean educated. That doesn’t mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call ‚mother wit‘ means intelligence that you had in your mother’s womb. That’s what you rely on. You know what’s right to do.

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

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

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

To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist.

All truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

Consider a tree for a moment. As beautiful as trees are to look at, we don’t see what goes on underground – as they grow roots. Trees must develop deep roots in order to grow strong and produce their beauty. But we don’t see the roots. We just see and enjoy the beauty. In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed… It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.

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