The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

A lot of people think I’m a comedian.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

Let us work without theorizing, tis the only way to make life endurable.

And yet it moves.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

I don’t set out to write about spirituality; I am free to do something different every time.

I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

There is no such thing as Something for nothing.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

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.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

To depend upon a profession is a less odious form of slavery than to depend upon a father.

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

‚Fahrenheit 451‘ postulates a lot of things I didn’t want to have happen.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

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

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

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

Each man is always in the middle of the surface of the earth and under the zenith of his own hemisphere, and over the centre of the earth.

Reason is the enemy of faith.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Society is at odds with itself.

I put up my thumb and it blotted out the planet Earth.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.

I don’t see myself as beautiful, because I can see a lot of flaws. People have really odd opinions. They tell me I’m skinny, as if that’s supposed to make me happy.

We live in an imperfect world, and imperfect people surround us every day.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

There is nothing so stable as change.

Man is unable to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind, neither is he able to see mankind unrelated to life, nor life unrelated to the universe.

I call him free who is led solely by reason.

I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.

Death is a release from the impressions of the senses, and from desires that make us their puppets, and from the vagaries of the mind, and from the hard service of the flesh.

The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

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.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

Only a philosophy of eternity, in the world today, could justify non-violence.