Sleep is the interest we have to pay on the capital which is called in at death; and the higher the rate of interest and the more regularly it is paid, the further the date of redemption is postponed.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

The existentialist says at once that man is anguish.

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.

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

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

The Hindu religions gave me the impression of a vast well into which one plunges in order to grasp the reflection of the sun.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.

If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

A right delayed is a right denied.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

To the people I forgot, you weren’t on my mind for some reason and you probably don’t deserve any thanks anyway.

Nature abhors annihilation.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

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.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

‚O sleep, O gentle sleep,‘ I thought gratefully, ‚Nature’s soft nurse!‘

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity.

I’m here as a product of process of evolution, which doesn’t make very many exceptions. And which rates life relatively cheaply.

In seeking comfort, we generally find a quiet corner in life where there is a minimum of conflict, and then we are afraid to step out of that seclusion.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

Life is anything but predictable.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

If you think only of evil, then you become pessimistic and hopeless like Freud. But if you think there is no evil, then you’re just one more deluded Pollyanna.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

The lie is a condition of life.

The concept of loneliness and exile and self-sufficiency continually bucks me up.

I’ve been afraid of people playing their life away with too many toys.

My mum passing away wasn’t funny, but that funeral and what I went through, the things that happened, looking back at it, there were funny moments. You have to be strong enough to look back at it, to sit and assess the situation.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.

When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

‚Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.

I’m not the same man I used to be, I’m not out hell-raising, stuff like that. I am a changed man.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.