Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

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

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.

Nature is not human hearted.

I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.

I have wondered about time all my life.

People see things differently and remember things differently. It’s why if somebody robs a liquor store and there are four witnesses they’ll often disagree.

There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers.

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

There is only a finger’s difference between a wise man and a fool.

I have found that, in the composition of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, the organs of sense are duller and coarser. Thus, it is composed of less ingenious instruments, and of spaces less capacious for receiving the faculties of sense.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

Considering their impact, you might expect mosquitoes to get more attention than they do. Sharks kill fewer than a dozen people every year, and in the U.S. they get a week dedicated to them on TV every year.

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

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

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

Things ain’t what they used to be and never were.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

We do not know what is really good or bad fortune.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.

There is but an inch of difference between a cushioned chamber and a padded cell.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

When you read, I’m sure you don’t realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don’t do that.

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

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

I noticed that when I touched the ball on the field, you could hear this shrill noise in the crowd with all the birds screaming like at a Beatles concert.

My philosophy is, it’s always very rewarding when you can make an audience laugh. I don’t mind making fun of myself. I like self-deprecating comedy. But I’d like you to laugh with me occasionally, too.