Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.

We must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.

Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

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.

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

It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

I don’t suffer of anything that I’ve lost.

Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

I have always held firmly to the thought that each one of us can do a little to bring some portion of misery to an end.

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

We are symbols, and inhabit symbols.

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

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

Risk is a part of God’s game, alike for men and nations.

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.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

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

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.

I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can’t help it. It’s the truth.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.

Character is destiny.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

We don’t have to guess what Mitt Romney would have done if he were president. Because he told us. He said we should let foreclosures – and I quote – ‚hit the bottom‘ so the market could – I quote – ‚run its course.‘

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.

In a way, the whole tangible universe itself is a vast residue, a skeleton of countless lives that have germinated in it and have left it, leaving behind them only a trifling, infinitesimal part of their riches.

Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along.

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

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

A man should be upright, not be kept upright.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Have you ever thought how humiliating and distressing it was to be placed upon a sphere? For friendship it is a boon never to be able to be further apart than the antipodes. But suppose that you are leaving together to go on and on; it is impossible. To go beyond a certain point is to return to where you began.