The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be first to inquire diligently into the properties of things, and establishing those properties by experiments, and then to proceed more slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

That government is best which governs least.

Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich.

The object of the superior man is truth.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome; to be got over.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man.

Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

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

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably.

I have an existential map. It has ‚You are here‘ written all over it.

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

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

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.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

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

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

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

I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

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

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.

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.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

Theology is unnecessary.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

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.

If we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of why we and the universe exist.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?