Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.

I shall never be a heretic; I may err in dispute, but I do not wish to decide anything finally; on the other hand, I am not bound by the opinions of men.

Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.

I don’t pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

I still think like a Marxist in many ways.

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

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

The earth is supported by the power of truth; it is the power of truth that makes the sun shine and the winds blow; indeed all things rest upon truth.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.

Man is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.

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

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

As soon as you have a language that has a past tense and a future tense you’re going to say, ‚Where did we come from, what happens next?‘ The ability to remember the past helps us plan the future.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

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

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.

Nature abhors annihilation.

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

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

Hell is other people.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

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

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

No one person controls Microsoft. The board and the shareholders decide whether they want to have me as CEO.

One of the first signs of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

To live is to think.

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

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

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

Things in themselves have no life in them. A car can’t comfort or encourage you. A house means nothing if there’s no life and love inside.