One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star.

I’m an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call ‚the last illusion.‘ The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what’s going on but that the planets know what’s going on.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

To me the ego is the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody’s mind continuously. External things like possessions or memories or failures or successes or achievements. Your personal history.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

How can one preach goodness and love to men without at the same time offering them an interpretation of the World that justifies this goodness and this love?

I suppose for a very long time I’ve been trying to understand how it is that people might make sense out of their lives and make meaning and make their lives meaningful in the face of the trouble that life brings.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Evil is whatever distracts.

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time’s carcass.

What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.

Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people’s progress.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it.

The good is the beautiful.

A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.

The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

To depend upon a profession is a less odious form of slavery than to depend upon a father.

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.

I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

We’re always, by the way, in fundamental physics, always trying to investigate those things in which we don’t understand the conclusions. After we’ve checked them enough, we’re okay.

If we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of why we and the universe exist.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.

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.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

If you’re in business or politics, you need to have an intense understanding of what’s going on around you.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.

The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

Culture: the cry of men in face of their destiny.

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

Hell is other people.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.