Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

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.

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

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

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

It is only at the first encounter that a face makes its full impression on us.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.

I am a little too absorbed by science to be able to philosophise much; but the more I look into myself, the more I find myself possessed by the conviction that it is only the science of Christ running through all things, that is to say true mystical science, that really matters. I let myself get caught up in the game when I geologise.

People do dismiss ambient music, don’t they? They call it ‚easy listening,‘ as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.

To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else’s type of thinking.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased.

I was terrible in English. I couldn’t stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention – it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature.

Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: ‚War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.‘

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

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

We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.

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

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

Anyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by ‚sophisticated‘ methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real.

The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.

Man’s true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

Religions get lost as people do.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

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.

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all.

Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today’s events.

I did used to have nightmares about the idea that when I die, there is a spark of consciousness which basically creates the world. ‚Is the world going to disappear if this spark of consciousness disappears? And how do I know it won’t? How do I know there’s anything there except what I’m conscious of?‘

Some people feel affronted when something they thought to be true doesn’t happen. If that’s the case, then your sense of risk is much higher, and that leads to risk aversion. You need to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.

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

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects and please or displease only in the memory.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

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

The formula ‚Two and two make five‘ is not without its attractions.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

Some people mistakenly think nature is very nice and benevolent and never betrays.