Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

Do you know the only value life has is what life puts on itself?

Reality is a sliding door.

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.

Plato was a bore.

Most of our lives aren’t that exciting, but the drama is still going on in the small details.

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

People are terrified of me, and I want them to be.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death’s the other.

Losers are people who are afraid of losing.

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

A lot of times, people have something that they’re afraid of. They’ve got a client that’s mad at them. They’ve got a project that’s due. And they let that stress hang over their head. I don’t let that happen.

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.

If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

If you die you’re completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I’m not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I’ve got.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.

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.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

I’m a bold Christian, not a scaredy-cat Christian.

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.

The love of economy is the root of all virtue.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

What really raises one’s indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

For victory in life, we’ve got to keep focused on the goal, and the goal is Heaven.

Don’t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.