The spirit of an age may be best expressed in the abstract ideal arts, for the spirit itself is abstract and ideal.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

Life is wasted on the living.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.

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.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

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

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

If life is a checker game, someone else is moving the pieces. It isn’t us. Don’t be surprised by amazing coincidences. There are no accidents. Consider, as I learned to do, the incredible interconnectedness of all of life.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?

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

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can’t solve the equations, directly in the abstract.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

My father used to have an expression. He’d say, ‚Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in your community.‘

Nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason; by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason.

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

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.

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.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

Lettin‘ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier ‚n puttin‘ it back in.

There is no wealth but life.

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.

To do nothing is also a good remedy.

No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and no art is capable of expressing thought which does not change.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.

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

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

Being is the great explainer.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

I’m an atheist, and the concept of god for me is all part of what I call ‚the last illusion.‘ The last illusion is someone knows what is going on. Nearly everyone has that illusion somewhere, and it manifests not only in the terms of the idea that there is a god but that it knows what’s going on but that the planets know what’s going on.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist.

The great question of our time is, ‚Will we be motivated by materialistic philosophy or by spiritual power?‘

Means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

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

There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.

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

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.