Nothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

By indignities men come to dignities.

A useless life is an early death.

I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

There is no logical way to the discovery of these elemental laws. There is only the way of intuition, which is helped by a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.

A new philosophy generally means in practice the praise of some old vice.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

Our faith is faith in someone else’s faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

I know now that there is no one thing that is true – it is all true.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

Words are loaded pistols.

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

You forget that the fruits belong to all and that the land belongs to no one.

I don’t think that faith, whatever you’re being faithful about, really can be scientifically explained. And I don’t want to explain this whole life business through truth, science. There’s so much mystery. There’s so much awe.

The truth is lived, not taught.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

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.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

It is the eye of other people that ruin us. If I were blind I would want, neither fine clothes, fine houses or fine furniture.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.

God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them.

No man ever quite believes in any other man. One may believe in an idea absolutely, but not in a man.

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.

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

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.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.

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.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

If life is a checker game, someone else is moving the pieces. It isn’t us. Don’t be surprised by amazing coincidences. There are no accidents. Consider, as I learned to do, the incredible interconnectedness of all of life.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

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.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.